Packing and Parties and all that other Pre Departure Stuff

Saturday night (two days ago) I had my going away party. There were about 18 people, from school, swimming, and Coutts. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures despite the fact that my camera was fully charged and on the counter, so there's no pictures of the cake (half USA flag, half Argentine flag) or the bonfire, or dinner, or s'mores with Nutella, or Liz getting hit in the face with a lacrosse ball (leave it to Liz). It was really fun though, and it was a nice way to say a group good bye. A lot of people were still out of town for the summer or busy, but in the past few weeks I've seen most of my friends. After the party I read some letters that my friends gave me, and I plan on taking those with me. I also got the Love Monkey, which is kind of a Traveling Pants-esque giant monkey that is passed around between some friends. There is no possible way that could fit in my suitcase, so I will make sure it gets passed to someone else soon after I leave.

And that brings us to packing. Which is a nightmare. I did a trial run packing last week just to get a general idea of how much space I have and what the weight is at. I think it's ironic that the people going to the subtropics can have heavier suitcases than those going to Ushuaia (the freezing cold city of the south) who have to bring heavy jackets and lots of pants. Either way, packing for a year is not easy. After a trip to Burlington last Monday I think I  am pretty well set as far as clothes go, but deciding what goes in which suitcase and how many of x to take and keeping track of everything is crazy. So I sat on the couch and made a list while my mom packed. Which is fine. Now all my clothes is packed and I'm currently in the process of getting my camera and phone and computer and all the chargers together. Or blogging as a method of procrastinating doing all that. It is really confusing that sometimes AFS says that we can have a carry on that's 22 lbs and others say 15 and others say something else. I'm going with the one that says 22.
So I leave tomorrow afternoon with my parents to Boston, where we'll stay overnight. Seeing as my brother leaves in the morning many hours before I think about waking up, we already had our heartfelt good bye in the car ("Bye Dylan." "Bye Dan.") The next day we go to the airport and part there, and I'll fly to Miami. We have an orientation there, stay overnight, then fly the next night to Buenos Aires, spend a night there, and then a few of us bus 14 hrs to Formosa, arriving Sunday. The next day I go to school, which is exciting... except for the fact that I don't know my school yet.

So something cool: in February when I first became sure I was doing this, I made a huge paper chain counting down the days until I left, each ring of the chain representing one day. And now after all these months there's one ring left out of a chain that used to be three times my height. Whoa.

By the way, after I leave the US, the best ways to contact me are via email: dmaghini@gmail.com, by commenting on the blog, or by Facebook. None of these will get a super fast response because I am limiting my email/Facebook use to once a week. Do not call/text my phone because that will not be going with me. Also, if you would like to send me that weird, old-fashioned thing called mail, send me an email and I'll give you an address. Just no guarantees on anything arriving there in a reasonable amount of time. I'll miss you all!