People keep asking me, in reference to my trip, for which I leave the day after tomorrow; “Are you so excited?” And every time I go “Yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh,” and then I pause, and then I go “I sort of can’t believe it, you know? It’s weird.” And that’s the plain truth, I guess.
So I’m leaving the day after tomorrow and I just called the airline to confirm my flight (during which call the voice-over thingy informed me, in a regretful tone, that everyone flying to or from the US was going to have to have his or her information made available to The Man for like, security purposes), and while I’m not officially packed yet, I did do a test run of my packing skillz on Sunday and immediately decided, after hefting my travel pack that I took with me to Italy in 1998, that I didn’t really need a towel or Tevas. I also cursed my ridiculous tendency to undercut myself by really small amounts when it comes to buying quality merchandise. In 1998 I saved something like forty dollars on my pack, when I was getting ready to go on the trip with Marah. Isn’t that great, forty dollars? I also got a pack that doesn’t fit me very well and that has a “hip belt” that goes around my waist, which is not really my hips at all, really, and as such is quite uncomfortable. Of course I am taking this pack again this time because I don’t want to buy a whole new pack when I have an almost sort of okay pack already.
But anyway, yes, the trip, the trip is organized and I am ready to go and all I have to do is put my passport and guidebook and knitting (long flight and train rides, you see) in my bag and get to the airport not less than two hours ahead of time and get on the plane and go. I’ve taken four months to plan a two-week trip. I think that’s the story of my life, right there.
I’m in a different place than I was in January when I had the idea to take this trip. I got a new job and spring came and I began to feel better about a lot of things and even though I was happy planning my trip, I began to lose the urgency I felt right around the time I planned it. I was still checking out every travel book I could find in the library and still pricing out train fares and still wondering what it would be like when I got there, but as the months have gone by, all four of them, I have had a little less truck with the idea that this trip is going to be this Big Adventure That Changes My Life In Ways I Never Could Have Imagined, a la Under The Tuscan Sun or some such. I mean, whatever. I’m going to France and to Italy and possibly to Switzerland and I’m staying in hostels and I’m being a total tourist and I’m going to depend on my guidebook and probably go to bed early a lot because you know, that’s what I do. And it’s very likely I won’t make out with anyone at all, knowing me. I’ll probably wait in a lot of lines and fuss about money and be mad at myself about not speaking French as well as I should. Maybe I will be lonely.
Maybe there’s some adventure in there after all, and having got all that out of the way I can still say with equanimity that I am looking forward to the trip, and I can’t quite believe it’s almost time to go on the trip, and that I think there will be a lot of wonderful things about the trip…but I can’t see them yet. What it boils down to, and what I just realized as I’m writing this, is that I have no idea what to expect anymore about this. I sort of can’t believe it, you know? It’s weird.