Partying and Packing

Wow, wow, wow... I feel so loved and appreciative towards the friends and family that came out and celebrated with me last Saturday. It was a great way to say goodbye to people and to catch up with those I haven't seen in awhile. Thank you all so much! :)

An even bigger shout out to my family for putting this all together. If you know my mom Sherise, you know all she needs is a theme and she will have the best party planned. She and my sister Petrea did an AMAZING job decorating Perfect Pour Taproom (shout out to Perfect Pour for being wonderful and hosting us. Also, 10 out of 10 on the beer). The room looked awesome and Sherise even found a Peace Corps flag to take pictures with. I will definitely be bringing those photos with me.

As much as I wish I could keep blabbing on about the party, I really want to talk about packing... I think a majority of my anxiety these last couple of weeks has been the packing process. And it has been a PROCESS. This whole summer, I have been stock piling everything I needed in the spare room. Hiking boots, a sleeping bag, sweaters, etc... The mountain of stuff grew bigger and bigger every day.... Then with only 8 days left at home, I decided to start packing and thats when the "fun" began.

It first started with getting my luggage out of the attic. These were the suitcases I used last time I moved over 5,000 miles away to Lithuania so I thought hey, they brought me luck then, why not now?! WRONG! Suitcases in the attic plus THE FLORIDA HEAT equal rough looking luggage... Like, melted handles, rough... That's how I went on my 3 store journey to try and find suitcases that meet the dimension requirements. Sherise and I in the aisles of the luggage departments with a tape measure and a calculator was a a pretty funny sight. Spoiler alert... I did not find luggage to meet those requirements so fingers crossed.

Now, finding winter clothes in the middle of summer in Florida was a challenge of its own but getting said clothes into my suitcases was the real battle. This is were TikTok became my BFF (it always is my BFF but that's between my FBI agent in my phone and me....) I saw a video of a girl traveling with just a carry on and she used space bags that had a portable hand pump to suck the air out. I thought, perfect! That's what I need to get all my stuff there. And it actually worked to my surprise because with TikTok videos, you have a 50/50 chance of it actually working. I got the bags, the cutest little pink pump and shrunk my sweaters and jackets down to nothing. But space wasn't going to be my foe in this adventure. It would be weight...

Whoever came up with the 50 lbs rule for each bag is now my least favorite person. After about 6 hours of shrinking clothes, getting rid of a lot of stuff to not bring, and shoving socks and vitamins into hiking boots, I am STILL over 50 lbs.... But I have embraced that fact and am willing to pay for an overweight bag. So after packing, I have two suitcases, a hiking backpack that is FULL, and a personal carryon item. OH! And remember that sleeping bag I mentioned? That is officially strapped to my backpack. Every time I put the backpack on, I feel like I am going to topple over from the weight. Once I get to North Macedonia, I might need to see a chiropractor, but I got it all packed!

Every 30 minutes I keep thinking of something that I forgot to pack or something I still need that is already packed. Packing anxiety was not something I thought I would have in this journey but WOW has it hit me hard these last couple of days. I'm sure this will keep happening for the next 7 days and I'm also 100% positive I'll forget something. But the #1 rule of living abroad is to be flexible! That, and don't lose your passport... Thanks Rotary Youth Exchange for teaching me that. My next big goal is to get my things that I am leaving behind packed away. My mom is calling this week "Hannah's Favorite Things Week". Sunday dinner is a full Thanksgiving meal and my favorite Thai food is later on in the week. I could get used to this. The countdown is officially 7 days until I ship out to DC. Lots to do, not a lot of time.