Okay, so I thought I was all done with booking stuff for the trip. Then I found out that York is hosting an international Shakespeare festival while I’m there, so I went to take a look at what was playing. I was very pleased to find that there’s a performance of King Lear while I’m in the city1, and I nabbed a ticket for that.
I was really hoping that there would be something fun playing at Stratford-Upon-Avon that I could see, but I’m in the area at a time when there’s nothing that interests me2. I may even skip taking the train out there from Oxford to see the place; it’s going to depend on how I’m feeling and what there I still have left to see in Oxford on the day I have free. We’ll see.
Anyway, I had some free time today, so I started packing. Actually, I’m almost finished packing. And laying out my travel clothes for when I head to the plane. Yes, I realize that it’s still almost two weeks before I leave, but I wanted to start figuring out what I’m taking and how I’m carrying it, so I started fitting things into bags, and one thing led to another…
My trips to Ireland have really encouraged me to pack light. I carried less on my second trip than I did on my first, and I’m carrying less on this trip than I did on either of the first two. Part of that is that I went from an iPad and laptop electronics loadout to a Surface Pro 3. The Surface does everything that I need a laptop for3 in the convenient form-factor of a tablet. So, only one device. Well, two, counting my iPhone.
I’m also only bringing clothes for about a week, expecting to wash things like socks, underwear, and t-shirts in my hotel sink, and get the more cumbersome items – pants, heavier shirts – washed in laundromats or by hotel laundry services.
Everything packs pretty neatly into my trusty Tom Bihn Aeronaut 45 and my new(ish) Tom Bihn Pilot. I say new(ish) for the Pilot because I took it down to GenCon last year, but this is its first big trip. Aside from being a convenient personal item size carry on bag, it’ll make a very nice day pack as I wander the streets and byways of the UK. It’ll easily hold my Surface, my camera, a sweatshirt4, my rain shell, a bottle of water, and a few snacks. And the Surface can stay at the hotel most days, so it’ll have a little extra room for picking things up on my rambles.
And now, I sit, waiting to add the last couple of items to my bags on the day I leave.
Tapping my foot impatiently.
- I like King Lear more than I like Romeo and Juliet, which I’m seeing in London at the Globe. What was I really hoping for? The Tempest, or maybe Macbeth. Julius Caesar would have been good, too, or Much Ado About Nothing. Oh, well. [↩]
- A week after I’m gone, the Royal Shakespeare Company puts on Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. I would love to see that. [↩]
- Processing and storing pictures, keeping the blog up to date, etc. [↩]
- Well, really a long-sleeved, light-weight merino wool pullover. [↩]