TRAVEL PACKING – a refined art form

The more I can travel the better. Any size of trip broadens my mind and teaches me a lot; it’s a fascinating thing to do, it really is. And it’s not just the trip itself, but the planning, the expectations and of course the utter excitement of packing. Calculating the right quantity of clean undergarments, decide on ankle or tube-socks and other life-saving being-away-from-home necessities to bring along, can in itself be extremely exciting – okay, in a weird kind of way, but still exciting.

My packing background and self-inflicted packing expertise is based on countless trips within Europe as a young lad living in Denmark and then from many trips to Europe and elsewhere since I moved to the USA. We go to Scandinavia at least once a year. It’s not like we travel with deep pockets, but visiting our family and friends in Scandinavia has always been a travel priority – so we have made it happen. 

Tomorrow morning we are off to Florence and Tuscany (Italy) and on to Denmark and Sweden. We planned and bought the flying, hotels, museums and rental cars some 4-5 months ago; a lot of time to enjoy great expectations. And then the all-important travel packing must be done; talking about utter excitement. 

Some travel light with barely enough clean undies and socks to last half the trip; the reason some tourists smell, well like tourists. Some overload on a lot of unnecessary stuff (flat screen TVs and microwave ovens); some pack and repack 2-3 months ahead of time. Some promise themselves that THIS time the packing will be done so ahead of time – and then they scramble to fill the suitcase with anything an hour before departure – but they promise themselves that NEXT time will be different – and it really won’t.

We have the ones who, for some slightly warped reason pack every bloody thing in Ziploc bags of all sizes – and then mark them using a blue Sharpie just in case they don’t fully recognize their own underwear through the clear plastic - duh.

Some travelers use bags bigger than Ziplocs, cramming a bunch of stuff in there and mark it “Tuesday”, or whatever day these clothes will be worn; from undies (sounds like I’m excited about undies, huh? Well, I am, all depending…) to blouses, socks, shoes, jewelry, and the occasionally weird travel hats. I’m positive that we have as many different packing-strategies as we have travelers.

When I pack depends solely on the time of departure – rather scientific, huh? Tomorrow’s take-off is at 8am which means we leave home for the airport at 4:30am, getting up at 3:30am. So my packing will take place the evening before, with a light round-up in the morning. Pay attention, because this is how it’s done – fast, furiously and efficient; you might even want to take notes.

We will be gone 22 days including full days of travel on each end. Looking at the itinerary, we are staying with good friends in Bedonia (Italy) from day 8 through day 11. So I inquired about the availability of laundry facilities. All Angela said, in fluent Italian, was: “DUH”, which actually means: “Duh, e persona stupida” (translates to: “of course, you silly person”). A second laundry facility will be available near Stockholm (Sweden) on day 17, so I plan my clean underwear strategy accordingly.

Based on the above and without the use of an adding machine, I can now calculate quantities using the figure 10. This will leave me a bit of breathing room for the “just in case” moments, of which I have had none what so ever – ever. You are proud of me, aren’t you?

So the evening before take-off I lay out my travel-clothes, top to bottom. Then I pack, based on 10: 10 pairs of underwear, 10 pairs of socks (2 variations), and a mix of 10 T-Shirts, polo-shirts and perhaps a dress shirt – but rarely. As the weather should be warm in Italy and predictably unpredictable in Denmark and Sweden, I will bring 3 pairs of shorts (heavy duty with lots of pockets) and some cargo-pants. I add a couple of sweaters (for cool Nordic nights) and a thin nylon jacket that is actually very warm (for cool and rainy Nordic nights).

I travel in sneakers, light as can be, and pack a heavier pair for variety and support. We are going to do a lot of walking, but mostly on flat and paved surfaces, so hiking-boots are not needed. By the way, the last time I said “hiking-boots are not needed”, I broke a leg – brilliant. And that’s about it – fast, furious and simple; not the broken leg thing, but the packing.

I’m a very active photographer, so my carry-on will have a couple of cameras, some lenses and other photo stuff. I also pack a laptop (checking E-Mails, looking at the day’s photos, etc.), my Kindle Fire (for reading), both my US and European mobiles, as well as my iPod for musical entertainment and Italian lessons; yes, I want to verbally communicate (and embarrass myself) with the natives beyond handing out round and shiny objects to appease them; “prego prego”. I also pack a few pens, a steno-pad as well as all the reservation documents, passports, ticket information, a bit of cash, a credit and debit card – just in case, huh?

The morning of departure, I place my beauty-bag on the bathroom counter, and as I go through my normal beautification routine, the stuff I use, go into the bag after I use it (after brushing teeth, all of them, toothbrush and paste are dumped in, etc.) very quick and efficient. And I’m good to fly…

I have never missed anything, but at times I have packed stuff where I have spent a bit of time going: “Now why the heck did I bring this?” Case in point, on a 12-day solo trip to Denmark visiting my Mother, I brought one of them rubber elastic band exercise things that never made it out of the Ziploc (Oh my, it WAS in one of those bags). Well, the intentions were good.

On another solo-trip I brought so much writing-stuff as I was working on my first book. A heavy duty HP laptop, research material, pads and pens and lots of notes. I sat down and wrote only once – and then I dragged everything back to California.

I have never been insanely concerned about how I dress when I travel – simply because I travel, so I consider whatever I want to wear is cool. I have never felt over-dressed, but on the other hand I have never felt under-dressed either. I start every day in clean clothes, including clean undies – isn't that all we should expect from a vary traveler?

But I wouldn’t be surprised if the natives are commenting behind my back: “Look at what he is wearing – he must be a great travel packer… Or perhaps his wife is…” – I would tell them that it’s just from years of experience.

In spite of my travel packing being a thing of efficient beauty and swiftness, I am staying so far away from commenting on how my wife or anybody else packs for trips, simply because I am not, as they say in Italian: “Una persona stupida” and I think that’s pretty smart, don’t you?

Ciao, Pietra

PARTY ANIMAL – not I, unfortunately

Don’t you just hate people who were born to party, the ones floating around, charmingly chatting away with everybody, drink in hand, while laughing, smiling and seemingly having a great time? I enjoy being social, I enjoy conversing and I can smile rather charmingly while downing a few adult beverages. But unfortunately, I can’t do all those things at the same time to make me a wild & crazy party animal (sigh).

A party, the gathering of people invited by a host or hostess or both, has the purpose of socializing in a recreational setting, which can involve beverages, food, music and (my least favorite) dancing. We have many reasons to party; some I will not mention here because I think my Mother is reading this blog…

We have birthday, bachelor and bachelorette parties; surprise, dinner and cocktail parties; non-political tea parties; dance, block and costume parties; Xmas, graduation and housewarming parties; wedding, divorce and farewell parties; and the list is long. Some party for no reason – other than to party…

I’m a fun kind of person; I chat with people all over the place, including elevators; I can make people laugh (even without taking my clothes off) and for the most part I thoroughly enjoy smaller dinner parties for two (the ones with my wife, of course) but real party-wise, I feel most comfortable with 4 to 8 people; more than that and I get lost.

The reason? I like conversation that has a bit of meat on it – something that makes me wake up the next morning with “interesting evening” on my mind. But don’t get me wrong, because FUN is so essential to everything I do in life. The meaty part of dinner dialog MUST have a bit of FUN sprinkled on it; and to me, that works a lot better in smaller groups.

The times I was invited to bigger parties, I always felt unsure of what was going on, how these big things actually functioned. There would be a lot of people I didn’t know and a few I did. I cannot do the ‘small-talk’ thing, as it seems a superficial, nervous and an insecure way of communication; a feeling that makes me uncomfortable. I can start fun conversations with just about anybody anywhere, other than at big parties; so perhaps I’m superficial, nervous and insecure? Nah…

Back in the days of early adolescent party-time, which had dreaded added peer pressure, I would quickly end up against a kitchen wall, nurturing a beer, next to somebody looking as uncomfortable as I felt. Funny thing is that many times I actually had some great conversations with these fellow kitchen wall-flowers, females as well as males.

Bigger party situations don’t give me the stimulation I get from small gatherings. Too much time is wasted explaining in a very loud voice into an ear I have never met before, how I know the host and hostess. And after my intense moments of screaming, it’s my ear’s turn to be screamed at; you tell me, where’s the fun in that?

I also have a thing about noise, the mixture of chatter, music and other loud party sounds. In those environments I struggle concentrating on basic conversation and especially anything deeper than “Dancing with the Stars”. I’m simply lost. But this is not a complaint at all; it’s just that perhaps I would like to be more of a party animal – experience a lot more stimulation from those bigger gatherings.

I met my wife at a BBQ party; I guess we could call it a party – so of course that’s the best party I have ever been to (and we just celebrated our 29th year of marriage). But there is another party that stands out, and thinking about it makes me smile, sigh and giggle – every time.

I must have been 13-14 years old. A classmate of mine had a secret costume-party, and I was invited. “Secret” was because you had to dress in a costume where nobody would be able to guess it was you. My Mother helped me create an awesome clown costume; it was cool & clowny & extremely secret. Only a couple of my friends figured out it was me – mainly because I told them. Those were the years of insecurities, anxieties and me being awkward and shy; but hiding behind a cool clown, made me feel wonderfully secure. But still, I quickly found a comfy-chair and a nurturing beer.

The house was full of great secret costumes, loud noises, music, dancing and decorations, laughter and fun. It was by the latter part of the party that all of a sudden a funky looking ballerina landed on my lap – just like that. As I had never experienced a landing ballerina before, the surprise was intriguing – in a very good way, I quickly found out.

She had a very pretty ballerina-like body, but her face was maked-up so well that I did not recognize who she was – and I desperately wanted to know. I asked her several times, but she laughed and said NO in her made-up secret voice.

She had put her arms around my neck and we started to chat, now both in secret made-up voices – and we actually laughed a lot. Oh, and then we kissed; I was a true gentleman, as during the kissing part I removed my nose. It was the first time I kissed a ballerina sitting on my lap. After about 20 minutes she got up; her father was there to take her home, she said – and she was gone.

Back in school the following Monday I tried hard to find out who she was; nobody knew, or wouldn’t tell me. During the last recess that day, I was sitting on a bench pouting and feeling depressed when a made-up voice asked: “can I sit on your lap today?” I looked up and there was Jytte Knudsen, the girl none of us boys dared approach because she had always seemed so beyond us. Jytte was a beautiful girl and in that respect intimidating to a shy and insecure boy like me (and all my friends).

She sat down next to me and started chatting away, about the party, the many fun costumes and that ‘clown’ she had had her eyes on for many weeks – I realized she meant me. As the bell sounded, she grabbed my hand and we walked towards the school entrance, very together – in retrospect, I floated more than I walked.

Jytte and I were together for about a year, which at that age was like being married forever. She was very intelligent, had a quick wit and was a lot of fun being around. I can’t remember why it ended; I wonder how Jytte’s life has been.

I do not condemn big parties, as my option is to go or not to go – if invited, of course. But I have never been that perfect party-animal that I envy to some extent. Am I willing to learn? Nah, I’m happy where I am party-wise. But when you invite me to your next big party, I will come, because I’m sure you have a kitchen-wall I can lean against; and then you can easily find me so you can scream into my ear for a few moments and then I’ll scream into yours – party on, Peter…