Heading to Asheville

For the past two weeks, I’ve been staying with my friends Lisa and Patrick and their adorable daughters, Emma and Sarah in Alexandria, VA.  And now, this morning, I’m boarding a place to head to Asheville, NC for 4 days. I decided to start my travels in Asheville because I’m thinking of moving there once my international travels are complete.  I thought it would be worthwhile to check it out before I left the US.

I don’t really have an agenda while I’m in Asheville.  I’m sure I’ll do a few tourist things but mostly I want to walk around and get a sense of the city.   I’m using a service called Couchsurfing for my lodging in Asheville. Couchsurfing is a world-wide organization that helps you arrange free homestays during your travels.  My first two nights, I’ll be staying with this couple:

 http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=AF05U5

The next two, I’ll be staying with this family:

http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=1QNX76A

I’m not really sure what to expect.  Staying with complete strangers is a bit odd though plenty of people have done it before.

From Asheville, the original plan was to rent a car and drive to the Raleigh/Durham area and spend three nights with my friend Lisa Kaiser and her boyfriend Jacob.  I’m still planning on going to Raleigh/Durham, but it looks like I may be taking Greyhound instead.  Last night, my sister (who’s taking in my mail while I’m traveling) informed me that the VA DMV has cancelled my driver’s licence.  The short version of the story is that I gave VA DNV my sister’s address for a refund they owed me since I had already moved out of my apartment in VA.  Seeing an Ohio address, VA DMV responded by saying my licence was no longer any good since I was no longer a VA resident.  Augghhhh!!!!  So suddenly, I find myself without a driver’s licence.  I plan on calling VA DMV and seeing if I can have it reinstated at least temporarily but I’m not optimistic.

From Raleigh-Durham, I’m flying to Mexico City.  I may just spend one night there or a may spend a few days and do some sight-seeeing.  Either way, the plan is to pick a city in Mexico and live there for 2-3 months.  I have it narrowed down to about six cities.  I have no idea how to decide among them so I may leave it to change and go to the bus station and see which bus leaves next.

 I don’t know how much internet access I’ll have while in North Carolina, so this may be my last update till Mexico.