Packing

I’m currently packing for the trip, or rather repacking, as I’m leaving from a business trip in San Diego, which meant bringing like three weeks of clothing ranging from suites for the business portion to shorts for the trip to Australia.

Actually, packing for this trip hasn’t been easy at all. Besides the fact that I tend to over pack anyways, it’s complicated by the time I’m visiting. While it’s spring here in the States (and a beautiful constant 70ish in San Diego) in the southern hemisphere it’s fall. Ok, that part didn’t seem so bad. What’s throwing me for a loop is that the weather in Australia really varies. In Brisbane, where my sister has been living since February, its sub-tropical, and the weather is apparently very much like it is in San Diego. Great, I can deal with that, no problem. In the north, in Cairns, where there’s rainforests and the tropics, it’s still sunny and swim weather. Cool, no problem there either. Here’s where the packing gets tough – in the south (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide) it’s ranging from 65 degrees to the low 40’s at night. So here I am, having to pack for climates ranging from 40 to 90; bringing everything from business attire to casual wear. I feel like a total idiot bringing a wool coat to San Diego in June – especially when it’s packed right between my swimsuit and Tevas.

I actually love those little differences, the fact that the seasons are opposite, that toilet water runs the other way, and the fact that they're a day ahead of us. Actually, the whole time change thing has taken a lot of mindspace lately as it’s made planning this trip with my sister a bit of a challenge, especially as the time difference grew by an additional three hours, despite physically traveling 3,500 miles closer to the country. Got to love that International Date Line. Actually Bill Bryson has a great take on the whole International Date Line thing:

“Each time you fly from North America to Australia, and without anyone asking how you feel about it, a day is taken away from you when you cross the International Date Line. I left Los Angeles on January 3 and arrived in Sydney fourteen hours later on January 5. For me there was no January 4. None at all. Where it went exactly I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that for one twenty-four-hour period in the history of earth, it appears I had no being.

I find it a little uncanny, to say the least. I mean to say, if you were browsing through your ticket folder and you saw a notice that said, “Passengers are advised that on some crossings twenty-four-hour loss of existence may occur” (which is, of course, how they would phrase it, as if it happened from time to time), you would probably get up and make inquiries, grab a sleeve, and say, “Excuse me.” There is, it must be said, a certain metaphysical comfort in knowing that you can cease to have material form and it doesn’t hurt at all, and, to be fair, they do give you back the day on the return journey when you cross the date line in the opposite direction and thereby manage somehow to arrive in Los Angeles before you left Sydney, which in its way, of course, is an even neater trick (In a Sunburned Country).”

Okay back to packing. More when I actually get in country…

Itinerary

6/16 - 6/19: Brisbane
6/19 - 6/22: Melbourne
6/22 - 6/26: Sydney
6/26 - 6/29: Adelaide
6/29 - 7/2: Cairns
7/2 - 7/3: Brisbane