The countdown is on. I had a dream the other night that I was in Italy but hadn’t packed anything, so I got into a packing frenzy and now have a suitcase out in my office, along with half my wardrobe thrown inside it. I think I need to pare down a bit…the idea is to travel lightly because I have to carry all this stuff myself from Rome to Umbria (okay, that’s not entirely true, since it’ll be in a bus most of that time, and apparently there will be porters taking our bags once we arrive. However, I have also been warned that I should travel with the porters just to make sure my bags get to the right place).
I’m so bad at this. I’m all about overpacking so that I’m über prepared. The idea of carrying all the stuff I’m going to need for 3 and a half weeks frightens me. You mean I can’t uproot my life and teleport everything over there? Man, just when you thought technology was working in your favor…
I’m also trying to get a jump start on all the music I have to learn. I received my music in the mail last Tuesday, and I’ve been busily marking my parts, but I still have yet to hear everything completely, so I’m trying to find recordings of all this stuff, some of which is a little obscure. Not that I don’t have confidence in my music-learning abilities–after all, I am a sight-reading fiend–but knowing what the piece sounds like just sharpens my edge that much more, and since it’s a long couple of flights from JFK to Charles de Gaulle and then on to Rome, I figure it would be nice to have something productive to listen to. Call me crazy. (Okay, I know you already do).