The Woes of Packing

Soooo initially I figured that packing for this trip would be easy. Even though I’m going for 6 weeks, all I needed were clothes for very hot weather. 6 months on exchange also honed my packing skills and perfected techniques such as the ‘layer three outfits on your body and wear them on the plane’. PLUS KLM (airline of choice) has not switched their regulations to the stupid one bag rule yet. So TWO BAGS! 50 pounds each! I figured that I would bring one medium sized rolley bag for my stuff and one duffel bag full of donations.

Two days to go and my zen, ‘I can survive with one skirt and one pair of shorts etc etc’ mindset has slowly but surely completely disintegrated. (Let’s be honest, it was more like 4 or 5 skirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 pair of jeans…you get the picture). That medium sized rolley bag is looking mighty small…

BUT to my credit some difficulties have arisen that have further complicated the process

1)      Recognizing that my shoulders and knees need to be covered at most times- yes this does make packing easier in some sense but what if I feel the need to rebel at some point and run around in my room wearing short shorts? How many scandalous options does one bring for these such instances?

2)      Checking the weather about a week ago I realized that the assumption that it would be hot was not necessarily correct. Since their winter had just drawn to a close, yes it will reach around 25 degrees during the day but can also drop as low as 12 during the night. Everyone knows that I am freezing cold until it is 25 degrees outside. Yes, it was me that had a heater going full blast in my room until mid-June. Therefore it seems that I now must pack both hot and cold options. I have come up with two ways to deal with this new info:

Check the weather every day and hope that it changes to WARM all the time

Note: This tactic has failed. Days are still hot and nights are still cold.

So now I am resorting to waiting for some sort of packing inspiration to appear. Tomorrow is Tuesday. I leave Wednesday. I’ll pack tomorrow. Let you know how it goes!