Oh hello there! My name is “Unable to properly pack a suitcase” — nice to meet you!

I did something stupid. So, so stupid.

I bought my plane ticket on a Wednesday or something, to leave on Saturday. In that time, I had to pack my bags, move out of my friends house and help my parents out in exchange for 3m of storage space. We also got a giant snowstorm which knocked Friday off of the list of days in which anything productive could be done.

Needless to say, I packed very, very last minute but it was ok! I was only going for a few months, only going to places where it was warm and I had a plenty of room in my carry-on sized suitcase to fit everything in!

Here’s what I packed in my suitcase:

I packed jeans two pairs of jeans, yoga pants, shorts, a bathing suit, my spring coat, only THREE books!, my make-up, some tank tops, two pairs of shoes and two dresses. I brought a scarf which complimented my dresses and felt pretty darn proud of myself!

Here’s what I put in my backpack:

Basically just my essentials in case anything happened to my suitcase (which I had to check! Grr!)

I’m a pretty arrogant person so when people said “Are you sure that that suitcase is big enough?” I waved their concerns away. I’m a minimalist! Besides, this way, I can’t even be tempted to shop a little bit!

Anyone see the problem with my plan?

Here’s the temperature in Montreal the day I left:

and in France when I landed:

and now here’s what I was wearing:

I couldn’t wear this in France! I would die of heat! Plus, my plan had been to wear my boots with my dresses I guess because guess what? Blue sparkely shoes don’t really go with purple dresses and turquoise scarves. And turquoise scarves don’t go with a navy coat. And I have no t-shirts.

But! I do have yoga pants, shorts and a bathing suit. Because that’s helpful.

Anyways, long story short, if you had been on the 1 line metro in Paris on February 13th, you would have seen me silently screaming at the metro to go faster (could have taken the RER, arrogant Vanessa who refused to ask for help!) so that I could get to the Wal-Mart of Paris and buy a cheap suitcase that was big enough to put my parka in. I ended up, 45E later, with a suitcase the exact size as one that I have at home. Winning!

Also, I was in such a rush to catch my bus to Madrid that I, uh, kind of abandoned my suitcase… I left it open as to not scare anyone into thinking it was a bomb but, uh, yeah. THIS IS HOW BOMB THREATS BEGIN PEOPLE! By tourists who are too dumb to account for the clothes on their back while choosing a suitcase.