Last-minute(ness)

I should be packing right now.

When I told people I was going to keep working at my job up until the day before I left for the trip, most people had the same reaction: "Are you nuts???" As it turns out, I just know myself too well. I have never been able to pack for a trip more than 12 hours in advance. Case in point: waking up at 4am to pack my suitcase for my semester abroad in New Zealand. The alternative is just too stressful. After all, I'm going to need my toothbrush the morning of departure! And how can I possibly pick out a traveling outfit in advance? If it's chilly the morning I leave, God forbid I've already packed away my favorite fleece... So here we are, T-minus 6 hours until we depart for the airport, and I'm sitting in my pajamas with an unpacked suitcase writing a blog entry.

For those of you that know the background of our trip preparation, this should come as no surprise. Casey took care of all of the nitty-gritty details of planning the trip (ie: which countries we would go to and everything we'd do there). This freed me up to plan, well, nothing. And I couldn't have been happier about it. There was a brief period during which he felt bad for not including me and I felt bad for not contributing. It took us approximately 15 minutes to establish that there was a reason for our prospective roles. I could not have cared less which local train we'd be taking from Antibes to Blois, and Casey could not have cared more.

This leaves me in an interesting predicament. You (the blog reader) and I are actually in very much the same position. I am excitedly anticipating the unveiling of what we will do in each city along our route. So in many ways, we'll be taking this journey together. Casey, on the other hand, has yahoo-ed and googled and yelped and highlighted and printed and purchased and just about memorized each detail of the trip. And, of course, he's been fully packed for weeks. So, after a year of planning and a year of not (respectively), Casey and I are both feeling fully prepared to embark on our journey.

...I just need to go pack.