England Blog Day 1: Packing & Travel
For the first time in my life I'm headed off to jolly old England (heavy cliche, I apologize). This will be my first overseas travel, my first trip in a foreign country (not counting Mexico or Canada), and, I'm sure, my first few times heavily out of my comfort zone. More about that later.
As Jen and I have started this journey, I realized a couple of correlations (natch) between traveling and life.
Packing
It takes me the better part of four hours to pack. I'm not lying. I have a system. First I will make a short list of everything I need to bring +1, for emergencies (like getting attacked by a mountain lion on the underground). Then I start the process of putting everything together: undershirts, underwear, t-shirts, button downs, collars, shorts, khaki shorts, pants, jeans, jean shorts, nice shoes, sandals, decent belt, fancy belt, white socks, colored socks, nice socks, and of course, stuff to sleep in.
If you ever played the videogame "blue print," it's lot like that...I move from room to room in my apartment gathering items and putting them altogether in an overly large suitcase (which I will inevitably drag around London at 12am). I wish I could be as dilligent as when I leave. That mess is just throwing it all the suitcase, and somehow it doesn't fit as nicely.
In sort, you're preparing for a trip. Short, long, whatever, you're preparing to do what you can to enjoy a vacation, or business trip. We do that in life, for both short term and long term moments. For those short term moments it's exactly like this. Gathering the needed items to aid you in your journey. For longer term events, it's a slow gathering, taking tools here and there from shorter experiences.
Travel
And, as for slow goings, there's definitely something to be said for traveling. Traveling is the most amount of motion in a short confined spice with the least amount of motion on your part. Kinda like if a hamster figured out how to make his little hamster ball motorized. He's just sittin' back, and moving, but sittin' there nonetheless. When you get done traveling you don't know if you should walk some more or if you should just pass out in bed.
The traveling is all about patience. You know you're stuck in your plane or car or rickshaw. You know you have to make the most of it (doing some more packing at that point obviously).
Between being patient and being prepared, it's lot to learn. If you over prepare yourself you can run yourself ragged and end up carrying around a lot of extra worry you don't want (kinda like my carry on bag today). If you under prepare then when you're waiting for something to happen the time goes on forever. The goal is to find a zen calm to your packing...feeling confident you brought what you needed and then realizing that stuff's gonna come up no matter what, waiting out the storm to make sure things turn out.
Aside from the lessons learned, here are some shorties about the trip:
-Airport security, not bad. Flying out of Chicago, not bad. Flight itself, not bad. Traveling on the underground with about 40lbs. of crap...yeah, that gets tiresome.
-The underground reminds me a lot of the DC Metro. Just as clean, just as simple to understand.
-Nice to know that no matter what the country, kids still go out and enjoy themselves, parents still get dolled up and enjoy themselves, and some folks still work late at night.
-I love the accents here. I grew up loving British TV and always tyring to mimic the accent. Not as easy or practical when you're jetlagged.
-I love the streets here too. We haven't had time to walk, and poor Jen has had to put up with my current physical annoyances (stuffed eardrum, headache, stuffed nose). But I'm looking forward to walking around and just getting lost.
So that's all we got for now, more later. I'll do what I can to update this but if my brain is too tired from taking it all in, it may come in shorter chunks!
pb
As Jen and I have started this journey, I realized a couple of correlations (natch) between traveling and life.
Packing
It takes me the better part of four hours to pack. I'm not lying. I have a system. First I will make a short list of everything I need to bring +1, for emergencies (like getting attacked by a mountain lion on the underground). Then I start the process of putting everything together: undershirts, underwear, t-shirts, button downs, collars, shorts, khaki shorts, pants, jeans, jean shorts, nice shoes, sandals, decent belt, fancy belt, white socks, colored socks, nice socks, and of course, stuff to sleep in.
If you ever played the videogame "blue print," it's lot like that...I move from room to room in my apartment gathering items and putting them altogether in an overly large suitcase (which I will inevitably drag around London at 12am). I wish I could be as dilligent as when I leave. That mess is just throwing it all the suitcase, and somehow it doesn't fit as nicely.
In sort, you're preparing for a trip. Short, long, whatever, you're preparing to do what you can to enjoy a vacation, or business trip. We do that in life, for both short term and long term moments. For those short term moments it's exactly like this. Gathering the needed items to aid you in your journey. For longer term events, it's a slow gathering, taking tools here and there from shorter experiences.
Travel
And, as for slow goings, there's definitely something to be said for traveling. Traveling is the most amount of motion in a short confined spice with the least amount of motion on your part. Kinda like if a hamster figured out how to make his little hamster ball motorized. He's just sittin' back, and moving, but sittin' there nonetheless. When you get done traveling you don't know if you should walk some more or if you should just pass out in bed.
The traveling is all about patience. You know you're stuck in your plane or car or rickshaw. You know you have to make the most of it (doing some more packing at that point obviously).
Between being patient and being prepared, it's lot to learn. If you over prepare yourself you can run yourself ragged and end up carrying around a lot of extra worry you don't want (kinda like my carry on bag today). If you under prepare then when you're waiting for something to happen the time goes on forever. The goal is to find a zen calm to your packing...feeling confident you brought what you needed and then realizing that stuff's gonna come up no matter what, waiting out the storm to make sure things turn out.
Aside from the lessons learned, here are some shorties about the trip:
-Airport security, not bad. Flying out of Chicago, not bad. Flight itself, not bad. Traveling on the underground with about 40lbs. of crap...yeah, that gets tiresome.
-The underground reminds me a lot of the DC Metro. Just as clean, just as simple to understand.
-Nice to know that no matter what the country, kids still go out and enjoy themselves, parents still get dolled up and enjoy themselves, and some folks still work late at night.
-I love the accents here. I grew up loving British TV and always tyring to mimic the accent. Not as easy or practical when you're jetlagged.
-I love the streets here too. We haven't had time to walk, and poor Jen has had to put up with my current physical annoyances (stuffed eardrum, headache, stuffed nose). But I'm looking forward to walking around and just getting lost.
So that's all we got for now, more later. I'll do what I can to update this but if my brain is too tired from taking it all in, it may come in shorter chunks!
pb
posted by Peter Brooks at 7:21 PM
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