The Great Packing Adventure 7/29

Whew! I'm posting this from the hostel in Buenos Aires. I guess I ruined the ending, which is, of course that I got here in one piece :)

Packing for five months is not an easy task. Usually I rip through my closet and throw clothes in a pile in my suitcase, topped off by any toiletries or accessories I happen to shove in five minutes before we leave. But packing for a semester in Argentina was a little different. Besides all the paperwork I filled out a month ago, there was just so much to do! I had a team of friends in my room, folding clothes, sorting toiletries into plastic bags, and taking inventory to update my packing list. Meanwhile, I was scurrying around trying to gather all my boarding passes, hostel reservations, copies of credit cards, etc. into one three ring binder.

My room doesn’t have air conditioning and it was very hot. We closed the last zipper and decided to jump in the pool as a reward. But wait! After three hours, just when we thought we were finished packing, we realized my bag had a rip in it. I had visions of my bag arriving in the Buenos Aires airport, threadbare with nothing in it but remnants of zipper and fabric. Luckily, my friend’s dad lent me his duffel bag, and we repacked everything all over again.

I wish I could say my last week home was stress-free. First, because of the incessant amount of rain we’ve been having, our basement flooded. My dad was outside in the thunderstorm throwing buckets of water from the basement door, my mom was using the water vacuum in flooded basement, and I waded through strategically planting every old t-shirt, rag, and chamois we had in the house. Then, our hard drive crashed, and I couldn’t connect the printer to my laptop so anything I needed to print had to be downloaded, saved, emailed, and printed out of the laptop downstairs.

On top of all that, my cell phone died the day before my flight, which wasn’t a big deal because I won’t be using it abroad, but it was another thing that would have to be fixed when I came back. Anyway, I stuck it in the freezer for the night and it worked in the morning. Mission accomplished!

I decided to work on Wednesday, because my flight was of JFK left at 1 am, and I would have plenty of time to get dinner and relax a little before leaving home. It was nice to be all packed for once. I was pretty tired after being up late packing, but the department surprised me and had a South-American themed potluck! There were taquitos, empanadas, chimchurri sauce, potato salad, and tostido chips with salsa. It was great way to say goodbye. I packed my things in my bag, and when I got back home, I took an extra long shower, ate spaghetti with the family, and off we drove to New York.