Exams are over and, as the title suggests, it's only four days until we fly to the Balkans - the Wanderlust Weekender's debut trip! To prepare ourselves for the three weeks ahead M and L have been shopping, packing and walking with varying degrees of success.
On the shopping and packing front, it turns out that trying to pack a hand-luggage sized rucksack for three weeks of travel is actually quite difficult. Whilst L has found herself struggling to decide whether to prioritise clothes or camera (the camera won), M has had to deal with the realisation that he might only be able to fit one checked shirt into his bag - traumatic stuff, and the definition of a first world problem. In order to ensure essentials such as cameras and checked shirts can be brought along, sacrifices have had to be made in the form of underwear and socks. If anybody reading this bumps into us towards the end of the trip, may I suggest steering well clear of our feet (a tall order, I'm sure).
Buying rucksacks small enough to satisfy the "generous" hand luggage allowance on certain airlines (cough, Wizzair, cough - you're brilliant, but a 40cm long suitcase...seriously?!) has proved challenging. L struck gold with a heavily discounted hiking rucksack from Lowe Alpine which is not only practical and roomy beyond its 24l capacity but comes with the added bonus of being a pretty stylish shade of purple.
M thought he'd made an equally savvy purchase when he found a 28l rucksack from Trespass for the bargain price of £12. Upon arrival, however, it became quickly apparent that rucksacks are an item which conform to the mantra of "you get what you pay for." To its credit, it has been tested this afternoon and will fit all of M's shirt collection with plenty of room to spare - but no amount of spare room can lessen the injustice of having to spend the first few weeks of graduate life looking like a Year 7 with an oversized backpack.
Thankfully, the Balkans don't seem like the sort of place where we will get judged for our (lack of) style. One of the only certainties is that there will be walking - and lots of it. With a maximum of two nights spent in any one city, it'll be a race against time to cover enough ground to feel like we've "done" each place. With this is mind, and to make up for the lack of walking opportunities during exams, M and L decided to tackle Yorkshire's highest and most fearsome mountain - Whernside. Standing at a formidable 736m, it's...well, not very high at all - but you can only work with what you've got. Despite there being no danger of succumbing to altitude sickness, we still had to content with blisters (M found one on his heel after 5 minutes and claims to have tiptoed the entire walk), genuine downpours, and driving horizontal hailstorms - meaning there was a reasonable sense of achievement at the end of the day, and we now feel prepared for anything the Balkans throws at us. Apart from landmines.
That's pretty much all for now - the next few days before departure will inevitably be spent packing, unpacking, repacking, depacking, uppacking, downpacking, and crying in a ball on the floor at the prospect of having one pair of underwear for each week spent away.
