I think I hate packing as much as Claire

So, today, my challenge (and I had no choice but to accept it) was to get that terrifying pile of crap into two very scared little suitcases. After evaluating, re-evaluating, and finally wrestling the two suitcases shut, we ended up deciding that we needed to use different suitcases. (We meaning my dad who was still awake and my mom who was due to wake up in like two hours.) Success was met when the scale in the bathroom showed the two as weighing a healthy, but respectable, and more importantly: permissible, 46 and 49 pounds (the unit of mass measurement, not monetary value.) It still doesn't feel real though. 

Tomorrow at 7:30 I depart to a place that is colder, wetter, and where the people talk in a "proper sort of way." (And put their periods outside of the quotation marks.) I wonder if the American accent is thought to be ugly? 

I guess I'm soon to find out.

I was hoping to be in bed by 11PM. That obviously didn't happen. 

Emotions are running wild

So tonight, if nothing else, without a doubt proved the fact that PMS and preparing to move to another country are two things that should NEVER be combined. Really. Never. People say that sleeping pills and alcohol are a bad mix– well, let me tell you, this particular combination is a whole heck of a lot worse. 

In the past three hours, I have shouted at my computer screen, I have teared up, I have had terrible visions of lost luggage and imprisonment for failing to declare my acne medication at customs (because it is very dangerous and highly addictive, after all) and I have imagined being abandoned by a deranged cabby on an abandoned street in some back ally quarter of London dripping wet from head to foot in the rain. Perfect. Great way to spend one of my last night home, I should say. 

My panic met its match when met with Claire's lovely face in my computer screen, fully equipped with a bright green birdie tucked into her curls. The color combination made me very happy. Tonight, while watching the tale end of my mother's and my day-long TLC reality television marathon, Clinton Kelly–the well known host of "What Not to Wear"–was featured on this home improvement type of show and he was telling the camera crew that he picked the colors for his house according to the colors that he looks best in. Apparently he looks great in baby blue, so that's the color he chose for his living room. Claire, did you chose Bernard based on the fact that he looks great with your hair? Because I definitely I chose Tootsie because she makes me look thin...

I need to water proof my beautiful boots. 

And blow kisses to all of my beautiful friends. 

And spend many moments with my fat little kitty. 

And remember to pack my tooth brush. (And the extra two my dad gave me for my suitcase.)

Sunday will be a very long day. 

I'm getting nervous. Am very excited. And it's setting in that I'm not going to see some of my darlings for such a very long time. 

Pre-departure ponderings, part 1

I leave for London in six days and I have yet to pack. First I have to unpack what is a very embarrassing accumulation of worldly goods after moving out of my dorm. 

Right now my life is in boxes in the garage, in the form of books, suitcases and the world's largest bag of laundry that needs to miraculously get washed prior to said packing. (Thank goodness of House Elves, eh Dobby?) My life is also spread across the United States and beyond: Pieces of my life are in DC, in Minneapolis, in Montana–Litza, what are you doing in Montana?, in Seattle, in Portland where it snowed today, in Oakland, in Italy, and the desert of the American South West where my darling curly haired crazies are enjoying Vegas lights and Saguaro Cider; in Orange County where my aunts, uncles and whacked out cousins are watching digitalized cable in warm beds, and my Nana and Grandpa are either watching their telenovelas or watching the news in a language that I only can only listen to (¡te amo abuelos!); and in Gardena where the streets are lined with Christmas lights and my grandma Raetta is likely curled up with one of her many adorable cats. 

With so many wonderful, familiar, comfortable and cozy things here, why would anyone ever wish to leave? Why leave this safe and warm place where I see my cat's tail sticking out from her hiding place under my bed, and my brother blasts hip hop music on his Bose stereo system until my pupils begin to vibrate? Where my mom yells at my dad for feeding the dog cheeseburgers, and my dad constantly quotes his favorite line from As Good As it Gets: "Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here!"–he then proceeds to laugh. And it's wonderful. 

I keep asking myself why I'm going, when there are so many reasons not to go. The truth is, I don't really know what's going to happen when I'm over there. I'm sure to go broke. I know that much.

But, I want adventure. I want a new place with new systems and things to figure out. I want to learn more about myself, and I want to see the world when I'm young enough to dance until 3AM in the streets of Barcelona. And dammit, I will get to Barcelona. And Paris, Nice, Lisbon, Rome, Florence, Milan, Oxford, Dublin, Edinburgh, Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna, Madrid–the list goes on. I'll be there for five months. Why not just go for it?

I'm a very sheltered person. Very accustomed to a certain kind of life. Now, it's time to see how I will react to a life in the wild... Or, at least the Underground. (When the base you're working from is Claremont, California, the "wild" standard isn't all the high to begin with.) 

But I will miss the people I love. I will miss them all very much. 

There will be pictures. Promise.