Change of plans!
On Saturday before we left, I officially packed our three suitcases in order to weigh and validate my plan. EPIC FAIL!
Two reasons.
Reason 1: After our 30-day trial run, we did officially pare down our clothes packing list, I was really proud of us. We took an inventory of our clothes and removed any items we hadn’t worn during our trail run. However, I failed to consider how much extra stuff we wanted to pack. We had duplicates of many of our favorite toiletries, xbox, monitor, keyboard, mouse, dive equipment, first-aid kit, batteries, sunscreen, board games, toys, stuffed animals, pillows. We took stock of what we wanted to bring and decided we needed a 4th bag. Jim did a bit of research and realized that we actually had already purchased a 4th bag, so we decided purchased two North Face duffle bags … which are A-MAZING. The are super light weight, extremely durable, waterproof and you can pack an amazing amount into them. Seriously, if you ever have to travel and need to pack a serious amount of stuff into a bag, you must try the North Face Base Camp duffle bag.
Reason 2: So yes, I had more stuff than I expected and with the extra bag, everything did physical fit into our 4-bags, but we were over weight. It is also important to tell you that when flying international the weight of a bag is not 50 pounds as it is in the USA, oh no, no, no, it’s 20 kilograms (which is about 44 pounds). You might not think that is a lot until you realize that means I am off by 12 total pounds across the bags. I also had failed to consider this in my weight calculation, so our bags weight; Bag 1 = 21 kg, Bag 2 = 21 kg, Bag 3= 24 kb, and Bag 4 = 24 kg.
For my own personal validation, I would like to point out that if we were working with the 50 pound limit by US standards, we would have been perfectly just under 200 pounds! I guess this is my first lesson that I’m not in the United States anymore. Lesson learned.
Long story, short we opted to not to stress over the weight and make peace with paying the overage in baggage fees. On Norwegian airlines, you pay $15 per kg over, so we decided it was worth the overage to be comfortable and we decided we could learn as we go, shed more weight, and enjoy a few extra comforts of home.
So we are officially in London, unpacked, and it feels like home already.
