BORING BAGGAGE, A LETTER TO MYSELF
After one month, what do I need? This is a boring letter to myself and anyone else worried about what to take on a trip who is willing to listen to my travails.
But first let me take you to the top of the hill behind Efi’s Rooms where I am staying. Yesterday was a cold and very windy day. Wolfgang says that people who live here have never experienced such a cold October. But since it is balmy here compared to Asheville, at least at night, and I know no better the weather has seemed just perfect.
But it sure was windy yesterday. Efi’s road got steeper and steeper as I walked up the hill. No cars could make their way here and everyone living here had to park their cars at the top of the hill and walk down.
Up and up and up I went until suddenly there were no houses and on the best property in Naousa with the widest view there was a huge rocky field with stone walls and a carpeting of pastel thorn bushes and an overpowering wind.
I teetered around over the rocks and took photographs of Naousa far below.
I came down the other side of the mountain on a faint path between the rocks that petered out, climbed over the wall of someone’s patio and walked around their porch and down their steps and out their front gate, passed a huge house with an elegant swimming pool,
without a person in sight at the end of the season with only a few cats around and suddenly I was back to Efi’s house. Don’t bother to read the rest of this entry unless you are interested in baggage, but you can skim through and see the photographs.
I’ve entered that uncomfortable period of a trip when you can’t enjoy being where you are because your antennae are out and you are trying to get ready for the unexpected. That said, I am determined to enjoy one last meal of snails tonight before I get on the ferry to Athens tomorrow morning.
Susie let me know that her oversized, overweight, impossible to lift carry on bag with size limits and no more than 18 pounds caught up with her when she was boarding the Philadelphia to Asheville flight. Too big, the guy at the counter said, will it fit in the rack outlining the approved size, Susie looked at the little rack dubiously, obviously it wouldn’t. She had needed help to get it into the overhead compartments on the Athens to Philadelphia flight and it barely fit there. But, miraculously, he didn’t charge the $70 our cheap tickets are charged if we check a bag. He just checked it and it came out on the baggage carousel in Asheville without added charge.
But that has gotten both of us to thinking. She is bringing some books to Germany which will be added weight and if she or I buy anything in Germany that will put us more in jeopardy.
So we’ve decided to buy a checked baggage size bag in Germany, put both of our extra stuff in it and let her come home, before me, unworried with the extra stuff in checked luggage. We can split the $70 cost.
I am also reevaluating my ability to travel for two months with a lot of electronic stuff and keep both my bag size and weight within legal limits. I always bring too much on a trip, everyone does. But this time I evaluated and reevaluated what to bring.
I was right not to bring my computer, the hacked computer which has been sitting mute all this time. SD cards and the cloud have been able to hold all my photographs.
But one long sleeved shirt of the three I brought is uncomfortable, partly because of Efi’s ministrations, and I am going to leave it here. I brought four cameras. I have used my new iPhone 13 Pro camera the most and it takes quite adequate photos. I have two very good compact Sony 100 V and VI cameras that are easy to carry, one for closeups and one for telephoto shots and have only used the telephoto VI. I could have left the V at home.
Because I could, I brought an Olympus EM3 that is a very good camera with a very good, quite expensive, 12-100 mm all purpose lens that is quite heavy. I can put both in my vest. I am going to take them both out this afternoon and use them to see if the photographs are any different from the other camera. But the problem is that they are big and heavy and obvious and intrusive and a nuisance to take with me. I wanted to use them mainly in Germany to photograph Kathe’s home town and friends. I can get them into my 30 pound vest so the weight doesn’t matter. But I am guessing that I won’t bring them on other trips. The other thing I haven’t used is those little airplane allowed toiletry items sold in drugstores. I am still using the shampoo and soap from the Acropolis Hotel three weeks ago. Next time all toiletry items are going to be bought where I am going. I also have a couple of electronic items I haven’t made much use of. I could cut out about five pounds in all. But generally I have learned that I can travel very easily with 18 pounds in a carry on and a few heavy items stuffed in my vest.
More than that I have learned that life in Greece is something that I can handle quite easily, luggage included. All of the projected fears have proven baseless. No pickpockets or thieves are circling Efi’s rooms. I am perfectly safe. The biggest danger if am facing here is tripping. And when I think of falling on the ice and bouncing my head on the pavement as I looked in my mailbox, or when flew into the air as Kathe was washing the deck and landed on my back on the steps down, I am every bit as safe here as in Swannanoa, probably more so since I am careless at home and careful here. So I am much more relaxed about my upcoming trips.
The message here is that if an octogenarian can travel easily and safely and comfortably and cheaply it is time for you to get off your duff and take off.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 