No, I didn’t take that photo. Found it on the internet somewhere. But hopefully that’s about the same view I had today as my DH and I winged ourselves across the pond, as the saying goes, to Britain. On Sunday morning when this will appear, we’ll be there. We will have left Los Angeles yesterday if all went well. We’re going specifically to visit two friends of ours: one who lives in Nottingham (north central); the other in Cheltenham (west, near the Cotswolds).
Most of the B&Bs will have wi-fi, so once I figure out how to hook up my mini-laptop, using the proper cables, voltage converter (110 to 220) and wall plug, and log onto the wi-fi, I’ll be able to post while we’re away. How often, I don’t know. We’re going to be gone about 2 1/2 weeks, so I hope to give you some photos here and there. Our touring destinations include the Yorkshire Dales (James Harriott country), the Lake District (Beatrix Potter country) and Wales (where we’re going to one town called Hay-on-Wye which has no less than 32 used and antiquarian book stores). With the two visits to friends along the way. And hopefully one other visit to a blogging friend, which I’ll share about when I get there. We have reservations for dinner in London on our last night, at one of Jamie Oliver’s restaurants. We’re not staying in London at all this trip – we’ll stay our last night at a hotel at Heathrow and will take the train into the city for dinner. We have an early-morning departure, so we wanted to be close by and not have to fret about returning the car or having a foul-up with getting to the airport in a timely manner for our early morning flight. Anyway, our dinner in London hopefully will be good food – and fun. We’re looking forward to the entire trip, but also to the weather. The forecast is for highs about 70°, lows about 51°. Oh yes, and there will be rain.
If you’re a techie, in this high-tech day and age, it’s a feat to pack all the right cables, wires, plugs, adapters or converters for international destinations. In addition to my mini-laptop (with mouse and bulky power cable), I take my iPod too with earphones. My iPod puts me to sleep every night as I listen to podcasts that last about 15-30 minutes; I’d hate to be without it. It needs charging with its apple charging cable every 3-5 days. My Kindle will go with me too. I have about 30+ books loaded on it, so obviously I won’t be running out of reading material. But it needs a different kind of charging cable, required about once a week. And I’ll take the little light that attaches to the Kindle case so I can read at night when I’m wide awake with jet lag. I’m also taking my iphone (it’s a 3G with GSM, so it does work in Europe). I don’t plan to use my phone much at all, so it seems kind of senseless to take it, yet it would be very helpful if we need to make last-minute phone calls, or for family to reach us in an emergency. My AT&T calling plan doesn’t include England, of course, and the phone charges will be costly. I’ve been doing some reading online about international travel with an iphone, so I know as soon as we leave Los Angeles I need to turn off “data roaming,” otherwise my iphone will continue to ping for mail continuously (with fees). But if I’m connected to free wi-fi at our hotels, there won’t be any fees. Hopefully I’ll only use the phone once or twice. I have a regular plug charging cable, and I have one that will charge in the cigarette lighter in the car. I don’t want to take both. What a pain! And most of that won’t work unless you plug it into a British wall adapter (they use a bulky 3-prong plug) and the converter. Last trip I finally figured out I needed to use a stack of books to prop up the connecting pieces, otherwise they seem to fall off/out of the plug or out of the wall. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes in older hotels or B&Bs I’m crawling all over the floor trying to FIND the wall plugs. Usually they’re hiding behind furniture, behind desks, dressers, bedside tables. That happens here in the U.S. too, but it’s worse in most other foreign countries. All of that stuff will go with me in my rolling carry-on.
Then I’ll be taking my DSLR camera. It has a different connecting USB cable to plug into the mini-laptop so I can download pictures to it. And then the battery charger for the camera too. I may take my small point-and-shoot camera too. I can use the same download cable, but I must take a different battery charger. If I want to take photos in restaurants I’m embarrassed to whip out my big DSLR, but I can take pictures somewhat unobtrusively with the small one. We’re renting a car with a GPS. Even though I’m very good at directions, and have always adapted well to driving on the other side of the road (I’ll likely do most of the driving), a GPS is such an easier way to get places. Oh my.
So, here’s what’s going in my carry-on. I’m packed and ready to go, so thought you’d get a kick out of seeing what’s going with me – or you’re shaking your head now, knowing I’ve gone off the deep end.
The only things NOT in this picture are my iphone and my DSLR camera which I used, of course, to take the picture! Am I crazy, or what?
About six years ago we bought a new BMW (for me) and we picked it up at the factory in Munich. What a fun experience that was. And the guy who gave us the lecture about all the car’s features, programmed into the GPS our first night’s hotel in Austria and our last night’s lodging in Amsterdam, AND, the location where we had to leave the car for shipping across the sea. Anyway, we had such fun with the GPS. After a couple of nights in Austria, we went over the snow-covered pass to Italy for a couple of weeks. I cannot begin to tell you how great that GPS was for getting around on small country roads or big cities in Italy. We did have to buy the European GPS DVD, though. Because we bought the car in Germany we named the GPS woman’s voice, Trudi. And oh, did Trudi ever save us many times. Every time we’ve traveled since, we either drive my car, or we rent a GPS to go with the rental car.
I feel like half my bag will be filled with tech stuff. When we travel, we travel light. Our idea of good, efficient packing is one roll-aboard each (27 inches), although ours are too wide to fit under the seats. But they’re much smaller than most people use. And I also take a carry-on that happens to be a rolling/pulling type. That’s where all that gear up above will go.
My DH, meanwhile, isn’t taking his phone. Or a computer. Or an iPod. Or a camera. He doesn’t use any other electronic devices. He rarely even looks at his email when we’re home and he has his own computer. Maybe I’ll be able to con him into storing all of the cables and chargers. Do you think? Probably not. Dave’s suitcase is always much lighter than mine. I’m the one who does all the travel planning, gathering all the documents we need. Sometimes I can get him to pack the maps. But I carry on my package of data with all the supporting documents for our flights, our hotel reservations, directions where I thought we might need them. I am taking one book, a tour book – a new one I bought – even though we’ve been to England about 10 times. I also carry more toiletries than he does, including cuticle scissors, regular small fold-up scissors, my hair dryer, curling iron and one pair of extra shoes. Maybe two this time.
Dave, for those of you who are new readers, has two artificial legs (amputation below the knee on both legs from diabetes/poor circulation). Unless he must change shoes to dress up, or work on the boat, he wears the same shoes for weeks. The socks don’t smell since there’s a plastic/foam foot shape in the shoe. Obviously, his feet don’t sweat. He hates changing shoes because it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to do so. (I know, I can hear you say what? Yes, it’s true, it’s very time consuming to change shoes on an artificial leg, and he has two of them. Just trust me on this one.) Consequently he wears just one pair of shoes when we travel – a pair that can be both casual and a little bit dressier. Mostly it’s his boat loafers (Sperry’s) since my DH has been a life-long sailor. He doesn’t take a sport coat or suit, and may only take one jacket plus a rain jacket. He likes traveling in shorts because it’s far easier to fly – and perhaps take off his legs – if he wears shorts. We’re using up all of our old frequent flyer miles for this trip. We managed to book first class going over, but we didn’t have enough miles to do it both ways. We wanted coach both ways, but there were none to be had several months ago when we booked this trip. So that’s why we’re going over first class (with the seats that flatten out to sleep on). And we’ll be sardines on the return. I almost think it’s a mistake to ever fly first class, because then you want to fly that way every time. It spoils you, big time. So watch for scenes from merry olde England.
Gloria
said on August 9th, 2010:
Hope you have a great trip Carolyn! I’ll miss your recipes over the next 2 + weeks. My Hubby and I ate at a wonderful Italian restaurant when we went to London about 7 years ago…but I cannot remember the name (we loved it so much we ate there 2 out of 3 evenings we were there). I’m sure the foodie inside will lead you to some wonderful experiences. I had to laugh at all your electronics…I don’t have quite as many but do know what you mean. Don’t leave your camera in a taxi cab (in Paris) like I did on our trip! Luckily 7 years later I now have a nicer camera. 🙂 Safe and happy travels. Cheers!
Kathleen Heckathorn
said on August 9th, 2010:
Bon voyage Carolyn. Have a wonderful trip!