Dork Reports

Everyone knows that I´m terrible at packing. It´s probably the most dreaded part of traveling for me. I have a highly dorky amount of fun buying things for my trips – but the thought of putting all those things into one centralized location like my backpack makes me want to die. For this trip, I bought a lot of stuff that I thought I absolutely needed but probably didn´t. Everything I looked at made me think I needed something else. A couple of weeks of my life were put on hold as I had to wait for UPS and FedEx to deliver my travel (and Hanukkah) goodies. Swiss army knife with free binoculars that make me want to throw up when I look through them, sleep sack, noise-cancelling headphones, travel books, camera, waterproof case for camera, the list goes on and on. It´s funny how the mind works – you save some money on airfare and then suddenly it justifies using the saved money for gear. Just going to stores like REI is enough to excite me even though I´ve traveled without sophisticated gear before. But, I shopped anyway, because it´s my favorite part of trip planning, and in my head I am adventurous and therefore need the stuff. Unfortunately, South America´s temperatures range like crazy, so I guess that means I´m going to have to buy some winter gear down here because it was too bulky to bring. Yay.