A lengthy trip anywhere takes serious preparation, especially if you'll be leaving your home uninhabited: Tickets and reservations and insurance; someone to tend the pets and plants, mail, and papers while you're gone; shopping/packing; and maybe shots and passport renewal. Gotta return all the guidebooks and travel videos to the library, stock up on cat food and litter, find out whether your phone will work where you're going, and whether using it will cost an arm and a leg or just a finger or two. Pay the bills or arrange to do so online.
But when you're going to another country -- especially one with different infrastructure -- there are a few extra things to do, the last one a little bit gross (fair warning):
First, brush up on your courtesy phrases ("Mucho gusto en conocerle" -- "I'm happy to meet you") and basic questions like "How much is it?" and "Where is the bathroom?"
Get familiar with the currency and the exchange rate. (Right now, $2 U.S. = about 25 Mexican pesos; 1 peso = 8 cents.)
Figure out how to stay healthy. The easiest thing is to find out what maladies you're likely to encounter and pack appropriate over-the-counter and/or Rx meds. In Mexico, turista (aka Montezuma's revenge) is numero uno (insert own bad joke here). Causes can range from unfamiliar spices to parasites. Experience with the latter can make one really cautious from then on.
The best way to avoid or minimize it, by any name, is to drink only bottled water (and be sure the bottle is sealed when I get it), or filtered water from a source you know to be safe. (For me, this will be at the school, and possibly at my host home.) The rest of the time, it's solamente agua en botella para mí. Or a bottled refresco (soda) or cerveza (beer) -- sin helado (without ice). Oddly enough, the other drinks often are cheaper than water.
The other main precaution is to watch what I eat. Uncooked fruits and vegetables are no-nos; dairy products are risky unless sealed and labeled pasteurized. On school days, I'll be lunching with my classmates at a hotel that caters to norteamericanos más ricos que yo, and therefore serves only safe meals. My host family will feed me otherwise. So as long as I avoid the temptations of "street food," or try it only where my student guide says it's safe, I should be OK.
Since I never joined the Stateside bottled water craze, I decided to do as I did when traveling with the choirs: Get in the habit of using only bottled water. Drinking isn't the only use for bottled water, by the way. There's also oral hygiene. So for the last month, I've had a bottle of water at each sink, to be used any time I wanted a drink or needed to brush my teeth. (Never mind that I refilled the bottles with filtered water at the kitchen sink. It was my stand-in for the school water supply.) A couple of times, I absent-mindedly rinsed my toothbrush with bathroom tap water, "contaminating" it and requiring me to sterilize it with boiling water. I'll also wash around my mouth with sanitizer, another way of avoiding "critters."
OK, now for the somewhat gross part: Most Mexican sewage systems (like those in Hong Kong and many other places) are not capable of dealing with toilet paper. Therefore, one places used TP in a waste receptacle. This has been a hard habit to get into at home, but when in Puebla, do as los Poblanos do. More than once, I've forgotten -- which could have dire consequences where I'm going. It won't make me sick, but it could result in a plumbing bill for my school or my hosts.
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