TWO F'N WEEKS, PEOPLE!

Two weeks from tonight, I will be sweating bullets as I make my final packing adjustments. I'm anal and afraid I'll forget something so I have a habit of packing in dribs n' drabs over the course of several weeks. I've got piles and bags o' stuff I'm planning to take sitting in a spare room with my suitcase (and tres chic carryon).

I've made copious use of "there's an app for that:"

• packing lists - brilliant in the extreme as it made me consider things I hadn't thought of before like having copies of my passport in case I lose it (actually, the travel agent has them just for this purpose);
• Tripit for all my itineraries so I'm not sorting through stacks of paper (we're staying overnight in NY in both directions to avoid spending 12+ hours trapped in a flying metal tube);
• free Wi-fi finder;
• couple of language apps;
• a conversion app that converts money, weights, measures, etc;
• and my absolute favorite, Trip Journal which is just what it says. It's adorable (important [Image Can Not Be Found]) in that the app looks like a journal Indiana Jones would use. I can track my trip with waypoints and include pix, video, notes about what I've seen, etc. I've been playing with it for about three weeks to get used to using it as it's not quite as intuitive as it could be, but I've figured out the majority of it. I can tweet my location and post to Facebook from it. The only downside to the facebook linkage is it requires a Trip Journal app that wants to use my info even if I'm not using the app. Uh, no.

I was just telling Yap that I'm still trying to find suitable clothes to take. Guess I better step it up unless I plan on wearing the exact same outfit the entire 10 days. That simply won't do. Oddly enough, I do have plenty of shoes. [Image Can Not Be Found]

I knew you'd call me on that 12+ hours in a metal tube, Yap. [Image Can Not Be Found]

I would so love to go to Bali, Australia and other points "down under" but the flight times would make me lose what little I have left of my mind.

Steerpike said:

How long will you be there, Toger? I'm sure you mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread but I'm lazy.

I'll officially be there 10 days; however, I've added one day each to the front and back ends to spend in NYC. To sleep. [Image Can Not Be Found]

We leave the 11th and don't touch down back at SFO until the 23rd.

Oh, I know if I forget something, I can easily replace it. As my parents would say, "it's not like I'm leaving the country."

Oh, wait. I am. [Image Can Not Be Found]

And yes, there are stores in other countries. [Image Can Not Be Found]

OMG, there's a wayward aspostrophe in my last post! This simply cannot stand! Can you fix it for me, Steerpike? Pretty please? [Image Can Not Be Found]

Yeah, Pokey. I'm hoping to avoid the necessity of buying something forgotten and instead concentrate on "Ooo, that looks so very cool and I've never seen it at home. I simply must  buy it!"

In other news: I don't think I've ever taken this amount of crap for a trip. I'll need my own personal Sherpa to carry it all. Spent some time today cutting all the tags off the new stuff that I bought (I needed new clothes, anyway). At this moment in time, I'm glad I allowed myself to be talked into not doing a "if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium" type of trip. The constant packing/unpacking would have been too much to bear.

As Yap pointed out, I could easily wear some things several times as I won't see the majority of the people on this tour ever again... Except for the part where I'm a klutz & always spilling stuff on myself. Here's hoping there are laundry facilities in the hotel or little Italian women willing to thrash my clothes against rocks.

Yeah, I'm using the expensive equivalent of ziplock freezer bags. I have several and it usually cuts down on wrinkles and discovering wadded-up balls of fabric in the bottom of my suitcase. I did have to buy a larger piece of luggage as everything I already own is geared towards 1-2 days worth of stuff. Even going to Bolivar for 10 days only involved a smallish carry-on as I spent the entire time in a bathing suit or shorts. This time, I've got a 25-in spinner. I'm pretty sure I can hide a body in it.

This morning, I started gathering up stuff I can "pack" (more like throw into a bag on the floor to be well & truly packed later this week) now like vitamins, lotions, unguents, ointments, etc and discovered that kind of crap takes up way more room than I thought. (damn, it's tough being a girl! [Image Can Not Be Found]) I've been able to find some things in travel sizes, but others not so much. Do I really want to drag along that enormous glass bottle of fish oil capsules or do I just toss the dosage needed X # of days into a baggie and hope airport security doesn't pitch a fit?

I figure by the time I'm actually packing my bag on Wednesday & Thursday, I'll have thrown back at least a quarter of the stuff I thought I couldn't do without.

Grazie, grazie!

My plan is to tweet/facebook at least one photo per day (international roaming è molto costoso). The rest of the pix will have to wait until I'm back and can dump them to my photobucket account.