Each trip that we have taken so far has posed different challenges with respect to the 3 P’s of abroad life: Planning, Packing, and Partying. Fortunately, we are generally only away from our home sweet duom for 2 or 3 days, so the stress of traveling is pretty minimal. That all changed, however, with fall break – could we hit 3 cities in 10 days? Clearly we had to be strategic about our preparations for this break. We want to give you a few tips on how to avoid stress and actually relax during this vacation…
To Check, or Not to Check…
Packing for a long trip can bring along a lot of anxiety. Every girl knows that the clothes you bring can sometimes make or break a trip. With no hesitation, we knew that a trip of 10 nights consisting of three different destinations meant that we would be checking a bag. We knew we had to be very considerate of the different climates, physical activities, and nights out that we would have to dress for. We had to make several difficult choices, including: the number of boots to pack, whether it was worth it to bring workout clothes, and how many sweater repeats were socially acceptable.
After a lot of packing and repacking, we finally made our decisions and were excited to leave for our journey! However, after weighing our bags at the desk and learning that we would have to pay 14 euros for every kilogram over the weight limit, we entered into panic mode. There we were, looking at an extremely hefty fine and dreading the fact that we still had 3 more flights throughout the week on the same airlines! After thinking quickly on our feet, we opened our bags and put our heaviest clothes and boots on, and stuffed as much as possible in our carry on bags. Thankfully we got the overweight penalty down to something manageable and were able to make it through the flight with the heaviest carry-on bags in the history of carry-ons! If we have one tip for you, weigh your bags ahead of time to spare yourself the airport embarrassment and being extremely hot on the plane in 10 layers of your heaviest clothing!
Slow and Steady…
Traveling for a long period of time poses another challenge: learning how to pace yourself. And no, we are not referring to jogging or running a race. We mean pacing your nightlife. While travelling, it is only natural to want to hit up all of the coolest bars and nightclubs in each city. But fall break isn’t just 2 nights of fun…it’s 10. Despite our best efforts, we have learned during our time abroad that it is physically impossible to go out every night and be a functioning human being during the day. Plus, our daytime schedules during fall break were chock-full of museum tours, monument visits, and other cultural activities. Our mission: find the perfect balance between fratty party animal and mature, cultured tourist.
Luckily, before our trip, several friends had described to us the nightlife in each city that we’d be visiting, so we were able to make informed decisions. Due to our blatant American appearances and inability to speak a word of French, we knew that our chances of getting into a club in Paris were slim. We also knew that after hours of dining at amazing French restaurants, we’d likely slip into a food-coma around 10 pm. With this in mind, we decided to save our nights out for our time in Copenhagen. Plus, who wants to climb the Eiffel Tower hungover? By dividing our nights into some rather antisocial movie-watching and other “nights on the town,” we were able to make the most of our entire trip…and return to Florence with functional livers.