I have never been the best traveller, or I would say in the past I've been a clumsy traveller. I never know what to pack, or what I think I'll need. I tend to overpack, where my ideal would be to just take everything in my house with me wherever I go.
Like a turtle. Yes. Many have said this. Yes. Ha ha.
You cannot do this, by the way. It's very bad for your back.
This particular trip was my first to Europe SOLO, and I kind of felt like it was my chance to figure out some basic travel stuff for myself. So I took, like, a week before I travelled to really ask myself, "Mariko, what do you really NEED to stay sane on the road?"
Here's what I figured out on this trip.
1) You need power. That's key. If you bring your computer you're bringing your work and your phone and your entertainment and that's a lot of power. I ended up bringing the WRONG adapter with me, because I borrowed one from my girlfriend and it was for Australia. Which lead me to my first discovery of the trip, which is that most hotels will have extra power adaptors hanging around if you forget yours. So yes you need a power adapter/plug, but I wonder if that's something you could save yourself from packing by calling and checking with the hotel first. Food for thought.
(Actually hotels have lots of stuff. Like you can call down and ask for a toothbrush, toothpaste. Whatever. Kind of nice. Also what are we all doing buying little toothpastes when we could be getting them at the hotel for FREE?)
Another thing I discovered recently was the joy of the back up power pack. Which is pretty ideal for chronic phone users like myself. I use, but do not exclusively recommend, the Techlink Recharge 4000 Power + Lightning.
2) You need to sleep. I made the mistake of booking at ticket that landed me in Germany after a 12 hour flight at left in the morning. I had no idea where I was or what time it was when I got in. It was dark and snowing. TWILIGHT ZONE. Fortunately I did do some "how will I sleep" planning before I left, which for me, is all about the pillowcase. Like, really, what's worse than a scratchy pillow? Nothing. So I BOYP. A t-shirt does well in a pinch but I think it looks creepy on the bed, like a headless torso, so I'm sticking with a pillowcase even if anyone searching my luggage would think I was 80.
3) You need something to eat when nothing is open, and we can only consume so many room service chicken wings. Maybe that's just me. The best shortcut I've found is to carry around little packets of peanut butter in my luggage, which I find go really well with the apples almost every hotel has in the lobby these days. Again, maybe it's an old lady thing, but I like it. My grandmother traveled everywhere with a double plastic baggie set for her hard candies (one bag for the wrappers). My grandmother knew a thing or two about a thing or two, okay?
Other than that you need clothes and someone to show you around wherever you are.
That's it.
One of the major benefits of traveling as a writer is that pretty much everywhere you go, you have something to talk to your hosts about, which for me is books and comics.
This trip I spent endless hours talking to people about Saga and Ms. Marvel. Like, pretty much everywhere I went, these two comics came up. I felt like every city I went to, I picked up a conversation that I'd left off in another part of the country. It was kind of trippy to be honest. But cool. It's nice to think of yourself as a part of a community, speaking a language of fandom. I dug it.
For the next few weeks I'm staying relatively put. My next round of work travel will take me to New Zealand, which I've never been to, and then we're going to start up the next round of promo for Saving Montgomery Sole!
So if you'd like to see me at your school, send me a note.
Here's a couple choice photos from my trip to Germany.
Next to the castle thing right outside my hotel.
My first schnitzel. Served with cranberry sauce and potatoes, in a cafe next to a groovy public swimming pool. This is apparently the traditional way to serve schnitzel. Which makes me wonder, who can eat this much in one serving? Not me. I almost never ate all of what I was served, which I'm sure looked super wasteful but hey, I live in California and we're not carbo loading over here.
Bamberg. This is where they put their town hall thing when the Bishop wouldn't let them put it on his land. So it all worked out.
Waterside in Bamberg. I just about died at how cute this place was.
My tour guide and hosts. Bamberg actually set up a historical tour for me my first day there, which was the first I'd ever had. I mean, a relatively private tour of the city with an expert to tell you all the skinny on all the kings and queens. Good times. And kind of a lovely way to meet a city and your hosts. The tour guide did insist we eat this bark when we started the tour, which I thought was a little presumptive. It tasted like bark.
Stuttgart City Library. Kind of amazing. Kind of like the future.
A video installation inside the library.
Ok. So. Confession.
Right before I landed in Stuttgart I'd taken a Dramamine on the train because it was going backwards and I was feeling crazy naus. So this whole library experience felt a little extra terrestrial to me.
Then I went back and looked at the pictures and thought, hey I wasn't far off!
Thank you to all my gracious hosts (librarians and scholars), interviewers, and willing and able translators on this trip. Thank you to Reprodukt for having me and making sure I was traveling in style at all times. I had a lovely visit and hope to see you all again soon.
xom