I’ve got cabin fever. Had it for quite a while. I am itching to travel.
I got to thinking on New Year’s Eve that I actually hadn’t used my passport once in all of 2011. Not one tiny stinking time. That doesn’t mean I didn’t go anywhere for twelve months but it does mean that I never left this island.
Just as a frame of reference, I used to use my passport once or twice a week. Granted that was a high-paying, high-flying corporate job but still… to go another year without international travel just won’t do.
So I’ve been plotting my moves and I will be LON-BRU-NYC in February and March. With Lilly. She’s had a passport since she’s been eight weeks old and it’s high time she gets to use it.
Now generally in life I am quite laid-back and last-minute about most things. Advance planning is not my thing. So it is with great amazement that I am actually observing myself thinking about said travel plans an entire month ahead of time. Writing to friends with questions like
- Which floor is the flat on where we will be staying, and is there an elevator?
- Do I need a child seat in a taxi, or are there local exemptions?
- What are the logistics of a pushchair on public transport?
And behind the scenes at home, I am making lists of all the things I need to either sort out (like Lilly’s US visa waiver application) or remember to take with me (like Lilly, and her passport). I am thinking travel high chairs and packing logistics.
Except for when I’m not thinking (aka baby brain). A friend today suggested taking a backpack for luggage in order to avoid the potentially stressful child-buggy-suitcase scenario. I dismissed the idea, having visualized a day hiking pack that might at best get me through 24 hours with the short one.
It only occurred to me later that she might have had something larger in mind. I am now researching gap-year-sized backpacks. For a long weekend. And this from the woman who used to travel for an entire week with hand luggage. And pack somewhere between the evening before and the morning of departure.
Oh, how the mighty (smart, minimalist, last-minute packers) have fallen… hard.
Kaplonk. Thump.
Ouch.