Departure day

The departure day is finally here. And I am ... tired and exhausted. I honestly hate packing. I can never decide what clothes to take or which shoes would be the most functional, so I usually end up with a random selection of clothes and an even weirder collection of shoes (most of which I never really wear). This time it's also a bit different as I'm not going on holidays, so casual clothes and flip-flops have been replaced by smart shirts, skirts, high-heels and and enormous amount of paperwork, which is making my duffel bag incredibly heavy, but I refuse to deal with and get stressed out by logistical problems as I am determined that I WILL manage to drag all of that to my hotel.

I still have pretty much an entire day before my take off and since this is the very first time that I'm packed and still have a lot of time to spare, I have no idea what I should do with myself. The usual scenario is nothing like today. Whenever I travel and I still have a couple of hours before I need to show up at the airport, I tend to suffer a minor breakdown as my clothes haven't dried yet, there is no way I can close my suitcase (even with my brother and me sitting on top of it), I forget to put in something and then unpack everything to shove this thing or the other into the case and/or bag. Then I show up at the airport with too many pieces of hand luggage and try to explain to the check-in lady that "Yes, everything I'm holding in my hands DOES fit and WILL go into one single piece of hand luggage." They usually let me pass with a look of desperation aimed at me, the-well-travelled-passenger, who is at the airport so often that she is almost on the first name basis with the entire staff and who apparently gets completely overwhelmed by such a simple act as packing a suitcase. I am absolutely positive that people who travel with one suitcase and one piece of hand luggage only fly to a destination for a day and then back, just so they can make us, the we-cannot-pack people, feeling even more incompetent. My boyfriend is one of those people. His suitcase is always professionally packed and he always has space left in it. I watched him pack and I still don't understand how he does it! The last time we were packing together, I think he got frustrated with me and told me to sit down and watch while he packed my suitcase. I watched, but I didn't learn.

I will now go and observe my suitcase. It still isn't closed though. Maybe if I stare at it kindly, it will close. Fingers crossed....



* suitcase image credit snarking.files.wordpress.com