One week to go

This time next week I’ll be in London on my way to St Pancras station, where I’ll be catching the Eurostar to Amsterdam.

I have two nights booked in Amsterdam and then two nights booked in Paris at the end (Eurostar home from Paris). I have two chunks of time booked in the middle, for specific events (Ferrara for four nights to coincide with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair) and Valencia for three nights to coincide with the end of Fallas – which I haven’t experienced in four decades!).

Other than that I will be deciding as I go. Currently, I’m thinking [Amsterdam], Berlin, Munich, maybe Verona, [Ferrara], Florence, La Spezia, Genoa, Nice, Montpelier, Barcelona, [Valencia], Seville, (bus to) Faro, Lisbon, Porto, Bordeaux, [Paris]. But… I am prepared to cut out some of the stops and stay longer in places if I’m finding it tiring. Also might consider heading straight south and leaving Germany for another trip, if it’s too cold. And, I’m also willing to do shorter stops places, and spend more time on trains, because I really do love train travel (ask me again in 6 weeks and I may have a different opinion, of course). I will also need to be prepared for things like train strikes (these happen in Europe, too), maintenance work on lines and so on.

I have a global two month pass, so I can be flexible. I am planning to mostly take the smaller, slower trains that require no reservation, though I will take at least a couple of the fast ones just to experience proper modern train travel (because we haven’t really got that in the UK – most of western Europe has been building super fast train lines and modern trains over the past few decades; we haven’t).

Packing

I have a couple of things to pick up today and few clothes that are in the washing machine. So from tomorrow, I intend to be fully packed (or as close to it as I can get – my iPad won’t go in the bag until the last minute!) and I will also do a walk carrying my bags to ensure they’re manageable.

I am trying to pack as light as I can. Which is a definite challenge. I’ve got a lot better with clothes over the years, from taking away a different dress for every single day to just a handful of basic outfits. And, I will be washing as I go – 5 weeks of underwear would take up a backpack of its own! I will have a couple of vests, a pair of cycling shorts, one dress, one skirt, one shirt, jeans and a t-shirt, plus undies. If I get fed up wearing the same clothes all the time, I’ll discard/donate (depending on whether they’re donatable) and buy something new.

My biggest challenge in packing light is art supplies and books (including sketch- and notebooks). I have compressed down my art supplies into a much smaller pencil case and varying colours across supplies (so I have Posca pens in a couple of colours, Caran D’ache Necolor in a couple of other colours, pencils in a couple of other colours, etc. I also bought some ink cartridges and will just have a black fountain pen. And a blackwing pencil. ONE paperback sketchbook. When I fill it, I will post it home and buy another. I am going to buy a notebook when I get there, because I love European exercise books (really hoping that the Dutch have similar ones to French, Spanish and Italian, now), for journaling. And I will take two fiction paperbacks. And when I finish one I will leave it for someone else to enjoy – e.g. at hotels or hostels, etc. – and buy a new one (whenever I’ve travelled in Europe there have always been plenty of English-language books in bookshops, plus when I’m in France and Spain I can pick up something in French or Spanish).

I bought a tiny, really cheap, and not very powerful laptop to take with me. My Surface Book is really heavy and its battery has pretty much given up staying charged for more than half an hour. I am not planning to do publishing work while away, but do want to be able to write and also this way I can do a bit of work if I need to or feel the urge. I will be doing illustration work while away – the iPad is fully portable and that’s what I do pretty much everything on. I’m considering getting Affinity Designer on the iPad so I can put together patterns on the iPad too, as I’ve not been able to do that well on the iPad and still default to desktop Illustrator, which I don’t think the crappy laptop can handle.

Eeek

So now really all that’s left is to work through the nerves about going away for such a long time. I know it will be an amazing experience for me (also know that there will be frustrations along the way and it won’t be constantly amazing) and I am really glad I’m doing it, but it’s also a bit daunting to be away from my family for longer than I have ever been away from them. I’m fairly sure that a week is the longest any of us have been apart. Of course, they’ll all be fine, there are no worries about that, but it will be weird not to be there in person with them for so long.