Packing light

Here’s three week’s worth: Clothes and sundries (like that word) in the black, mostly books in the blue. I probably took too many books. Two pairs of shorts? One would have been enough. One more shirt would have helped.

Those messenger bags are easy to move around. Sure the crisscrossing straps look a little strange, but the mobility! Easy to sit, easy to stand, easy to take one off. They let me take both on the airplane. And easy to completely unpack and repack. And they don’t look like backpacks.

Most of the books were useful. I got some good reading done:

• Mazower’s Short History of the Balkans (gave it away in Berlin)
• Mallory’s In Search of the Indo-Europeans (I still like Renfrew’s approach, and am unwilling to accept all of Mallory’s arguments)
• Hirschon’s collection Crossing the Aegean (gave it away on Alonissos)
• Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time (fantastic book about the Dust Bowl. Weaves witness accounts into a compelling story. Exceptionally well-written)
• A collection of essays on Germans living in other countries today, German Minorities in Europe, edited by Stefan Wolff. (some of the modern scholarship glazed my eyes over, but other essays were clear and informative)
• And I got a good start on Jared Diamond’s Collapse.

On the other hand, I dragged along several books I hardly touched. Why pack a Teach Yourself Greek if you don’t open it? Fermat’s Enigma? And a slim math text, Graphs and Their Uses? The Bulgaria guide book I needed. And Bruce Clark’s Twice a Stranger I brought along as a gift. But three unused books? Poor planning.

Can’t say too much bad though. Three weeks, two bags, one trip.