Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [9]
To dress up the outfits, Cheryl will adorn her shoulders with a silky, diaphanous scarf that folds up to the size of a small fist. Her new rain jacket, in reversible shades of blue, looks just as stylish and also scrunches up compactly. For protection against the sun, she gets a wide-brimmed crushable Tilley hat with lots of mesh to keep her head cool. She’s susceptible to insect bites, so some of her shirts and socks come from Buzz Off, a manufacturer that impregnates its clothes with permethrin. The tags say the garments are 99.48 percent fabric and .52 percent insect repellent, and carry a warning: “It is a violation of Federal Law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.” This worries us a bit for Singapore, where the strict disciplinarians who run the country might mete out lashes to her feet if she’s caught employing the socks as an emergency doggie bag.
For walking shoes, Cheryl packs a pair of Wolky sandals—black, of course—that look fine for evening wear in dark restaurants after the day’s dust is brushed off. As a backup, she originally chooses a pair of Pumas, the chic closed-toe athletic shoes of the moment. Then she spots and stops a speed-walking woman on a Santa Fe street to ask about her shoes, which seem to be exceptionally comfortable and are less typically American in appearance. They are Cole Haans with Nike Air-Soles, a bargain she swears to Bill at three times the cost of the Pumas, now tossed aside.
The selection of swimsuits turns out less generous in options. Determined to avoid shopping in the “mature swimsuits” section of local stores, Cheryl heads instead to online and catalog merchants, who all report as early as March that her size is already sold out—or more likely in her mind, not really made—except in special spandex models. She orders a few of these “miracle” suits, advertised for their ability to shear off “at least ten pounds!” Once she manages to wedge herself into the industrial-strength spandex, she realizes immediately that the ten pounds is simply squeezed outside the fabric, making the extra adipose tissue bulge more prominently. In the end, she sticks with an old two-piece tankini suit, and vows to take up swimwear design in her next life.
In addition to clothes, our bags must hold an assortment of other stuff, much of it purchased especially for the trip. Our old cell phone works only in the United States and doesn’t handle e-mail. Out it goes for a new T-Mobile PDA model with international calling and Internet capabilities, dubbed by Cheryl “Mobi Deux” (or just Mobi for short) after a French phone we bought once for use in Europe. Our digital camera, just a few years old, is already pixel-challenged and must be replaced; and to take notes on the fly, we need a downsized microcassette recorder small enough to carry in a pocket or purse.
The rest of the packing list includes a dozen mysteries, eating guides to Singapore and Sydney (both ordered online from the respective cities), many maps, vitamins for both of us, a customized first-aid and over-the-counter drug kit, the travel charger for Mobi and the appropriate electrical adapter plugs, lots of blank microcassette tapes, umbrellas, a small sewing kit, laundry supplies, and as vital as anything, duct tape for on-the-go repairs of all kinds. To treat food and drink spills on clothes, a frequent problem for us, we’ve got several Tide to Go stain remover sticks.
Instead of lugging along a load of guidebooks and language manuals, we review them before the trip, photocopy some important pages, and decide what other information should be summarized succinctly in destination notes on each of our stops. It still amounts to a substantial amount of paper, but it gets left in hotels on our departure from countries and slowly dwindles to nothing, providing growing room for purchases. The notes cover basics about the cuisine, recommended restaurants, tipping