Is there anything more exciting than preparing to go away?
Even the shortest adventure is enough to blow away a stagnant fog of office life. I leave for Europe in 6 days and I'm extremely exciting (well, duh!). I'll only be gone for 17 days, which probably seems very weird. But that's all the time I can afford to take - between work and financial commitments, it's very much a rushed holiday.
There's a lot going on. But also not. It's that "deep breath before the plunge". I wish I could remember where I heard that phrase. I have everything I need - there's no last minute shopping. I've even written a list of things to pack. I take a bunch of medication (you don't need the details) and I've even counted them out to make sure I have enough to cover me between now and when I get home. Need to fill a script tomorrow though - just in case! I'm planning to overpack the meds so I have 5 days extra with me, to allow for disaster/delay.
This will be my first time travelling with a DSLR - I've always been a point-and-shoot guy previously. It's enormous and eats up around a third of my carry-on baggage allowance! Word to the wise... No way in hell is that camera going in my check-in luggage! FYI - the airline won't cover it if it's damaged, and neither will your travel insurance. Guard that stuff with your life!
This meant that part of my preparation was going into the park today to test out the new lens. I've ditched the old 18-105 and replaced it with a 16-300. Happily, it means I'm still using a single lens - no chopping and changing for me! - but have better zoom, same aperture and same weight. But like everything new, it needs to be tested and I need to learn what I'm doing. Maximum zoom needs a much faster shutter speed... so everything else needs to be adjusted. Lucky I learnt a bunch of stuff about using my camera recently!
But really, that's the less exciting part of preparing. It's the mental and emotional preparation that really makes this part of the journey so exciting. First stop is Prague, where I'll meet a friend who CouchSurfed with me almost a year ago. Let's call her Alice. It'll be so much fun to catch up. It's not the first time I've reunited with a CouchSurfer, but it will be the first time it's happening overseas. Alice is not a Prague native - she's a Londoner. She hasn't been in Prague long, so we'll be exploring the city together. She does have to work though, so it won't all be silliness. Then we've got 4 days of roaming the countryside of the Czech Republic, which promises to be lots of fun. I have heard many good things! After that, I'll catch a train to Budapest to meet another friend. This time not a CouchSurfer, but a friend of a friend. I'll be looking to CouchSurf in Budapest, but I haven't sent off any requests yet. Must do that soon!
Then there's the fact that I haven't been overseas since July 2012, which was a family holiday to Vanuatu... That really doesn't count as travelling, does it?
What I'm trying to say is that it's been quite a while since I've had any of the fast-thinking, hair-raising, jaw-dropping, awkward-misunderstanding, miming-because-you-don't-speak-the-language moments for over 3 years and it's very very very exciting to be throwing myself back into that. With gusto! With such a short time overseas, I need to be going non-stop for the 15 or so days that I'm not commuting. This means everything will be frantic. There may be split-second timing involved, which means things will go horribly wrong. Plans will fall apart. It's possible I'll end up in hospital, like I did after my last backpacking adventure. Maybe I'll be robbed or mugged or drugged... The important thing here is that, as long as I survive the experience, it'll appear on this blog as a rip-roaring tale of adventure; the kind of things you can read to your kids around a warm hearth at the cold end of a cold day. The kids will be gathered around, sitting on the rug, wide-eyed with amazement. The fire will hiss and crackle and crump at the most dramatic moments. And you can end the story with, "And that, my children, is why you always buy travel insurance." ('Scare 'em straight' is still a thing, right?)
I could just keep writing. There's a lot going through my brain, which probably isn't much of a surprise. You'll have to hang in there for the next exciting instalment!
