e u r o b l o g

We’re leaving in three hours, and I am suddenly a little apprehensive!

Hmm, what a strange feeling.

So, I decided to think about what everybody else is probably nervous about, because it’s much funnier than my nerves (which have sadly been compounded by the 3480234 cups of coffee I’ve had this morning):

Cameron: That I will kill him people we meet won’t believe that he’s really Canadian.

The Bov: That he’ll suddenly realize that there is a reason he only comes back to Appleton once a year.

Steph: That Cameron, The Bov and I will talk about “Star Wars.”
…the entire trip.

–Amanda

No matter how prepared you are, you always have something to do at the last minute.  Whether it’s photocopying your passport or cleaning your clothes, something seems to crop up.  It’s the same with me this morning, which is the only reason I’m up at 8 AM.

I’ve just finished finalizing all of my plans, because I’m taking a slightly different schedule than the rest of the group.  While they’re in Lyon, I’ll be in Tossa del Mar in Spain, visiting a close friend of mine who lives in Scotland.  However, she’s down there this summer, doing some sort of job, and so I figured that I have to visit.  We just finished figuring out the bus schedule, so that’s good.  It’ll be my first independent Europe adventure.

Well, time to absolutely finish packing.  A copy of the itinerary would be really helpful, I suppose.

–The Bov

THINGS I STILL HAVE TO DO
* Cash checks for the housing account, so we can sleep places
* Pack for Europe
* …pack for college
* Clean out my car
* Pack my car

…um, no problem.

–Amanda

It struck me as odd yesterday that packing wasn’t difficult at all. You would think that cramming everything one needs for a three-week trip into something small enough to carry on your back the entire time would be at least somewhat challenging. It really makes me appreciate how much space my electronics usually take up. I decided early on that I was going to make this trip as low-tech as possible (hence the blog, heh, though it wasn’t really my idea). Between the four of us we’re only bringing one camera and, with the exception of an iPod or two, nothing else that requires firmware, batteries, or a water-proof carrying case.

However, due to the relative ease of packing, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something fundamentally important and entirely necessary. Aside from massive amounts of paperwork–tickets, itinerary, reference numbers, addresses, documentation–I can’t think of what I could possibly be forgetting. It’s probably nothing, so I should probably stop this rambling cliche that damn near everybody goes through when they are about to leave home for a few weeks.

I still need to make copies of my important stuff and get my travelers cheques (that’s right, I spelled it the canadian way. Though, to be fair, that is how American Express spells it), but in general I think I’m set to go. I even have my books, which I’ve been avoiding reading for almost a week now, to occupy me on the long days of travelling.

We leave for the airport around noon tomorrow and won’t stop travelling until almost midnight (Paris time) on Tuesday. That amounts to around 24 straight hours of terminals and trains and bus stops and small bathrooms.

I hope you all enjoy this though. Besides being a good record of the trip for us it’s an easy way to let everybody know where we are in case something should befall us… knock on wood.

That said, with as little time as we have left in the States, I should probably be doing something more productive.

Cheers!

–Cameron

So, it turns out that packing a medium-sized backpack for a 24-day trip is a little trickier than I expected.

I made a pretty detailed list a few weeks back of things that I a) needed and b) can carry, though I’m throwing that whole “backpacks should only weigh 15% of your body weight” rule to the wind. Since, you know, I think the backpack by itself weighs about 10 pounds.

Even though I’m a girl, picking out clothes and shoes was not difficult. I’m bringing a few polo shirts in various boring colors, two pairs of pants and a long skirt, a sweater, and a nice shirt. Three pairs of shoes: sneakers that are nice-looking, good sandals and flip-flops, because athlete’s foot is not my friend.

The hard part, really, is the other stuff. Like: Do I really want to bring my iPod, knowing that it could be stolen and my life would end I don’t have $300 to buy a new one? What about that great guidebook that weighs approximately 3897523 pounds?

Or–worst of all–what about my laptop?

Even though it’s an evil betrayer that likes to delete 20-page papers during finals week, it’s still very dear to me. It’s also really heavy and requires all kinds of miscellaneous junk. It’s a liability, basically.

Then again, it’s me. Can I really be without a computer for 3 1/2 weeks? And am I actually willing to pay to use a computer in order to blog and upload photos every couple of days?

I think the answer is “yes”–which is to say, I’m more willing to blow precious Euros in internet cafes than I am to lug my ten-pound brick around western Europe.

So with one problem solved, we come to the next: Books.

I read a lot, and I read fast, and we will be spending an exorbitant amount of time on planes, trains, and automobiles buses. One book just wouldn’t cut it. Ten books might not cut it, but again, it’s a small backpack.

Which is why I brought Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.

…

No, I’m totally kidding. Don’t worry. I have no intention of reading that book until someone holds my eyelids open and forces me to.

That said, I did pick up a book of his short stories, because I figured that as leader of the free world of the Claremont Colleges literary magazine, and as an English major, I should probably read something by our most (in)famous professor.

So I suppose I will be starting out the trip by reading Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and then Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, since so many people have told me to read it, and also because it should be kind of like fluff. Plus it’s 850 pages long.

–Amanda

up and running…ish

It’s aliiiive!