Packing Light

As some of you may remember, last year when I was in England traveling around doing research I did grave damage to my sanity and health by dragging with me a giant suitcase, which was very heavy on account of all the things I thought necessary to put in it (after all, there was ROOM); and was so heavy and unwieldy that I couldn't get it on to buses; and I had to laboriously haul it up steps all the time, cause it being England and all, there aren't necessarily ways to get up and down the underground or train levels that don't involve steps; and though I thought I had packed light, I had deceived myself.

I didn't buy that suitcase in order to cause great grief and pain, you understand. When I bought it, 5 years ago in Kensington High Street, it looked just fine. It wasn't till I'd rolled it home that I came to realize that I had bought a Really Big Suitcase.

This year, everything's different.

For a start, I've got a neat little new suitcase. It's so small, indeed, I believe you can use it as a carry-on. Yes. With a nice handle and wheels. So that's all easier. Much saner.

Then, as to the question of what to put in it -- well, I'm taking even fewer clothes than last time. I have, basically, two things to wear. That's it. Everything gets washed every night. By the time I get home, I will want desperately to throw these clothes in the trash.

Also. Last year I had some elaborate plan involving reading Giant Books I hadn't gotten around to. This included Don Quixote and a couple of volumes of Proust. I ended up spending a LOT of money mailing things back.

Not this year, no, no. While I am sitting around resting after my difficult day wrassling manuscripts, I am reading trash. Pure trash. My plan is to buy ONLY books I don't want to keep (or would be ashamed to let people know I read -- there's a thought), and then leave them.

I've already left one book on the plane. Now I'm going to go buy another.

While I was packing, I was doing that sort of paring down activity my dad and brothers used to do when they went on 50-mile backpacks -- even ounces count. I'm using solid shampoo so as to not drag around the water. I'm carrying an embroidery project cause it weighs less than knitting. I didn't even bring all my notes, if I have them in the laptop, though the hard copy's easier to use. I tell you, I could walk all over England carrying my luggage, and not complain.

Well, much.

Speaking of the laptop, though, I do want to share some new advice, which is that, if you're packing up your electronic hoohahs for your international travel junket, and you want to be able to recharge your iPod and your laptop, what you want to do is make sure that your plug adaptor is actually the one you need for the country you're going to.

The one I brought would work FINE in Germany, but alas, I'm in London at the moment.

Luckily, as it turns out, this situation is easily remedied, as all the electronic stores on Tottenham Court Road have stacks of plug adaptors which will fit into English sockets, and will take Anything. I'm telling you, Anything. My Continental plugs fit them; my American plugs fit them; I'm pretty sure that if I went to Central Europe and bought electric devices, I could come back and plug them in.

So there you are.

I did have to buy a washcloth, too, cause I forgot that the English don't put them in the hotel rooms.

(Why is that? I've never understood it. They're for sale at the Boots -- it's not like they don't exist. But you have to bring your own along. And they go right in the hotel laundry -- it's not like you shouldn't EVER use any but your own. Very mysterious.)

So. I'm willing to cart around a new adaptor and a new washcloth. But NO BOOKS!