Today is Saturday, June 18th. I go home Wednesday, June 22. Where did time go? I am still trying to figure out the answer to that one myself. I have one bag fully packed and the other one about half way packed. That is the one good thing about the rainy forecast-- it makes it easy to figure out what clothes I need to leave out. What about my carry-on you may ask...

Funny you ask! Let me backtrack here for a second. When I arrived in Schipol airport at 5 in the morning (yes, my flight came in an hour early) on February 2nd and had to manage to get two humongous bags onto a cart, plus a carry-on that was way too heavy for its own good, while simultaneously carrying my equally as ridiculously heavy backpack, I thought I was going to faint. Not to mention the fact that I had on a heavy winter coat and snow boots (no, the snow boots couldn't fit in the bags). I was having some serious hot flashes.

Hello from the sidewalk at JFK! I am still happy here because I still have my Mom to help me with all my stuff. I wasn't as happy once I had to deal with it on my own. 

Back to my amazing idea. I have decided to fill up my carry-on with clothes and then put my carry-on inside of one of the large purple duffles that you see above. GE-N-I-US. I know. But, if you are like my mom you may be wondering, "what if your bag is overweight Arielle?". Uh... Hello. If my bag is overweight, there is actually no problem at all. Instead, I will calmly remove the carry-on from the large duffel taking out most of my clothes and putting them directly into the large duffle. Wa-la. Problem Solved. And now that just means that I have a carry-on bag to fill up with stroop waffles at duty free. I am telling you, I think Travel Magazine should ask me to write a feature on smart traveling.