Brief Encounters with the Agora

After class ended at 12:45pm, my friends and I headed over to cross some things off our “Athens scavenger hunt” (an assignment we have to do, where we document certain things to get ourselves oriented with Athens). The two major things we hoped to do were go to the flea market and the Agora. We wanted to spend more time at the Agora, so we figured we could hurry through the flea market to get our picture, have a quick look, and spend the rest of the afternoon frolicking in the Agora (an ancient marketplace).

The flea market was a huge waste of time. Everything was ridiculously overpriced, and the stuff I could barter for, I didn’t really want. Most of it was gross, and groping hands were reaching out everywhere. We hurried around and got to the Agora by around 1:30, 2 pm. 

After spending some time in the Stoa of Attalus (which was recreated and now houses a small museum), we made our way through the ruins of the larger stoa, heading towards the Hephaesteion (temple of Hephaestus, and possibly the best preserved temple in Ancient Greece). 

Then, it happened. 

We heard the shrill sound of a whistle. Some… guy… was blowing on his whistle and telling everyone to leave. At 2:45pm. When the place is supposed to be open until 5pm. Was there a fire? Were bandits in the area, looking to seize the artifacts? No, no… it was nap time.

Alright, guy, I know you want your siesta—I want naps all the time, trust me, I understand—but you can’t close the Agora at 2:45pm! It’s kind of a big deal and a lot of people come from all over the world to see it, and you’re turning them away because you want to leave! You are not more important than the Agora!

We decided to sneak in some time between a class and a field trip tomorrow to come back and finish seeing everything. Because this is just ridiculous.

I had a consolatory gelato before heading back to the hotel. There's nothing like ice cream to cheer me up.

Civil Disobedience

“Do you hear that? Sounds like a protest,” my roommate Cassie says as we wander into the Temple of Olympian Zeus. “Wanna go check it out?” I say, enticed by the opportunity to observe civil disobedience. We followed the noise and chants for about 15 minutes until we finally arrived at the source:

(I took videos, which I'll upload (hopefully) soon, here are pictures for now)

The police were standing nearby with riot-gear on, watching patiently and giving the protesters plenty of room to march. Even the traffic diverted itself so the protesters could use the street (and this is a major street, equivalent of a highway), which was pretty impressive, since Athenian drivers don’t stop for anything. We tried to figure out why the protest was happening, but figured we could just ask one of the participants.

After asking around until someone vaguely understood English (even though they didn’t speak it very well, they could understand our questions), we found out that they aren’t happy with the current man in charge (he’s very dictator-like, apparently) and want to see changes in the government union.

What I found most fascinating about this entire event was the relationship between the police and masses. I’ve personally never had a bad experience with an American police officer, but I do know plenty of people who hate the police (most often because of how strictly they enforce drug laws, next most often because of how strictly they enforce traffic laws). Athenians and their police have a completely different dynamic—likely because the police officers here are extremely lax in enforcing drug/traffic laws, which I think they consider petty—and the protesters seemed to appreciate having the police around. The officers stood afar and observed, ready to intervene if things got violent but offering plenty of room to protest. They were even redirecting traffic instead of breaking up the protest!

The Greeks seem to be much less apathetic about their politics and government than Americans, too. Protests apparently happen very frequently here, though I can't say how effective they are. It’s also interesting to see “The Socialist Party” and “The Communist Party” in the playing field, instead of “The Conservative Party” and “The Slightly Less Conservative But Not Too Much Because We Don’t Want to Offend Party”.

Μοναστηράκι (Monastiraki)

“This… is the best gyro… I’ve tasted in my entire life,” I say, standing amidst a local piazza. The pita was soft and warm. The tzatziki and dill mixed together perfectly with the tomatoes, beef, and onions. And all this for 2 euros! My palette was enthralled to add this to the list of things it’s experienced. I chewed my food almost twice as long before swallowing each bite, savoring every facet of flavor hitting my taste buds.

I’m in Monastiraki, a city-center-esque place with live music, dancing locals, food vendors, and a wonderful gelateria nearby (where, I might add, I got to practice a bit of my Italian). The food is cheap, the mood is warm and inviting, and the scenery… oh the scenery. I have never been this close to the Parthenon, and I’m going there later this week, but watching it lit up at night… It’s love at first sight.

I can still see it from my room and I can’t help but stare. I keep looking back, as if I have a crush on this magnificent piece of history.

Who am I kidding? I do have a crush on the Parthenon.

And I can look at it as much as I want. 

Athens, First Impressions

“There will be another protest today. Yesterday there was 20,000 people, it was peaceful, but more are coming today, I think,” my cab driver says in a thick accent, the reflection in his aviators showing the endless sea of buildings as we make our way into the heart of Athens.

“Why are people protesting?” I ask, having only a vague idea. My neck was stretched so that I could see outside into the city.

“The economy… it’s screwing everyone over. We should just sell off some islands, we have so many already!” he says. I laugh, and he adds, “They’re just some rocks! We have like 1,500 islands!”

He teaches me some basic Greek on the way to the hotel, laughing occasionally at my accent.

“I thought I was doing pretty well with my accent! Is it that obvious?” I ask, somewhat disappointed that my accent was so far off that I roused laughter.

“No, no, it’s not that bad. You just sound unsure of everything,” he says, still chuckling. My inflections, that’s what gave it away. That, and I was speaking at the pace of a sleeping sea cucumber.

I feel like I’ve been to Athens before. The familiarities are unsettling. The city looks like it was plucked out of India—the apartments and houses are remarkably similar to those you’d find in large Indian cities. The geography looks just like Arizona, Athens is in a valley surrounded by sloping hills and the drive from the airport was eerily similar to rides home from Sky Harbor. The physical similarities land me at quite literally the midpoint between my two homes. And the parts that don’t look like Arizona or India—the Acropolis, Hadrian’s Library, et cetera—are still connected to me. A lot of it, I’m sure, is because I’ve studied them for so long, but I also feel like I know them.

But Athens, I’ve come to learn, is a city of contradictions. It’s so familiar, yet completely unfamiliar at the same time. The smells are completely unique. The combination of food, people, locale, humidity... it's very unique. The color is a pale yellow, not as bright as I was anticipating. The language barrier isn’t as bad as I anticipated either, because almost everyone knows English. Reading signs, however, is extremely difficult because I can’t read Greek. I don’t know how to pronounce signs when I see them, nor would I be able to identify places on a map if I became lost. The subway system here is fairly straightforward, but not being able to read any of the signs is still a handicap. I’m still getting a feel for the culture here, I’m watching people interact with each other to get a better idea of what it means to be Greek, and the painting is filling itself in slowly.

Oh, and it’s been raining off and on all day, but the weather is fantastic. The light patters of the raindrops against out balcony door sound like applause. I’m sitting in my hotel room, comfortable, warm. After an uncomfortable week at a hostel and hectic week making sure everything (and everyone) was safe, I am at peace. 

I am in Greece, mere kilometers away from the Acropolis, and I am at peace. 

Greek Thunder

...is not like American thunder. Or Indian thunder. Or British, Irish, Scottish, what have you. No. While thunder and lightning in the rest of the world I've visited so far is, well, what you know and expect, Greek weather doesn't allow the clouds to merely clap a little and shed some tears.

Greek thunder is like being under attack. 

It’s like being inside a drum, around a curious 2-year-old. 

And it's not even raining. Maybe a light drizzle. It’s not difficult for me to imagine why the ancient Greeks attributed these sounds to some divine origin, because normal sky doesn't make these sounds. 

But hey, who knows? Maybe Zeus is really happy to see me. 

Or really angry. 

Let’s hope for the former.

Modern Art (read at your own risk)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m not a fan of modern art. I like it sometimes (well… okay, rarely) because I think a great majority of it is complete BS. But, a day at Tate Modern finally showed me the light. Modern art is just so profound, how could I expect to understand it without the helpful descriptions next to the pieces explaining why I should feel awe at this means of expression? Just looking at art doesn't cut it anymore, I have to be told why I should appreciate what I'm looking at. And my usual reaction—any combination of eye-rolls, deep sighs, shaking heads, and traces of rising vomit in my throat—is as outdated as the styles of art I enjoy.

No. No, this was too deep for a mere plebeian like me to understand. Take this, for example:

It's a ripped, plain, framed canvas. Upon reading the description (I'm not making this up) I was informed that "the tear took so long to plan, but only a moment to execute", which "speaks to the enthralling feeling of rebellion"

Oh, or how about this?

This is a white piece of paper, cut into an uneven hexagonal shape, and taped to the wall. Brilliant.

And of course, the one which really speaks to the viewer was this:

A mirror. The ever changing picture.

Pieces by Constable, Waterhouse, they can't even compare to the brilliance I saw at Tate Modern. 

I can't even type this with a straight face.

I think I need to visit the National Gallery again and cleanse myself. Here's some at-home ointment for you, dear readers:

Haywain, by John Constable

Bacchus and Ariadne, by Titian

I hope that helped. I had entire day of modert art "experiences", and would appreciate a consolatory hug once I return. 

Soho

“This way,” I say, “I think…” not completely sure of my sense of direction. I must have sounded convincing enough, because Hermes followed. The irony that I was the one leading Hermes through this land was ironic, but I’m certain I was the only one who noticed.

Soon enough, we were at the gates of a land I had never heard of before he informed me of its existence. People were waiting outside; two nymphs guarded the door. They let us through after Hermes informed them of who we were. I was observing this new place, quietly following my guide.

The stars twinkle red here. The weather is like a warm, oceanic breeze. The earth begins to shake as a most unexpected voice greets me. It sounds like a machine, a robot. A vine slithers out from behind me and wraps itself snugly around my arms, lifting me up and carrying me carefully.

“Come”, the voice says, “let me show you around.”

I have no choice—my arms are tied—and I begin observing the collection of machines housed in this place. I  follow the voice as it leads me through hallways and rooms.

Hermes whispers “We’re in a different room now.”

I hadn’t noticed.

“Now we’re back!” he continues, thoroughly impressed. He frequently gasps in delight, but I can’t see any walls so I have no idea what’s so impressive. Like a child taking a walk through a modern art gallery, I don’t know what I’m expected to feel about all this, nor do I care. I’m enjoying this ride for what it is—a jazz concert in Soho. 

The National Gallery. Or, how much I like offending other artists.

“It’s bullshit on canvas, that’s what it is,” I say, hoping the noise of the subway drowns out the scene my friend and I are making.

“No way!” he responds. I’m not sure if he truly believes this or if he’s disagreeing with me for the sake of argument. Either way, I don’t mind.

“It totally is. Renaissance paintings, classical paintings… they need so much technique. They’re not just random brush strokes on a canvas—“

“RANDOM BRUSH STROKES?! Grishma, they’re expressing what the artist feels!”

“Who cares about what the artist feels? I'm the one who has to look at it!”

2 months ago, we were having a similar conversation, where I was arguing that it was all about expression, not interpretation and he was arguing the opposite. A few months prior, we were arguing the inverse.

We walk off the subway and begin our ascent to the street.

“I just don’t want people 1000 years from now looking back in time and thinking Pollock was the best we could do. We’ll be dubbed the double-dark ages or something,” I complain.

“Grishma, are you really letting the opinions of other art historians shape the way you view modern art?” he says, his eyebrow raised as it often is.

“No, I just agree with them. Realism is just… on a whole different level. It’s so brilliant.”

20 minutes of debate later, we enter the National Portrait Gallery. A short walk into a hallway, and we’re staring at a horrendous finger-painting of a man and a house. Made by a grown man, no less.

“See what I mean?” I say, drawing out my words so he knows I’m implying I was right all along.

“Okay, but there are realistic paintings that are boring!” he says, and our debate echoes down the hallway as we make our way past other paintings.

Then, we come face to face with the most realistic painting I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a close up of a man’s face, and it looks like a photograph. Black and white. Acrylic on canvas. Both of us stop talking and stare. It is the most brilliant painting I’ve seen that was made after I was born.

About a half an hour later, we’re strolling through the National Gallery, looking at pieces by Monet, Van Gogh, Titian, in awe.

“This one,” he says, pointing to a portrait of some cardinal. “This one’s realistic but I wouldn’t want it in my living room.” It was a pretty boring painting, I admit. I’d much rather have modern art pieces in my house than the Ugly Cardinal Painting.

But, of course, I don’t admit concession when I debate with this particular friend. So, I say “You wouldn’t? Oh come on, you could talk to it every morning with a cup of tea… pretend the cardinal is right there with you…”

We laugh, immersing ourselves in all the different brilliant paintings this building houses. Hours later, we finally finish and head outside in search of a café. I’d been craving a mocha all day, and he was hungry.

We finally end up at Pret, a café just a block away from the Gallery. I sit down on a counter with my mocha and fruit bowl, he sits next to me with a pasta dish and sandwich. The rising steam from my coffee draws my eyes to the view in front of us.

“Where else can you have this view while you eat?” he says

“Only in London,” I say, taking a sip.

My cup is 80% full.

“And he brought out a book and showed me this equation, and he told me that it’s up for debate, that it’s just a theory. It threw me off… how could a human construct invented to make sense of the world  (math) not make sense of something? I wish I could just be okay with not having any real answers…”

My cup is 60% full.

“First day of class—he just sat there. And he didn’t say anything for like the longest time. Then he says ‘I always like to start the class off with an awkward silence.’”

My cup is 40% full.

“Wait I really like this song. Let’s just listen.”

My cup is 30% full. I’m drinking a little more slowly now because I want to keep the conversation going.

“And I mean, I have this conversation with people a lot, I tell them what I think about art. What is art? Can anyone put it in words? I’m just trying to be okay with not knowing.”

My cup is 15% full.

“It’s so interesting that you one word can conjure up so many different things depending on who you say it to.”

My cup is 3% full.

“That was when I realized that I couldn’t relate to Indians the way I did when I was last here. And it took a lot to be okay with this… hybrid culture I was now a part of.”

The remaining coffee has dried at the bottom of my cup, but the conversation doesn't stop. Here, in front of a magnificent building, I enjoy great conversation with a great friend over great food. And, like any other day I would have had a heated conversation with him, we ended the day in lighthearted conversation and a walk.

Oh, but in London this time.

[Suggested further reading here]

Camden

“All the anarchists live here,” my friend says, as we make our way through crowds of tattooed, pierced Londoners in front of shops and pubs.

“This is where me and Kelly are planning on living,” she says and laughs, leading us to an area which used to contain horse stables, but now has cheap thrift stores and food vendors. A familiar smell hits my nostrils and I immediately begin salivating.

“We’re near Indian food. Good Indian food,” I say.

“Right over here,” she continues heading down a slope to a vendor’s shop and getting a plate of rice, vegetable curry and chicken curry. I take a bite and my taste buds do a double take. This can’t be real. London has been the closest to having provided me with delicious Indian food outside of my mom’s kitchen. Honestly, delicious doesn’t do it justice. 

I think the first minute in this video might do the trick:

We walk over and sit by a canal, enjoying the view. In every school (middle school, high school, whichever) there's a group of maybe 6-10 edgy goth kids that keep to themselves. Dyed hair, studs, lots of eye-makeup, you know what I'm talking about. Some of them decided to come to a borough in London and thrive, attracting others like them to come and live here too. That is Camden.

It’s calm and busy simultaneously. It’s grungy and crowded and amazing. Just when I think I have a grasp on understanding London, when the feeling of newness becomes a feeling of familiarity, I encounter things so new that I feel like it’s my first day here.

That, I think, is what draws me to this city so much—there’s always change, always new. 

Why I’m Wearing Lipstick Every Day

“I’m looking for a matte red… not too deep but not too bright, something that’ll complement my skin color, but still pop against it,” I tell the saleswoman in the MAC store. It’s mid-April and I’m here with my friend on our weekly retail therapy session. The woman was slender—making her fake breasts appear that much odder—and presumably beautiful under all that makeup.

“Why do you want to get red lipstick?” my friend whispers to me as the saleswoman looks through the array of colors on the table in front of her.

“Because I want to look different. For Europe,” I say. I've traveled before, but this trip already felt much more different, and I needed a physical way to distinguish that. I'm relying much more on myself this time, and as much as I want to believe I'm an adult and can do everything for myself, a part of me knows I'm only 19.

I'm only 19. 

I turn my attention back to the woman when she holds out a tube. 

“How about this one?” she says, handing me Russian Red. I put it on, making a face of dissatisfaction.

“Something a little less blue…” I say, staring into my magnified lips in a nearby mirror.

“They’re all red, Grishma…” my friend says, refusing to acknowledge the subtle tone differences in the wide array of red lipsticks. “You look like a clown.”

“Like I want to take fashion advice from someone who dresses like that…” I tease, and he huffs and walks over to the blush aisle.

“This one?” the saleswoman says, handing me Scarlet Rose.

“Mm… this one’s a bit more intense than I’d like… I want to look sufficiently different to feel new… but not so different that I’m not recognizable.”

“Then just don’t get red lipstick! Your lips look fine the way they are!” my friend chimes in, still looking at the blush collection. He turns around and mouths “clown”.

I turn my attention back to the saleswoman, and apply the new tube she handed me. “Oh, I love this one! I’ll take it!”

I glance at the name—M.A.C. Red. The original. I pay for the lipstick and toss it into my purse.

“I was hoping for one with a cool name…” I say, walking out with my friend.

“Clown.” And a short pause later, he continues, “let’s go to Hollister.”

Hostel (Still have both my kidneys... so far)

A drop of sweat makes its way past my brow, eager to meet its companion. But their meeting was too much for them to handle. They fell off my cheek and onto the bed.

The fan has a consistent tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat when it works, if it works at all.

“It sounds like an air strike… like machine guns,” Ben says. The Portugese man was attempting to make the fan work in our room—one of the blades had broken last night when the man from New Zealand accidentally tipped it over in his sleep. The Portugese woman and I were trying to make the blinds work so that we could get some light in our room, and get rid of the obnoxious, piercing red color that permeated into everything from these horrendous window coverings.

The light in our bathroom is broken.

At least it’s not noisy on the 6^th floor. And for a group of 20-somethings (and at least one 19 year old), who’re looking for a shower and a safe place to sleep, this is more than enough.  

If you’ve lived in a dorm, you’ve lived in a hostel. Let me clarify. If you’ve lived in Barret, The Honors College, you haven’t lived in a hostel. If you’ve lived on North Campus, you’d be a little closer. I think “dorms” only exist in America, from what I remember, places to live in at school in India are called “hostels” anyway. I wonder if that’s true everywhere else. I wonder what kind of image the word “hostel” conjures up for Americans versus Europeans… the world of semantics is so interesting (and always aggravating).

In any case, there are 8 of us in this room—2 Americans, 2 Portuguese, 1 New Zealander, 2 Germans, and 1 Frenchman. Some are here on vacation, some are using the hostel as a temporary residence while they go house-hunting, the Frenchman is here pursuing a record deal, the New Zealander is from a small town and just up and left to try his luck here.

I have never been among such a diverse group of people in my life. My curiosity is a glutton, and it’s extremely satisfied.

On a side note, whenever anyone asks us where we're from, we always say “America”. Then, they always ask us what state, which is interesting because I don’t imagine people having that much of an interest in American geography. Some know where Arizona is, some don’t, but all ask. Is that a custom? Am I being rude in not asking them which states they’re from in their respective countries?

Natural History Museum

“Wait! Grishma! Come here. Stand right here. Ready?”

“Yeah…”

“Turn to your right.”

“What?”

“Turn to your right!”

“Oh my! What shall we name this mineral?! How about…”

Several bad puns later, my friend and I walk out of the treasure trove of minerals and towards the largest dinosaur-bone collection in the world.

“Hey wait, the world’s oldest human skeleton is here if you want to see it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

These kinds of conversations can only be had in one of my favorite places in London—The Natural History Museum. It's still as grand and wonderful as the first time I visited, and never ceases to leave me in awe. The Nettle Festival has unfortunately passed, but I couldn’t have found a better way to spend my day. The new exhibits were really interesting, and I got a chance to visit some exhibits I missed last time.

Oh, and I found a fossilized Lapras. No big.

One of my More Embarrassing Plane Journeys

The only other person on the plane wearing a hat today is a middle-aged, extremely overweight, cheerful woman. She is wearing a lime green dress with no embellishments or shape. Her hat is made of pale- colored straw and has a white daisy in the front. I think I had an outfit exactly like this when I was six. Her cheeks are red and she’s smiling the brightest smile…

…as she argues with the airline attendant about which seat she is allowed to take.

“Ma’am you have to sit in the seat assigned to you on your boarding pass!”

The woman, let’s call her Daisy, merely laughs and says, “no, I think I’ll sit here,” still smiling.

“Ma’am! Your seat is in that row!”

“No… I think it’s right here…” she continues, chuckling every now and then.

Where is her self-assigned seat? Where, oh fate, oh karma, oh great wheel of life, is the seat she wanted so extremely badly?

If you said “Grishma! It’s got to be your seat!” You’re wrong, but close. She wanted to sit in 25C, and my seat is 25A. No one sat between us.

I am so sleepy at this time that, as soon as I get into close proximity with my seat—when my butt enters the seat’s electron cloud, if you will—my eyes start glazing over and everything becomes blurry. The last thing I remember seeing is Daisy smiling and waving at me from her seat.

4 hours later, Daisy nudges me and says, “we’re going down…” I assume now that she meant the plane is landing, but at my time of sleep-induced delirium, “we’re going down” could only mean one thing.

“Basement,” I mumble, “fri—yawn—day the thirteenth”

My head is still leaning forward against the seat in front of me. My neck is incredibly sore.

“and guess who’s play—yawn—ing Jason.” I continue to mumble to myself, and as I finish up the verse (I can’t stop. I just can’t stop part way. It feels sacrilegious), I realize then what I was doing, pause, and turn my head to look at Daisy. She’s still smiling at me as if I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.

“S-Sorry…” I mutter, leaning back into the seat and stretching my neck.

“Oh no, it’s great! I loved that third one you were mumbling!” she says, still turned towards me.

“What?”

“Yeah, you’ve been mumbling songs for the past 4 hours.”

A wave of consciousness hits me instantly and I become wide awake. According to Daisy, I was sleep-singing-along to songs playing on my ipod as I tried to sleep. I was too tired to realize what I was doing, but too uncomfortable in my seat to legitimately fall asleep. She only woke me up because I’d have to turn off my ipod for the landing. Mortified, I turn off my ipod and put it in my bag. I attempt to laugh it off as the plane begins its descent.

After landing, I go through the potential culprits—everything from Gaga to Weezy had played in the 63-song symphony I quietly mumbled to those around me. Even a song from Arsonists Get All the Girls had played. I wonder what that sounded like.

Pre-Departure Pains

I pick up my hair brush, and put it down. This process repeats itself 4 more times before I toss my hairbrush into a drawer, slamming it shut. I never brush my hair, never more than a comb in the shower.

Hair straightener? No. How often do I even straighten my hair in Tempe? Twice this past year, I think.

I move over to my menagerie of fragrances. Maybe these three…

Three? No. One.

 But…

NO!

I fall into my bed and take a deep breath. By most reality-television-show standards, I’m a borderline hoarder. It’s not to the degree that there are stacks of newspapers everywhere and stray cats wandering around my house, I’ve just always had a problem throwing things away. Everything seems to have potential use, and I’m always afraid that I’ll regret throwing something away. It takes me an average of 6-8 hours just to clean my room, because I can’t throw anything into the trash without thinking about whether I actually want to get rid of it.

All my homework from 6^th grade onwards, handouts, essays, notes, everything. They’re all in a drawer in my room because I can’t throw them away. Each one is a memory, a proof of my existence. How can I voluntarily erase the proof of my existence?

Ticket stubs, maps, receipts… What if, when I’m 90, I forget about all the adventures I had in my youth? What will remind me? I’ll have proof, that yes, on June 13^th 2010, I had mediocre tiramisu in a café in the biggest and most wondrous park in Northern Europe, when my friend and I decided to go to Sutton Coldfield and visit Fred and George Weasely’s hometown on a whim.

But… I haven’t gone through them once. They’re still in their box, sitting, waiting to remind me of all the fun I had. It’s just so much, it looks daunting. It’s daunting to go down memory lane. That’s what’s become of me.

This memoir will suffice, I’ve decided. I will not need souvenirs. I will not need ticket stubs. This will be my proof, my reference. I want to travel as minimally and as lightly as possible.

Total Weight: 30 pounds (including my books for class, which themselves weighed 10 pounds, so really, 20 pounds of my "stuff"). My bag is two hats long, to give you kind of an idea of the size perspective

I’m already getting anxious looking at it, wanting to put more things in my bag. But I won’t. This will be an interesting, uncomfortable, out-of-my-box-and-into-the-neighbor’s-yard experience. And, as any sophisticated hedonist will tell you, I perceive the potential pleasure from actually being able to pull this off being greater than carrying more things now to ensure my comfort.

I wonder how many things I've forgotten to pack… I guess I’ll find out soon enough.