Hurry up! No actually, just wait.

A close friend of mine spent a lot of time in Australia. She's lent me a few things for this trip, (adaptor, travel books, an Australian cell phone--Grits, thank you again) but by far my favorite thing is the 'Australian Phrasebook'... I cracked it open last night and I fell asleep to words like 'togs, dunny, Barbie'. Also-- what we know as a 'fanny' here in the states is NOT what it is in Oz. I'm not going to explain--- you should probably just google it.

ANYWAYS,

We hurried to the airport, and now we wait until Sydney, which by the way is 4 flights and almost 48 hours away.

Not that I'm complaining... Do we look unhappy?

Done

I'm packed. It's done. I can't believe I made it all fit with room to spare. I am a packing wizard, worship me.

Tomorrow it begins!

Did you remember...?

In less than 30 minutes, I will be one day away. Less than 48 hours from now I will be on a plane.

Everything has gone by so slowly, I've been in limbo since graduating college in December, literally COUNTING down the days and hours and minutes, an it's here and I'm like, 'okay... What the fuck?'

BUT KATIE, DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THAT'S ALL A PART OF THE ADVENTURE?!

I've 'practice' packed, my stress/anxiety is still on a high right now-------
Did I pack earplugs? Did I update my iPod with all the latest tunes and nerdy podcasts?-----Dear god, please say you packed extra underwear. Katie, please... Bring tampons. -----


Part of my sleepless nights, I'm wide awake asking myself to PLEASE REMEMBER ALL OF THESE THINGS AND MORE. So finally, I decided to write it out as opposed to talking it out in my head. HAH.

The picture attached is my to-do' list for the most productive Wednesday I will likely ever have.

So, sleep now? Fingers crossed.

Why packing makes me lose sleep and the words I need to follow.

In 6 hours, I'm one week away from hopping in the car, driving to Cincinnati, getting on a plane, then getting on another plane, then another and then another until--- 2 days later I will be in Sydney, Australia, bright and early at 8:30AM local time.

So, last night I had... I don't think it was an anxiety attack-- but I had a lot of anxiety and stress about this packing for this trip. We are going to be living out of backpacks for 6 weeks. That's not the part I'm stressed about, I'm more worried about WHAT exactly to pack. How many shirts? How many pants? Socks? The biggest kicker...? Underwear and what books I want to bring and what hell kinda music I wanted to listen too. And if you know anything about me, I'm hella good at packing, but it's a damn process.

I was having all these stress-thoughts about underwear, books and music, and wracking my brain thinking about all the last minute things I needed to get-- toiletries, memory card and new battery for my camera-- just a lot. Blah.

I was able to cross a lot of that stress off today, with a little shopping excursion to Target.

On top of that, LP has 'practice' packed her bag to see what fits, what doesn't-- and I was able to see and get feedback on what's she's bringing.

I have a general idea-- but then I remember I'm living out of a back pack and packing 4 pairs of pants ain't gonna cut it. The best advice I've gotten on any my trips abroad would be from Dad ( who definitely knows about packing).

He says, 'Now Katie, take half as much stuff and twice the amount of money and you will be completely set.'

Those words seem so simple! I'm not the kind of girl who needs 3 rolling suitcases an a carry-on bag for my chihuahua. It's just thinking about what I think I want, what I think I need and cutting that in half. Or something.

Okay. Jeez.

I'm sure there will be pictures posted to illustrate the struggle.

Until then.

'To Do' list

I recently graduated from Murray State University, and by recently I'm talking less than 2 weeks ago. The thing that's getting me through this winter (and living back home with my parents) is that AUS and NZ are less than  2 months away!

The thing I've been stressing out the most is saving the money.  LP and I have been working our tails off the past couple of months to make sure we're set. But fortunately for LP she''s a smart spender, a smart saver and a frugal budgeter... I am not those thing so, it's a work in progress. I think being money-smart is a learned habit and right now I'm in the middle of crash course.

In the next week or so LP and I need to so some SERIOUS planning. Our itinerary as of now is a scribbled list I have in some old notebook, somewhere.... wish us luck!

We like Kiwis

What's a stereotypical first blog post? How do I start out? Is that the first line? What about... Hi my name is? What I'm going to write about today is... Dear Diary...

Freaking no, assholes. This is going to be my first attempt at a damn travel blog, please bear with me.

My best friend, Lauren Perry (aka LP) and I ARE GOING TO NEW ZEALAND! What the what?!

We fly out Valentine's day 2013! Granted I realize that this may be a little bit early to start blogging--but I figure might as well get used to writing as much as possible!