With twelve days until we board a plane for New York, Emily and I have been reflecting on various aspects of this year from the deeply meaningful to the humorous and interesting.
A year ago, we had no idea exactly what we would and wouldn't need for this journey. Packing was sort of a shot in the dark. Shorts, t-shirts and tank tops for the places with hot weather and beaches. A pair of jeans just because. A couple of sweatshirts and jackets for the patches of winter we would encounter in India and Nepal. One dressy outfit each - because you never know when you'll go to a nice restaurant or be invited to someone's home for dinner.
Sandals, a pair of athletic shoes, a pair of dress shoes, a few socks, two sarongs (because they come in handy in unexpected ways and times) and a lot of underwear. The first rule of packing is to assume there are things you can buy along the way, but never underwear.
We even have a flashlight, a portable multi-use tool, a roll of packing tape we picked up in Istanbul, a tube of super glue we acquired in Singapore and more power adaptors than we can handle. If there's an outlet, we can plug in.
However, not everything that set out on the adventure with us will make it home. Along the way, we've lost beloved items. Like old friends, they live in our hearts and memories. But because they died sometimes painful deaths along the trail, they were thrown overboard - lost until the day when the sea gives up her dead.
So, we wanted to create a little graveyard of the unfortunate - a memorial to the items that will never again see home, let alone the light of day.
My travel wedding ring was the first to go. A water slide in Alanya, Turkey took the tungsten ring off my finger. I saw it go, reached for it, but couldn't quite get it before it slid ahead of me - never to be seen again despite a thorough search. A very nice silver ring crafted by a local jeweler in Antalya replaced it and lasted for many months until a wave knocked it off my finger in Nha Trang, Vietnam last month. This was covered in the post "Three Rings In The Water." The third and final travel ring is a cheap piece of steel we bought at a market in Hanoi.
Emily's bra went next. One July morning in Antalya, Turkey there was a pop and things came loose. A wire had given way and alas, that bra had to be taken out and shot. Replacing the bra was actually more traumatic for Emily.
Antalaya has only one mall and one department store. Within it, there were about two bras that fit her and apparently none of them quite like they do at home. It also turns out that while Turkey has strong rules about modesty between men and women, the same doesn't hold true among women. The sales woman "got in there" and made sure to send her customer out with the right fit.
The Turkish bra has stood the test of time and will make the journey to America - our only immigrant undergarment.
Shortly thereafter - and we can't quite pinpoint where or who is responsible (though I know it was Emily), two parts of the three piece universal power adaptor I bought Emily before we left home "went missing". Acquisitions of other adaptors in Antalaya helped mask the loss.
Emily's luck wasn't very good at the beginning. Her purple knit (hideous) purse she bought years ago in Nepal developed a tear. It hobbled along for almost two months until we reached Patmos, Greece in late August.
Luckily, Patmos had a nice selection of colorful, light and spacious purses Emily found ideal for travel. She picked up a light purpose one with some silver shimmery threads which served valiantly in all kinds of terrain and situations - including pure Indian filth - until we left Bali when it was relieved of duty in favor of a travel bag given to Emily by her mom and aunt. The purple Greek purse was cleaned, packed and will make its way home for future use.
In late July, during our five days on the island of Rhodes, Greece, Emily bought a cute dress with a very Greek feel. She wanted something light and breezy for the hot weather and fit the bill. She wore it to dinner the next evening, thrilled with how it looked and felt. A day later, it went into her backpack not to be seen again until late September on Samos, Greece when it caught her eye and fancy again. Only this time, she wore it in the light of day - which shone through the dress and revealed everything.... The empress had no clothes.
Unfortunately, Emily didn't believe me at first. Since we were in public when I first noticed just how translucent her dress was, I tried to be gentle about it.
"Love, perhaps you might want to change. The dress is a little more....revealing.... than you realize."
For whatever reason, she thought I was exaggerating. So, I told her I could see her underwear very clearly. While that concerned her, she wasn't sold on it being a "run back to the hotel room now" emergency. Finally, I said that she really needed to go change...NOW. As we walked up the stairs of out hotel and passed a full-length mirror on the landing, Emily gasped in horror.
"Oh, my God! I didn't realize....you can see everything! I need to run upstairs and change...NOW!" Although the dress didn't come from home, we count it among the casualties of the trip as it died then and there in our Samos hotel room.
Also on Rhodes in July, Emily found herself barely able to walk down a mild, dry incline without slipping. The soles of her lavender Crocs sandals had worn away and she was walking on bald shoes. Especially in Old Rhodes Town with its stone paved paths and roads, you would have thought Emily was traversing a Slip N' Slide. She began looking for a cheap pair of replacement sandals - hoping for knock-off Crocs. When she saw them for €8 in the tiny old town of Lindos, the offending pair took their last step and have joined the ranks of the many Greek sandals that met their end in Rhodes over the millennia.
When we left home, Emily had packed a pink sundress she wore occasionally to the pool or beach. I have never told her anything she wears looks bad except for this one, hideous dress. I thought she would take notice and become concerned when I told her wasn't her prettiest dress, given I never say anything like that. Ever. But like people do with favorite old shirts and underwear, Emily clung to the pink sundress. So, we made a deal that if she could buy a new one on Crete that July, she would get rid of the old dress. That was a well spent €35. So far as I know, the pink dress is rotting in a Cretan landfill.
The Aegean is the saltiest sea I've been in aside from the Dead Sea. I blame its powerful composition for what happened to my swim shorts. The velcro of the fly literally started separating from the nylon. The glue just disintegrated and left me being ....careful....while wearing them. Given, they were cheap Target swim shorts. But they didn't make it more than two months.... Emily bought me new ones when she went home for two weeks in October. They have not seen the Aegean and have held up in other waters.
Ripped seams continued to be my burden. In October, I dashed through the Rome airport trying to make a tight connection between Nice and Istanbul. I wrote about the whole shocking story in the post "This Time For Istanbul!" But the key is that while running withmy dress shoes on and my cheap $10 carry-on backpack filled to the brim, the pack bounced harder than the straps could take. The poor bag sustained an unrecoverable injury. It had lasted more than five years and had a great volume capacity. We had been through a lot together.
Emily and I taped it up and got it through one last flight to Kathmandu where we replaced it with the current green, North Face knock-off that has continued with us since. Cheap Black Backpack from Bali died died its final death in Kathmandu - an unfortunate place to meet one's ending....
All was fine for awhile until December when Emily was washing her hands at a restaurant in Alleppey, Kerala, India and her cheap $20 travel wedding ring that she so enjoyed dropped off her finger and fell down the drain. We don't chase down Indian drains. She now wears a $4 silver ring we bought on the streets of Alleppey.
Again in Alleppey, a terrible tragedy befell as Emily's computer headphones she used for her live lectures and Skype calls cracked around my head. The headphones were meant to go around the back of the neck. In my clumsy, oafish way, I put them over my big, fat head...and snap.... I was lucky to survive the next 24 hours. With some super glue, we managed to hold them together until February. The heat died down when we bought her a new, slimmer - albeit cheaper quality pair - in Bangkok. Unfortunately, again in my clumsiness when I borrowed them, I didn't put them back in the bag correctly and the tip of an ear piece ring broke off, making it hard to fit around one's ear. I am again shamed and sad. And take full responsibility for my misdeeds. Despite my many offers to buy new headphones, Emily has decided that these still work for now and will wait until we get home for a new, higher quality pair.
Emily had a goal for this year. After her 55 lb weight loss that led up to our wedding, she wanted to get a wardrobe full of cute, new clothes. That's why she picks out a new dress in each country we visit. However, Bali inspired the shopper in Emily. With the low prices and plethora of clothes she liked, Emily went on a mission to replace all her old tank tops that hung loose and unflatteringly on her. Once she had collected an entire new set of shirts and many pants, she was faced with a lack of space in her bag.
That's when Emily became unexpectedly emotional and torn. She was afraid to toss aside her "fat clothes", as she likes to call them. They were big and comfy. She felt skinny in them because they were so big, even if she understood they weren't flattering. Leaving them behind left her with no other choice than to wear tighter clothes that showed of her current body. Emily held her breath and tossed aside all the old tank tops - except one. She needed something to hold on to.... However, a large pile of shirts met their demise in mid-April at the house in Bali.
Singapore was a bad place for our stuff. Yet, we were thrilled that things broke in Singapore and considered it one of the biggest blessings of the trip because things can be very easily replaced in Singapore. When the AC adaptor of the power cord to Emily's computer began to fry, we weren't yet sure of the problem. When her computer would no longer charge, we began to hope it was the power cord.
A quick walk two blocks took us to the largest of Singapore's computer and IT malls. Up one level, first shop we came to had a broad selection of replacement AC adaptor cords. Within minutes they identified the problem and found us a suitable replacement. The crisis was over in a matter of 30 minutes.
A day later, I stumbled on nothing more than an ordinary cement curb, somehow catching the toe of my sandals. The toe strap tore from the sole and I was walking down the street with a floppy shoe. Despite some super glue from the nearby 7-Eleven and an embarrassing repair session on the curb of the very swanky neighborhood we were in where some guys laughed at me.... there was no saving my beloved sandals. They had been going for years, made it most of the way around the world and walked their last step a day after the glue transplant failed. Two brown Kenneth Cole sandals died that die in a small, dark Singapore hotel room. RIP.
Two days ago, our most recent - and hopefully final - death of the trip took place. Emily was walking down the soi on the way to lunch when she felt something different in her left shoe. She glanced down to find the toe strap of her sandals had frayed and were literally hanging on by a thread. Her favorite pair too - $20 from DSW. Emily made it through lunch and walked carefully back to the hotel where the sandals were laid to rest. Bangkok claims another casualty.
Of course, along the way, we've added many things and sent numerous shipments of plunder - treasure from the orient - and the western world too. We have new clothes, old clothes and fantastic stuff to decorate our future home.
As we enjoy these things, we'll remember they came at a price beyond mere Euros, Shekels, Baht, Rupees, Rupiah, Lira, Dong, Kip, Ringgit, Sing Dollars and Hong Kong Dollars... they were wrested off the backs of the fallen - the things we left behind.
Sent from my iPad
A year ago, we had no idea exactly what we would and wouldn't need for this journey. Packing was sort of a shot in the dark. Shorts, t-shirts and tank tops for the places with hot weather and beaches. A pair of jeans just because. A couple of sweatshirts and jackets for the patches of winter we would encounter in India and Nepal. One dressy outfit each - because you never know when you'll go to a nice restaurant or be invited to someone's home for dinner.
Sandals, a pair of athletic shoes, a pair of dress shoes, a few socks, two sarongs (because they come in handy in unexpected ways and times) and a lot of underwear. The first rule of packing is to assume there are things you can buy along the way, but never underwear.
We even have a flashlight, a portable multi-use tool, a roll of packing tape we picked up in Istanbul, a tube of super glue we acquired in Singapore and more power adaptors than we can handle. If there's an outlet, we can plug in.
However, not everything that set out on the adventure with us will make it home. Along the way, we've lost beloved items. Like old friends, they live in our hearts and memories. But because they died sometimes painful deaths along the trail, they were thrown overboard - lost until the day when the sea gives up her dead.
So, we wanted to create a little graveyard of the unfortunate - a memorial to the items that will never again see home, let alone the light of day.
My travel wedding ring was the first to go. A water slide in Alanya, Turkey took the tungsten ring off my finger. I saw it go, reached for it, but couldn't quite get it before it slid ahead of me - never to be seen again despite a thorough search. A very nice silver ring crafted by a local jeweler in Antalya replaced it and lasted for many months until a wave knocked it off my finger in Nha Trang, Vietnam last month. This was covered in the post "Three Rings In The Water." The third and final travel ring is a cheap piece of steel we bought at a market in Hanoi.
Emily's bra went next. One July morning in Antalya, Turkey there was a pop and things came loose. A wire had given way and alas, that bra had to be taken out and shot. Replacing the bra was actually more traumatic for Emily.
Antalaya has only one mall and one department store. Within it, there were about two bras that fit her and apparently none of them quite like they do at home. It also turns out that while Turkey has strong rules about modesty between men and women, the same doesn't hold true among women. The sales woman "got in there" and made sure to send her customer out with the right fit.
The Turkish bra has stood the test of time and will make the journey to America - our only immigrant undergarment.
Shortly thereafter - and we can't quite pinpoint where or who is responsible (though I know it was Emily), two parts of the three piece universal power adaptor I bought Emily before we left home "went missing". Acquisitions of other adaptors in Antalaya helped mask the loss.
Emily's luck wasn't very good at the beginning. Her purple knit (hideous) purse she bought years ago in Nepal developed a tear. It hobbled along for almost two months until we reached Patmos, Greece in late August.
Luckily, Patmos had a nice selection of colorful, light and spacious purses Emily found ideal for travel. She picked up a light purpose one with some silver shimmery threads which served valiantly in all kinds of terrain and situations - including pure Indian filth - until we left Bali when it was relieved of duty in favor of a travel bag given to Emily by her mom and aunt. The purple Greek purse was cleaned, packed and will make its way home for future use.
In late July, during our five days on the island of Rhodes, Greece, Emily bought a cute dress with a very Greek feel. She wanted something light and breezy for the hot weather and fit the bill. She wore it to dinner the next evening, thrilled with how it looked and felt. A day later, it went into her backpack not to be seen again until late September on Samos, Greece when it caught her eye and fancy again. Only this time, she wore it in the light of day - which shone through the dress and revealed everything.... The empress had no clothes.
Unfortunately, Emily didn't believe me at first. Since we were in public when I first noticed just how translucent her dress was, I tried to be gentle about it.
"Love, perhaps you might want to change. The dress is a little more....revealing.... than you realize."
For whatever reason, she thought I was exaggerating. So, I told her I could see her underwear very clearly. While that concerned her, she wasn't sold on it being a "run back to the hotel room now" emergency. Finally, I said that she really needed to go change...NOW. As we walked up the stairs of out hotel and passed a full-length mirror on the landing, Emily gasped in horror.
"Oh, my God! I didn't realize....you can see everything! I need to run upstairs and change...NOW!" Although the dress didn't come from home, we count it among the casualties of the trip as it died then and there in our Samos hotel room.
Also on Rhodes in July, Emily found herself barely able to walk down a mild, dry incline without slipping. The soles of her lavender Crocs sandals had worn away and she was walking on bald shoes. Especially in Old Rhodes Town with its stone paved paths and roads, you would have thought Emily was traversing a Slip N' Slide. She began looking for a cheap pair of replacement sandals - hoping for knock-off Crocs. When she saw them for €8 in the tiny old town of Lindos, the offending pair took their last step and have joined the ranks of the many Greek sandals that met their end in Rhodes over the millennia.
When we left home, Emily had packed a pink sundress she wore occasionally to the pool or beach. I have never told her anything she wears looks bad except for this one, hideous dress. I thought she would take notice and become concerned when I told her wasn't her prettiest dress, given I never say anything like that. Ever. But like people do with favorite old shirts and underwear, Emily clung to the pink sundress. So, we made a deal that if she could buy a new one on Crete that July, she would get rid of the old dress. That was a well spent €35. So far as I know, the pink dress is rotting in a Cretan landfill.
The Aegean is the saltiest sea I've been in aside from the Dead Sea. I blame its powerful composition for what happened to my swim shorts. The velcro of the fly literally started separating from the nylon. The glue just disintegrated and left me being ....careful....while wearing them. Given, they were cheap Target swim shorts. But they didn't make it more than two months.... Emily bought me new ones when she went home for two weeks in October. They have not seen the Aegean and have held up in other waters.
Ripped seams continued to be my burden. In October, I dashed through the Rome airport trying to make a tight connection between Nice and Istanbul. I wrote about the whole shocking story in the post "This Time For Istanbul!" But the key is that while running withmy dress shoes on and my cheap $10 carry-on backpack filled to the brim, the pack bounced harder than the straps could take. The poor bag sustained an unrecoverable injury. It had lasted more than five years and had a great volume capacity. We had been through a lot together.
Emily and I taped it up and got it through one last flight to Kathmandu where we replaced it with the current green, North Face knock-off that has continued with us since. Cheap Black Backpack from Bali died died its final death in Kathmandu - an unfortunate place to meet one's ending....
All was fine for awhile until December when Emily was washing her hands at a restaurant in Alleppey, Kerala, India and her cheap $20 travel wedding ring that she so enjoyed dropped off her finger and fell down the drain. We don't chase down Indian drains. She now wears a $4 silver ring we bought on the streets of Alleppey.
Again in Alleppey, a terrible tragedy befell as Emily's computer headphones she used for her live lectures and Skype calls cracked around my head. The headphones were meant to go around the back of the neck. In my clumsy, oafish way, I put them over my big, fat head...and snap.... I was lucky to survive the next 24 hours. With some super glue, we managed to hold them together until February. The heat died down when we bought her a new, slimmer - albeit cheaper quality pair - in Bangkok. Unfortunately, again in my clumsiness when I borrowed them, I didn't put them back in the bag correctly and the tip of an ear piece ring broke off, making it hard to fit around one's ear. I am again shamed and sad. And take full responsibility for my misdeeds. Despite my many offers to buy new headphones, Emily has decided that these still work for now and will wait until we get home for a new, higher quality pair.
Emily had a goal for this year. After her 55 lb weight loss that led up to our wedding, she wanted to get a wardrobe full of cute, new clothes. That's why she picks out a new dress in each country we visit. However, Bali inspired the shopper in Emily. With the low prices and plethora of clothes she liked, Emily went on a mission to replace all her old tank tops that hung loose and unflatteringly on her. Once she had collected an entire new set of shirts and many pants, she was faced with a lack of space in her bag.
That's when Emily became unexpectedly emotional and torn. She was afraid to toss aside her "fat clothes", as she likes to call them. They were big and comfy. She felt skinny in them because they were so big, even if she understood they weren't flattering. Leaving them behind left her with no other choice than to wear tighter clothes that showed of her current body. Emily held her breath and tossed aside all the old tank tops - except one. She needed something to hold on to.... However, a large pile of shirts met their demise in mid-April at the house in Bali.
Singapore was a bad place for our stuff. Yet, we were thrilled that things broke in Singapore and considered it one of the biggest blessings of the trip because things can be very easily replaced in Singapore. When the AC adaptor of the power cord to Emily's computer began to fry, we weren't yet sure of the problem. When her computer would no longer charge, we began to hope it was the power cord.
A quick walk two blocks took us to the largest of Singapore's computer and IT malls. Up one level, first shop we came to had a broad selection of replacement AC adaptor cords. Within minutes they identified the problem and found us a suitable replacement. The crisis was over in a matter of 30 minutes.
A day later, I stumbled on nothing more than an ordinary cement curb, somehow catching the toe of my sandals. The toe strap tore from the sole and I was walking down the street with a floppy shoe. Despite some super glue from the nearby 7-Eleven and an embarrassing repair session on the curb of the very swanky neighborhood we were in where some guys laughed at me.... there was no saving my beloved sandals. They had been going for years, made it most of the way around the world and walked their last step a day after the glue transplant failed. Two brown Kenneth Cole sandals died that die in a small, dark Singapore hotel room. RIP.
Two days ago, our most recent - and hopefully final - death of the trip took place. Emily was walking down the soi on the way to lunch when she felt something different in her left shoe. She glanced down to find the toe strap of her sandals had frayed and were literally hanging on by a thread. Her favorite pair too - $20 from DSW. Emily made it through lunch and walked carefully back to the hotel where the sandals were laid to rest. Bangkok claims another casualty.
Of course, along the way, we've added many things and sent numerous shipments of plunder - treasure from the orient - and the western world too. We have new clothes, old clothes and fantastic stuff to decorate our future home.
As we enjoy these things, we'll remember they came at a price beyond mere Euros, Shekels, Baht, Rupees, Rupiah, Lira, Dong, Kip, Ringgit, Sing Dollars and Hong Kong Dollars... they were wrested off the backs of the fallen - the things we left behind.
Sent from my iPad
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