On Packing - Six Nights and a Wakeup

That is everything but 3 blouses and 2 pants. Stuff on top is for carryon.

 

I am an expert packer. Or I was.

There are people who make a living giving advice about packing. I think. At least the internet says so. I could probably do the same. Last year I went to Ireland for ten days with a roomy but regularly sized backpack. We try to do direct flights only now, so we can check bags, but back in the layover days, I refused to check a bag for fear of it not making the transfer. Not like airlines can't lose your checked bag on a direct flight, but the chance of your luggage not making it to your destination is reduced when you have a direct flight. The chance of losing it when you don't have a checked bag is zero.

For this trip, we will have a car for a lot of it, and we'll be in places for extended periods of time instead of packing up every couple of days, so since we won't have too many times when we have to lug stuff around, we're bringing the Big Red Suitcase. It'd be enough for both of us traveling to unpredictable European autumn weather for three weeks if it weren't for the poor people weight limit. Poor people only get 50 pounds per bag on Air France, while business and first class get 75. The moronic thing is that it is per bag and not per person, so even though it would be easier and lighter for the airline to deal with just one bag, we'll probably have to take two, since I am at 30 pounds right now and Chris hasn't put a thing in the bag yet.

The temperatures will be all over the place. It looks to be warmer in alpine Salzburg than it will be for Luxembourg, where it rains all the time so we just expect that to happen. I just hope it doesn't happen for the whole week, especially for our hike to Echternach, probably the MUDEC activity I am looking forward to the most.

That being said, this is one of the more challenging packs. Not only do we have to deal with the unpredictable weather, but we are going to several events where proper dress is necessary, including the MUDEC convocation and the opera in Vienna. So how does one start packing for such conditions?

The first thing I do is count how many days I will be in one place. We will be in Luxembourg for parts of six days and Salzburg only five, so six is the total number of outfit combos you need. That means six shirts of some sort. You never need more than three pairs of pants.

But...what about the weather? What if it is 70 degrees during the day and 48 at night, as the extended forecast for Salzburg shows? What about walking around balmy Paris? Should you take a pair of shorts?

Layers. Layers are everything.

So what have I decided?

Five four thin sweaters, one which is just a little thicker than the rest. Three of the sweaters have made multiple trips across the Atlantic Ocean. They pack small and are perfect for travel. One is new but similar.

Three pairs of pants, plus the ones worn on the plane. One or two pairs of jeans for touring, one for special events, and another pair of casuals that can be worn in various circumstances.

One hoodie. That will be my Capitals one, since we plan on going to a hockey game in Salzburg and because I need to bring one really warm thing. That I will bring on the plane since planes are usually cold and it's quite bulky.

One rain jacket. I just bought a couple for Chris and I. They are lightweight jackets that will fit easily into a day bag. I've done without a rain jacket for years but because of the hike, I am intent on staying as comfortable as possible in the event of miserable weather. I even bought one of those microfiber travel/camping towels for this event. I am ready. I think.

One jacket for cooler nighttime temps.

Two t-shirts. For wandering around in 70 degree sunny weather. Or maybe three. Hmm...such unpredictable temperatures...No, two, because of the weight limit. Oh, well, I'll be getting on the plane in 80 degree weather, so there's the third.

Two long sleeve shirts that can be worn under any of the sweaters or just by themselves.

Three long sleeve blouses for events where decent clothing is necessary, including one nicer outfit for the opera and the convocation.

Shoes? The ones you wear on the plane, which are your walking shoes, the nice ones for the opera and the convocation, and a pair of boots for the hike. Although now I'm thinking just the walking shoes for the hike, and hope they don't get muddy.

One pair of long johns. I get cold easily, and nighttime temps may dip below 50 degrees.

One skull cap. Just in case.

Sleepwear. You can wear the same thing for 19 days and not get cooties.

That seems like a lot.

Here's a big secret about packing: if you ever find you need a type of clothing you don't have, you can always buy it on your trip. And if for some reason you need to wash things, guess what? There are laundry facilities in Europe! But don't be so damn prissy. In the end, you'll wear everything only three or four times.

Other things going into the bag:

Spices for our brunch with my Austrian friend, a bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, a tiny jar of locally made jam, and some locally roasted coffee that I haven't purchased yet. Oh, yeah, and the requisite toiletries. 

Twenty wakeups/vingt réveils

I wish I remembered my first time in Paris. I don't remember what I did that weekend. I know I wandered around aimlessly. I know I was down by the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame because I have photos of those. I don't remember who I traveled with, if anyone. Matt H. may have been there.

I don't remember the first time I went to Paris because the subsequent trips have all but blended together. I remember my most recent trip because it was only eight years ago and I went to see U2 play at Stade de France on the 360 tour, and I remember walking down St. Denis because I have a picture on my wall of the theater there playing La Cage de Folle (The Birdcage), and I remember walking around Montmarte feeling as if I were the loneliest person in the world, and I remember wandering around Pere Lachaise cemetery where so many famous people are buried. It was October; the light waned by early afternoon and there was a definite Halloween feel to it. I left the cemetery and had Stella on a terrace at a cafe nearby, and the lack of light so early on a sunny day was depressing. I remember staying in the suburb of Clamart and taking the train there only to discover there were no cabs and using a phone to navigate my way for the first time.

But the trips before that blur together. I had conceived the idea of the 2010 trip because I had been to Charles de Gaulle airport so many times on layovers to the Middle East and I just couldn't stand seeing the Eiffel Tower from an airplane window without stopping anymore. I practically cried on the plane each time I left CDG. Ok, not practically. Eight years ago was ten years between my last visit to Paris.

That means eighteen years ago I was in Paris with Matt H. when he was teaching French or English or studying or something and I was about to embark upon an internship in Ireland and I stopped in France to visit. Much of our time was spent in Dijon with his friend Sandrine and I remember very little detail about the time in Paris itself.

I remember walking around Les Halles and St. Eustache with Brad M. on our summer program after I graduated, and I remember going to La Defense for the first time on that trip and even vaguely recall our lectures at the now defunct Aerospatiale about the direction defense integration was heading under the fledgling EU. I distinctly remember the Rodin museum, which is my favorite museum in Paris. I think I was drawn to it by The Gates of Hell. Or The Thinker. Or the Thinker sitting over The Gates of Hell.

I remember being in Paris with Matt H, more than once, more than twice, maybe even all of the four times I went to Paris during the MUDEC year. I remember the hotel we stayed in and the statue it was near. I remember one April trip specifically, going to the Jardins de Luxembourg with Matt H. and Andrea L. and the funny sign that said beware of wind in French. I don't remember the French except for vents. That could be wrong, too. It might be ventes. Nah, I think it's vents. Or vent. French spelling was never my strong suit - too many silent letters to get it right for this B average French minor.

I remember being in the Louvre and the crowds of people around the Mona Lisa, who seemed to be smirking and thinking, "Suckers!" as we all pretended we cared about seeing the most famous painting in the world. I didn't know a lot about art then. I still don't, but I know a heckuva lot more now. I probably only went in once because of the cost of admission. I missed a lot of museums during my year in MUDEC because I couldn't afford them. Some of my "memories" of the Louvre might be from what I've seen on television since then. I don't know, and I hate that I don't know.

I have been up on the Eiffel Tower once. I don't like heights and don't need to do it ever again, unless I have a specific photography goal. I have been to Sacre Coure and Notre Dame multiple times. I love strolling through the Latin Quarter, if only for all the bookstores. I remember the stained glass of St. Chapelle - it was the first time I realized the extent Europeans had to go to protect the things we take for granted in times of peace - like stained glass windows in churches, so many of which did not have the resources or the warning to remove and store them in safe places during the war, turning so much beauty into the dust of history. I remember them describing to us what they did to protect the glass at St. Chapelle, but I don't remember the details now.

My last trip to Paris was split - four days in Paris, four days in Beirut, and four days in Paris again. If you count that as the same trip, eight days is the longest I've ever spent in Paris at one time. Every other trip, aside from the five on our summer program in 1999, lasted a long weekend. This coming visit is no exception. What I wouldn't give to spend a few months in the City of Lights.

We will land in Paris early in the morning and spend the night there before departing for Luxembourg to pick up our car that we will drive through Germany to Austria. We won't return to Paris until two weeks later, after the Luxembourg festivities, when we will spend three nights there. We have no real plans. We might make a day trip down to see the cathedral in Chartres, and we will probably visit the catacombs, both of which I have never seen. Perhaps we will go up the Pantheon, or visit the Port St. Ouen flea market. I've never done any of these.

Really I just want to wander around and watch people and try to recapture memories that have slipped away. I'd like to sit in a cafe and read a book or write for hours. I'd like to waste time in Paris.

But we simply won't have time to waste.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, why not enjoy some photos of Paris and some Edith Piaf?

Don't look back in anger

We've now entered the less-than-three-weeks period before our trip. I have been listening heavily to the music I was listening to during that school year in Luxembourg, and it gives me feelings no photo could ever come close to replicating. What an amazing time we live in that I can suddenly remember a song or an album from then and in three seconds have it on my phone to listen to. I used to walk around the school with a bag strapped to my body carrying a portable CD player and the five CDs that would fit inside it, and there were five bands that were usually in it. When packing I had to decide which CDs to bring. Now I have 15,000 songs and growing on a pocket computer with 370 GB of memory.

The first band, of course, was U2. It was the Pop era. I had seen them twice in Dublin before the school year started, and I would have seen them more in Europe had I the money to do so. (I saw Popmart four times, Columbus being my first ever U2 show and Dublin being the best.) U2 inspired naive hope in me back then; they still inspire hope in me, but it is a well-weathered hope pocked with holes of disillusionment and experience. I have written extensively about my love for U2 and their positive effect on my life and my awareness about the world, so I won't go into it here.

My favorite memory of listening to U2 during that year in Luxembourg - aside from seeing them live in Dublin - was getting out of the Zoo Station on a trip to Berlin with Achtung Baby in my ears. It was only six years after the fall of the wall, and much of the world had a naive hope that we were basically done with conflict and just needed to clean up the rest of the messes left by history. Few saw the rise of white supremacism and xenophobia that has raped the minds of the West in recent times. Those who saw the rise of nationalism as a threat, men like Samuel Huntington, whom I thought ridiculous when I read the Clash of Civilizations, turned out to be more correct than our nightmares could have predicted. It came out the year before I went to Luxembourg; I didn't read it until I returned to the US. Maybe I would have noticed the creeping nationalism in Europe had I read it before MUDEC.

Radiohead was my next favorite band. Ok Computer is a masterpiece and that was in my ears as much as any U2 album. It sparked fledgling feelings of disillusionment that came roaring through my mind like a forest fire later on, especially when we invaded Iraq on false pretenses that any educated person should have known were false. Yellow cake and eat it, too.

Dave Matthews Band was the first band that was fully my own, that I had listened to from the beginning, before they were well known. I bought Before these Crowded Streets somewhere in Europe, probably at a Virgin Megastore or a Tower Records. Dave was in his twenties when I started listening; he was close enough to me in age to feel like he spoke for my generation. The overriding theme of DMB music then was live for today, for you don't know if there is a tomorrow. When you're twenty that seems like sound advice. When you're forty, you realize that if you had only lived for today all your life, you wouldn't have made it to forty.

R.E.M. was another favorite. New Adventures in Hi-Fi was the album at the time. I'd come to R.E.M. through Automatic for the People, when I was starting to discard the shitty music I liked as a child for timeless, serious artists. That was about the time I got my first U2 album - Achtung Baby. R.E.M., like Radiohead, was another kind of wake-up band for me, a band who told me that the world was a messed up place but definitely worth fighting for.

The other band that I loved back then is the only one that I don't still love right now, The Smashing Pumpkins. I have been listening to them recently, having forgotten they existed, and yes, Melancholy and Infinite Sadness and Siamese Dream are albums I can still listen to, if only for the nostalgia. The world is a vampire, for sure.

I was also listening to a lot of women - Sheryl Crow, Sarah Mclachlan, Garbage, Lauren Hill. It was the year of the women, when all the Grammy nominees for Album of the Year were women, another indicator of the naive hope we had in the nineties. I mean, the president was impeached for sexual acts that year. It looked like we were about to start treating women as equals rather than second class citizens to be abused and controlled. None of us could have imagined we'd have a serial sexual predator who brags about grabbing women by the pussy as a president supported by a majority of white people. The #MeToo movement today shows how blind we were back then.

I had a cassette tape of Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing that my roommate Christine "borrowed" but never returned, so I ended up buying the CD on a trip to Bruges, Belgium. I bought Garbage's 2.0 in Edinburgh, Scotland, when I was trying to buy CDs of artists from their country of origin. It's funny the things you remember when there are so many bigger things that slip through memory's cracks.

Also in heavy rotation: Gin Blossoms, The Cranberries, Better than Ezra, No Doubt, Blues Traveler, Counting Crows, Stone Temple Pilots, Third Eye Blind, Beck, Weezer, Nirvana, Madonna's Ray of Light, Pearl Jam...a fun memory of Pearl Jam is John P. playing "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" on an out-of-tune guitar in some tiny restaurant in Cinque Terre, Italy after a storm interrupted our dinner on the terrace and forced us inside. It was our first weekend on our own in Europe and many students had taken the overnight train to Cinque Terre to hike through the five villages along the Mediterranean. It was also my first time seeing that sea that has stolen my heart.

Then there were those artists I discovered in Europe, some I had heard of before and never listened to and some who were completely new to me - Francis Cabrel, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, The Smiths (through Morrissey), The Beatles, Elton John, The Clash, Oasis, The Verve and Richard Ashcroft, Suede, The Charlatans, Travis, Christy Moore, Ash, The Corrs, and even what we called Eurotrash, which was electronic music - house, trance, that kind of dance stuff. I actually liked it at the time.

Then there are those songs that I will forever associate specifically with the MUDEC experience - that Chumbawamba song comes to mind, and Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn," The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony,"  Blur's "Song 2," Barbie Girl," any of those Spice Girls songs, Chemical Brothers' "Block Rockin' Beats," Robbie Williams's "Millennium," Cher's "Believe," "Ghetto Superstar," all of those Aerosmith songs that sound the same where Alicia Silverstone was in the videos, Stardust's "The Music Sounds Better with You," Ace of Base, Fatboy Slim, and as I was recently reminded, Elton John's Di version of "Candle in the Wind."

The pop charts were absolute crap. Check out the Top 100 in the UK in 1997. Crap, crap, and more crap. There was so much great music that didn't chart as high because of the way the tone deaf music industry started tracking "popularity." The nineties were the first Soundscan decade, which destroyed pop music. But I'll save that for another time.

So twenty days until Europe, then another ten until the MUDEC 50th anniversary celebration. I can hardly keep from being distracted. Shoot, I haven't been this excited for a trip in ages, and in the last ten years I've been to Ireland, Morocco, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Spain, Lebanon, Italy, France, and for one brief day, Turkey. This time, I won't have to decide which albums to pack - I'm taking all of them.

Life update

We can finally say we are leaving for Europe this month. It's been over a year since I've been on a trip, and I have been feeling the drag for awhile now. There was a four day stint to New York over the summer, but that was so quick and it's just a train ride from DC and I've been there enough that it doesn't feel like it should count as a trip.

When I say I haven't been anywhere, I mean I have barely left Capitol Hill since January, when I started working from home full-time due to office renovations. In fact, I've barely ventured past a six block radius except to go to the ballpark, which isn't much farther.  To think this is how most people live makes me sad and explains a lot about the state of America. But we've been trying to save up for the three week trip to Europe, so that's the trade-off. I'm already starting to think of spring trips because I don't want to go six months without traveling again. This particular trip to Europe is more expensive than our usual trips given the nature of the trip (a school anniversary) and the length. It is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Miami University Dolibois European Center in Luxembourg, where I spent my junior year of college, and there is a week-long celebration full of activities for all alumni. Since we will be close (enough), I am also visiting a friend in Austria whom I haven't seen in ten years.

I have a box that I add to when I think of something to pack for the trip. It currently has a Stephen Strasburg bobblehead (when we went to Luxembourg the last time, we met the school director who had Nationals stuff in his office from when he lived in DC, so it's for him), a pair of long underwear (it will still be warm here but cold in Salzburg, so I don't want to forget), sweats to sleep in, papers from my photography class so I can review when I am shooting), and my journal from my year in Luxembourg - I am going to write in the last few empty pages about our week and all of our school activities. I won't put the regular travel stuff like electricity adapters and passports and stuff - I have a permanent travel drawer for that kind of thing.

I had two classmates over earlier this summer who are also going to the anniversary, and we will meet up for dinner at Chris's Indian restaurant in a couple of weeks. We also went to the Luxembourg embassy last month for a special school reception, where we met people from other classes who are also going to the anniversary. They say that 700 people registered for the trip, so it's going to be quite the week in Luxembourg. We have been amped for the trip since it was announced in December. That's when I bought my plane tickets, and I am pretty sure I was one of the first to register. There is nothing that I've done in my life that was more important to where I am today.

It's been one hot summer, and the tomatoes haven't done as well as last year. Sure, I've gotten my fill already, but I can't say I'm not disappointed. The beefsteaks were small and sometimes flavorless. I got two purple cherokee before the plants contracted some disease and stopped producing fruit. The best were the pineapple heirlooms, which were sweet and beautiful and the appropriate size. It was too hot for my bell peppers for most of the summer - to date we've had one, but there are three or four growing right now and a lot of blossoms. The weather was great for jalapenos, however, and we have an abundance of them.

Right now I am working on a countertop/table/shelving unit for the kitchen using scrap wood leftover from garden planning. A friend brought me more wood than I can use for the garden beds and planter boxes, so I'm using it in another way. From what I can tell on Pinterest, reclaimed wood is all the rage, and I am more than happy to reuse and recycle when possible. In fact, I demand it. Chris hates it because I save every jar and can I am able to for use in other ways. He just doesn't like to wash them.

I sat every scrap material out to see what I could come up with. I want to make something I can be proud of, not like my half-assed garden bench, which isn't bad. It's just very simple and unfinished for the indoors. Which was the point, really. But this table I am making is going to have a hinged top with a little storage space inside that I will use for dry goods. We really need the counter space because cooking is difficult with the space we have. The sink is in the middle of the counter, which is an obstacle to food prep. So I've been trying to create space in unusual ways. Right now, most of the parts are laying on newspaper in the kitchen waiting for paint to dry.

Speaking of paint drying and watching it, I watched a bunch of woodworking videos last night to try to figure out how to put hinges on the table top. It's more complicated than I thought. Not hard, just a little more involved than simply screwing on a hinge, mostly because of the way the table top will overhang the base of the table. Yeah, the videos were as boring as my description here. And why does every man in a woodworking video have the same mustache?

I'll post pics here when I finish. At the rate I am going, that will be a week. It's hard for paint to dry in a humid subtropical climate. At least this will give me something to put energy into while I wait for September 26th to come.