I would say, overall, that I packed for this trip with reckless abandon. I don’t officially know how long I’ll be staying since I don’t have a job yet—a month? six months? a year? forever? I’m not planning on backpacking this time around, so I wanted to bring most of my life in order to stay in Sydney and live with it. Clothes weren’t too hard because it doesn’t get terribly cold here. Shoes were the hardest. I brought nine pairs.
I tried to limit myself to seven yoga pants, but I couldn’t. I like them all too much. I packed a couple versatile dresses for the wedding weekend and in case I get invited to any others, plus my sequined jumpsuit in case anyone wants me to come to a party. The green backpack has mostly exercise and casual clothes, plus my rain jacket. I stuck two pairs of sandals in the water bottle holders, and they almost fell out mid-flight, but they didn’t—whew! I slipped in a pouch of pens, highlighters, and pencils, just to have. I brought an alarm clock, two bars of fancy soap that I got from the Dutchess County Fair, a big contact solution and many pairs of contacts thanks to 1-800-Contacts filling my prescription last minute.
You can’t really see it, but under my jean jacket, there’s a canvas bag that holds my backpack, water bottle, and camera, which is really a great idea because you can fit almost three personal items for the price of one. I also have my traveling tripod, external hard drive, and microphone to hopefully make some yoga videos for you. In my backpack, there’s my laptop, iPad (that I use as a Kindle), two books, two planners (one for next year!), a fresh journal, chargers, and my work notebook. I squeezed in a reusable coffee mug because I try to care about the environment whenever I remember.
The patterned bag has my winter attire. I left it in LA at Katherine and Nath’s house so that I wouldn’t have to check three bags on the flight to LA. And I’d like to use it as a carry-on if I go on any international Asian adventures. I ditched my yoga mat and ukulele at the last minute with a few tears in my eyes, but I figured those would be easier to repurchase in Sydney than to carry on the plane with my other items. My mom is shipping a box with my wetsuit for surfing and, no, that is not a sarcastic joke; I am a real surfer!
I think that about covers it. I was tempted to try public transportation with one bag on the back, one on the shoulder, and two rolling in my hands, but Uber was just affordable enough not to have to. I’m safe and I’m here!