Diana, Princess of Wales

So today is the 13th anniversary of Princess Di's untimely death. We had no idea until a very snippy British woman clued us in... it was a very obvious-american moment. But on the gates of Kensington Palace were transformed into a memorial for her and it was really interesting to see how much she meant to people.

Princess Diana once said "I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts" and it's clear by the demonstration of admiration, even 13 years after her death, that she was.

Guardian of the shrine:

Packing.

So this weekend was basically a never-ending list of last minute to-do's. For example, yesterday I went to Fresh Market (RIP Albertsons), Rite-aid, Walgreens, Target, Costco, and Borders to pick up some last minute things I realized I'd forgotten about!

And then I got down to business.

The longest vacation I've ever been on has been about 10 days... and I mostly needed only swimsuits. I've never had to pack for four months, and I've never had to pack clothes that will hold up in summer, fall, and winter weather! However, with a little (okay a lot) help from my mom, frequent phone calls to my travel buddy Jordan, Jean Paul who was nice enough to weigh my freaking heavy suitcase, and my ex-roommate Brooke Lebaron laughing at me, we got the job done!

So all of this.....

... needs to fit into this:

My puppy was really helpful...

All finished! almost

Ohh.. yep. 11.5 lbs over the weight limit..

with some rearranging and the discovery of a larger carry-on bag we got it down to

So with a few more adjustments my suitcase now weighs 48.6 lbs. Pretty good huh? I will be leaving the United States tomorrow morning at 10:45 AM and my next blog post will be from LONDON.

Cheers!

To-do list

So London is only 12 days away (not that I'm counting or anything) and I have to say I'm feeling extremely unprepared. There are so many little things to take care of before I board the plane at 10:45 AM on August 30! For example, I have to:

• sign up for international health insurance,
• register with the US consulate (... if anyone knows what that is, please help me!),
• collect a binder of my genealogy (because apparently my ancestors hail from Europe... shocker... it's not like I'm white or anything...),
• and I need to order my school books from amazon.co.uk. Just to name a few.

My actual to-do list is much longer, I assure you.

OH, and one more thing I need to do: I absolutely cannot forget to inform my bank that I will be out of the country for the next four months, because otherwise they will think that my debit card has been stolen when someone starts using it in the UK, which is understandable.

But can you imagine anything worse than being in London without a debit card? :)

2 weeks and counting..

I have a confession to make:

I have NEVER been out of the United States.

However, in about 2 weeks, that will change. I am moving to London, England to study abroad and for the next 4 months I will call 27 Palace Court my home! Isn't that cool? I have a permanent address in London.

And did I mention that the London Centre is down the street from Kensington Palace? Where the royal family lives?