Hey guys, sorry! I know I promised this post a couple of days ago but I have been sickly (the best way to enter back into your home country if you ask me) and have barely left my bed for the last two days. Perhaps that shouldn’t have affected my writing schedule, but the tons of cough medicine surely would have. On second thought, maybe those posts would have been funny.

Incoherent but funny 🙂

This post is part 2 of my tips on weather and packing: the story part(s).

Whether or not you read the tips post doesn’t really matter, you just have to know that during my time studying abroad in England, it was much hotter than what I had anticipated. I planned for 65 degrees (Fahrenheit–otherwise we would be burning alive) and rainy. Did I look at the weather forecast before leaving? No, but I’m notorious for not doing that… I forget it’s a resource that I have. I’m more of a sticky-my-hand-out-the-window-to-see-if-it-will-freeze-or-burn-off kind of a person. Weather the old fashion way!

Anyhoot, you can imagine that when I finally showed up on English soil, I was rather surprised at the 80 degree temperatures and unforgiving sun. You see, I burn very easily, so the sun is not typically a friend of mine. It led to some immense creativity in the clothes department as I had not packed for this kind of weather. It cooled off a little after that and I could begin utilizing the cute outfits that I had planned for the colder weather, but I stuck out like a sore tourist thumb that first weekend. T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. Oh no…

Packing-wise Rupee and I had a little bit more trouble. Or should I say, trouble with the things we packed in. And by we I mean Rupee, because I’m flawless *cough*. We hadn’t even stepped foot into the Detroit airport the morning of our flight to England when SNAP: the handle to her new suitcase just pops right off. And it was not the kind of thing you could just reattach either. There required welding of some kind, maybe some new screws. Basically, it was b-r-o-k-e-n and we hadn’t even gotten past security! Let’s be honest with each other for a moment: everyone over-packs when flying international. The bag was heavy. And we–again I mean Rupee–had to drag it along until we got to bag-check, which albeit wasn’t that far away, but far enough to be a nuisance.

After checking our bags we didn’t have trouble again until getting off the bus in Oxford. Because now there was a bag with no handles and cobblestone streets. Really uneven cobblestone streets. And 3 people (because our friend Penny was there too) who had gotten no more than 3 hours of sleep on average.

It was a very pathetic sight. At least it was 6:30 in the morning so there weren’t too many people out who could judge us because… yikes. There was a lot of starting and stopping and dragging and panting and cursing. But we finally made it to our college where we had to proceed to carry this luggage up four flights of narrow stairs (but at least we had been warned about this first). Still, not fun.

Skip ahead to when we arrived back into Oxford after our journey to Edinburgh, Scotland (pronounced Eh-din-bur-uh). The trip was awesome and the city was gorgeous.

And then we get off the bus in Oxford.

Rupee had her carry-on piece of luggage and I had my backpack.

Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. SNAP!

The handle to her carry-on snaps off. TWO BAGS! Luckily this bag was way lighter than the first, but I still thought she was going to start wielding the handle of the bag as a weapon and spear anyone who came too close. Once again there was a lot of dragging and swearing. Little to say, she bought new luggage before coming home. Nice luggage. Silent luggage. Truly silent; it took those cobblestones like a pro.

And now we’re back home; plagued by no other luggage issues. Except for the fact that I still haven’t fully unpacked mine yet…

Where’s the motivation? It doesn’t exist!

I’ll just keep telling myself I’m sick (true) and that it’s preventing me from getting any work done (yeah, not so true…) Good excuse, right?!

Chat with you later,

Mel