Lots of Monkeys

Honestly the best part about this was the fact that it was uneventful.

All packing was done, so the only thing left was sitting in a metal tube for six hours, most of which went by in that strange twilight state between wakefulness and closing my eyes for, “just a moment” and twenty minutes has passed. There was also a movie and if my photo album is to be believed a surprising amount of Bejeweled.

I find it interesting that once I’m on the plane I am in the moment and there’s not really a lot of anxiety. I am committed at that point and the only thing to do is be polite, try to rest, enjoy the food, and enjoy your company. I did partake of the complimentary Carlsberg on Aer Lingus and had a satisfying but overall forgettable meal.

I open my eyes after one of the long blinks.

This is really happening.

We left the United States at five in the evening. Due to the time zone shift and travel, we arrive in Dublin at five in the morning. We packed only carry on luggage so we are off the plane and in the terminal, skipped baggage claim and headed straight for the exit of the terminal, where I very quickly learn something about Ireland, specifically, its latitude.

Ireland in late June can get up to 17 hours of daylight. On that day in Dublin, there was a total of 16 hours and 57 minutes of daylight, which started promptly at 4:59 AM.

I am not ready for it to be this bright.

We hail a taxi, and arrive at our hotel in the Dublin Castle district, where my partner has arranged for early check-in. The blackout curtains are mercifully effective and we take a nap.

Apparently aparthotel is a word and I'm not sponsored but I had a great experience with StayCity, who again, did not pay me to say that.

So with Ireland in mind, and tickets purchased in advance, and my leave all scheduled at work I started what is the most anxiety inducing portion of travel for me, which is packing. The good news is that I have finally found a coping method.

A spreadsheet.

After years of domestic and convention travel I finally have a spreadsheet template with multiple categories that works. Over the years I’ve noted whether or not an item was used or not and trip over trip, it has been refined to a point where I finally feel comfortable making a copy of the previous spreadsheet and then adding a section for trip specific things like if we are going to a convention and I need a cosplay specific list or in this case, international travel.

Things I would modify after this trip:

• Could have really used a pair of room / shower slippers.
• I did not use the phone gimbal at all for reasons I’ll talk about later.
• Only bringing one pair of jeans
• Travel CPAP is on the list forever

The last one is really game changing. Not only is it incredibly packable, it doesn’t need distilled water. Instead of a water tank it uses a 30 day humidity capture cartridge that was so effective that in one of our hotels I experienced a rainout for the first time in a long while.

Fun Fact: Rainout as described in this link is very tame. Let’s imagine that you’re asleep. Then imagine that a teaspoon of water enters your nostrils, forced in by air pressure. In my case I think my body reacts as if I am drowning.

The list handles a lot of the anxiety and the travel CPAP works as designed. It is compact, easy to fit into another carry on. I know it takes up space but I put it in a medical only bag that has my prescription drugs and I sneak in a snack or two, which I did with my original CPAP bag anyway. The new medical bag is actually a piece of travel luggage with proper handles and organization instead of a protective sleeve that only had a shoulder strap. Anything liquid and in a transparent bag is also in here so I don’t have to dig anything out at security.

So I’m packed the day before and everything is ready. Total luggage count for a two week trip to Ireland:

• One carry on travel backpack
• One Personal Item
• One Medical Bag
• Zero checked luggage

No checked luggage! I made some hard choices to but this was intentional so we could just hit the ground and get to our first aparthotel without waiting for baggage claim. I had some anxiety about cutting some items but I learned I didn’t need them or I could just be flexible around them. I still over packed but not to the level of self detriment that I have in the past.

We'll get to Ireland, I promise. Yes I know aparthotel isn't a word.  

Wherein our hero decides to finally leave the country of his birth for the first time, at the age of 50.

I will admit that travel has never really been a priority for me. When I was younger, my parents, as immigrants, seemed to be focused more on survival in a foreign country rather than the luxury of travel.

So I do not have a lot of experience traveling. What I do have is lots and lots of anxiety about traveling. The possibility of forgetting something critical, delays, the physical discomfort of the act of travel itself, the time involved, work related overhead, expecting unexpected crises of variable natures, getting in and out of the country without incident, and my own personal medical requirements.

But, this was a huge milestone birthday for me. 50.

So when my partner suggested we go to Ireland for our birthdays I took all of those anxieties and this time, threw them out and committed to going abroad for two weeks. Something about my own state of mind and all of the situational contexts of the time that we live in, made saying, “Yes, absolutely!” feel like a decision based less out of want, but more out of need.

I was fortunate enough to have a week of travel already scheduled for a four day cruise, so I used that as a test of what I would need to do. I made lists in spreadsheets and refined them. Learned a couple of things, the most important of which were:

• I needed a travel CPAP
• I over pack

One of these items is simpler than the other (and the other required introspection so of course I put that off for later!) so I decided to work on getting a travel CPAP.

You should know. Traveling with a conventional CPAP machine is terrible. The medical devices are large, bulky, somewhat delicate, and require distilled water at your destination or carrying your own distilled water through security at the airport. This is possible because you can declare it a medically necessary liquid, however, they do make you open it and they test both you and the water for traces of explosives.

On top of all that, it is an additional item you are carrying with you. Which adds to the mental overhead associated with keeping track of bags in the first place, and the anxiety of leaving it behind somewhere is terrifying because if that happens then you are physically unable to sleep.

The first time I traveled with it I forgot a crucial component and rendered it useless, thankfully it was only a weekend convention but lesson learned and now I have a checklist from “wall to face.”

The only travel “benefit” is that as a medical device it does not count against you for bags on a flight and as an added bonus it gets to lay on the storage space in front of your seat and take up all of your leg space.

Fun fact: When I talked to my sleep therapist to get my prescription for the travel CPAP, I learned that insurance will not cover a travel CPAP because apparently sleeping on your vacation is a luxury!

After that first cruise I knew I needed to get a travel CPAP, and a not insignificant amount of money out of pocket later, I had one shipped to me.

With that out of the way I then needed to address the more difficult issue of over packing, which means I needed to unpack my own anxieties.

Yes, I do in fact see what I just did there and please let me know what band "Situational Contexts" is covering.