DIY Itty Bitty Emergency Kit

When I was thirteen, I carried around a computer speaker in my purse. I guess I thought that if I ever wound up in a situation where a party was necessary, I could whip out my speaker, plug my iPod in, and get things going. It was never used, but it did take up my entire purse. 

Anecdote to get the post going aside, I've always been the sort who usually winds up in a bit of trouble where ever I go and likes to be mostly sort-of prepared for it. This is why I've always wanted one of those MINImergency kits. They sell them in all the kitsch shops; they're tiny and silver and come with " hairspray, clear nail polish, nail polish remover, emery board, lip balm, earring backs, clear elastics, sewing kit, double-sided tape, stain remover, deodorant towelette, pain reliever, tampon, breath freshener, dental floss, and an adhesive bandage." 

I definitely could use half those things most the time, but earring backs? nail polish? HAIRSPRAY? I don't ever use those things; I'm pretty sure I haven't brushed my hair in the past week. Besides, I have everything in the kit at home, all I needed was a container to put them in and I could totally make my own. It wouldn't cost me a penny, let alone the twenty dollars it costs at my favorite clothing store. 

So that's exactly what I did.

A few days ago my new backpack arrived in the mail. My old one's straps were broken so it was quite necessary and not an impulse buy, I continue saying to myself. Look at it. Isn't it the prettiest? 

It was empty and so obviously, I had to fill it. I packed in the silk travel sheets I bought for hostel hopping throughout the year and the travel towel I bought for the same reason. I put in pens and hand warmers, since I am from a subtropical climate and the last time I went to London it was summer and still THE COLDEST PLACE I'D EVER BEEN. Seriously, it was COLDER IN JULY THAN IT IS HERE AT CHRISTMAS. 

If it's so hot here, why do you have a bunch of hand warmers, you ask? Soccer. Bench warmer. In January. In the rain. Always. 

Then, I continued on to making my mini emergency kit. I'm a fan of eating ALL of the Altoids, so I have tons of tins lying around. I gathered one of those, and began stuffing it, using my own criteria as to what I might need. Here is what I packed into it.

1. Gauze: whenever I seriously rip myself up, I always find it more useful than band-aids, and it's long and stretchy and soft and could probably be used for tons of things that need tying. 

2. Elastic bands: as someone with long hair, I find myself in need of these all of the time. 

3. Binder clip/bobby pins/paper clips: as someone with long bangs (or fringe, if you must), I often find myself in need of anything that will keep them out of my face. Anything.  Besides, they're all pretty versatile. 

4. Q-tips: While good for cleaning ears, they also work for anything from putting on eye shadow to starting fires to ripping the cotton off of for makeshift bandages when paired with gauze. 

5. Needles, thread, and buttons: for obvious reasons

6. Band-aids and butterfly stitches: for more obvious reasons

7. Mini toothbrush w/ built in toothpaste: the most forgotten item ever

8. Cough drop: for no reason I can think of

9. Ibuprofen: in sealed ibuprofen travel packets. If you want to make a kit, those are one thing you should buy if you don't have. Loose pills aren't exactly recommended. Also, if you're planning on using your emergency painkillers for hangovers, avoid Tylenol. Kidneys and alcohol and Tylenol don't go well together. My mom works for the pharmaceutical research department at a med school and refuses to let anyone take Tylenol ever. I would give you a link to some medical research thing, but I'm too lazy. 

10. A gold craft pipe cleaner: it's wire and so that could definitely, possibly be useful, right?

11. A tampon: I'm a girl. Many of my friends are girls. An extra one is always handy. Also, you can file this under THINGS I NEVER EVER WANTED TO DISCUSS ON THE INTERNET.

12. A flashdrive: I'm a nerd. Many of my friends are nerds. An extra one is always handy. 

13. Eye drops: rarely do I ever need these, but they're one of those things that, when you need them, you absolutely need them.

14. Earrings: Just because I did such a super job of packing everything I needed in, I figured I could add something I didn't need. They're New Orleans themed. 

Really, anything you think you might need, you can put in one of these kits. I raided my parent's medicine cabinets and sewing kits and desk drawers for things that were small and handy. At one point, I had so much  that there was no way what I had would fit into ten Altoid tins. Then, I had to remind myself that I'm not climbing Mount Everest. I'm going to big cities with convenience stores everywhere. When you're travelling you want these emergency kits to take up as little space as possible, so pack what can't wait twenty minutes for you to run to the convenience store down the corner. Anything that can, leave out. 

Also, I haven't put any emergency documents in my bag yet, but before I leave, I'm going to put photocopies of my visa and passport and driver's license in a ziplock bag and stow them in the bottom of my pack. I also took pictures of all of those things on my phone and emailed them to myself, so if everything I own gets stolen, I'll still have a way to access them. 

21 days to go.

The iPhone Post

In April, my mom and I were walking along a nature trail in Florida. It was my spring break and I'd only recently discovered I'd be going abroad. As with the rest of the last six months, England was the only thing on my mind. I was taking pictures of the pretty Florida woods, when I thought of my phone and asked, "when I'm in Europe... can I get an iPhone?" I would need a phone to use there and my contract was ready for an upgrade. Why not the phone I'd been dying for since 2007?

"Sure," said my mom, who made me get a Droid ten days before they announced that Verizon would begin carrying iPhones. It was a small victory.

Thirty minutes later, while walking along the beach, I dropped and completely shattered my phone. We bought my iPhone an hour later. My mom still thinks it was a conspiracy.

Phones are pretty important, (she says without an ounce of sarcasm) so I figured a blog on how I got my phone ready for international travel would be useful. Especially since most of the information on using an American, locked iPhone internationally  is carefully hidden.

When we were buying my iPhone, we specifically made sure it was capable of international travel. That means that we needed the iPhone 4s, a "world phone," instead of any previous version of the iPhone, all of which are not capable of switching from American carriers to international carriers for reasons I personally can't explain.

We didn't really worry about anything else until a few weeks ago when my mom and I started trying to figure out the specifics of what in the world we're doing with my phone when I'm in Europe for ten months. Verizon has an international plan you can add if you'd like to pay a bajillion dollars to use your iPhone as a phone abroad. That is not a thing that was going to happen. Instead, I'm going to suspend my Verizon contract, unlock my phone, and get a British phone provider.

How the hell do you do that? I'll tell you how:

If you've had Verizon service for over 60 days, you can call them at 1-800-711-8300 and tell them that you're travelling abroad (or else they won't do it) and need your phone unlocked. Then, they'll unlock your phone and give you a code so that your phone will work with another carrier's SIM card.

Simple, right?

Er....

My mom and I went to four different Verizon stores to find out exactly how to do this and the employees kept telling us it was impossible. They said we had to use Verizon's international plan or else my phone wouldn't work abroad. One of the employees told me I'd need to hire someone to jailbreak my phone to unlock it, which I could do if I wanted to void my contract and all warranties and, with my luck, completely screw my phone up.

None of this phased me. In the iPhone 4s guide, Apple says specifically that Verizon will unlock your phone for you if you're travelling abroad, so we knew we could do it, we just wanted to hear it from Verizon. Finally, we found an employee who had read all of the fine print. He told us we could suspend our contract, get my phone unlocked by Verizon, and use a third party carrier when I was away. He gave us the number to call and we were merrily on our way.

The information isn't exactly freely given. Apparently, most Verizon employees don't even know about it,* so if you want to go to the Verizon store and talk to them about going abroad with your phone, chances are you're going to need to do a bit of convincing. If they don't believe you, have them look it up on the computer. It will come up and they will apologize profusely for making your mother so angry.

All that's left is to get a SIM card from a provider from whichever country you're going to. With the SIM card, you'll get a new number and a new plan and it will be as if it's an entirely new phone. You can get an international plan with your new provider, or you can download a Skype app or Vonage app so you can call your family and friends back in the U.S. cheaply or even for free.

I'm looking at getting Orange, which seems to be a pretty popular provider in the U.K. I can get a pay-as-you-go plan or a year-long plan. I'm probably going to do this once I get to the U.K. though, and go to one of their stores and spend an hour asking a thousand questions to make sure I'm doing everything right. I'll use Verizon's stupid international plan for the first few days I'm in England at least.

Extra information:

Apple has neat little SIM card popper-outers. They come with unlocked iPhones, but not iPhones with plans. If you ask for one nicely, they'll give one to you so that you can switch out your SIM cards with ease whenever you want.

Also, Apple has a world travel adapter kit. It comes with plugs and chargers for nearly every country so you won't have to use those horrible, bulky adapters. It's about $40 and comes with a new charger, cable and exchangeable plug for all of the countries, even America, so you can use it when you come back home. It's completely worth it, especially if you have multiple apple products/appliances with usb chargers.

So that's what I did today. I also bought a mug SHAPED LIKE A WITCH'S CAULDRON. It's only the coolest thing ever. Being able to use my phone in the U.K. is pretty cool too.

I hope that helped you if you're planning on using your iPhone abroad. If you don't specifically have the Verizon iPhone 4s, or if you don't have an iPhone at all, I can give you some general advice.

Do your research.

Figure out if your phone is a world phone. Talk to your phone carrier and anyone else who might know about your phone. Figure out what carriers people use wherever you're going. Maybe it'll work out well, maybe it won't, but be sure your answers are the right ones.There are loads of options for cell phones when you go abroad. Figure out what you want to use yours for, when you think you'll need it most, and get the phone/plan/carrier that will help you do that.

23 days left.


*Apple employees know everything, though. If you have any questions about using your phone abroad go to both your provider and carrier. Your carrier will know everything about the plans they have and how to deal with your current contract, but Apple will know everything about your specific phone and what you're allowed to do with that.

Visas and travel books

My visa arrived on Tuesday. I used to have a countdown until June 18th when I could apply for it and now it's August and it's here in my hands.* The reality of leaving is finally starting to sink in. In some ways, it's comforting. I'm no longer considering the possibilities of admitting defeat--of turning back up in Baton Rouge and saying, "oh yeah, didn't you hear? I'm staying in Louisiana until I die and even then, my decaying bones will never leave this humid, humid place." Now, my morbidity can only rely on the good ole, "my plane is going to crash and I'm going to die a sad, sad death all alone in the middle of the Atlantic."  Wasn't I supposed to be writing about how comforting reality setting in is? Because all of my worrying is slowly giving way to excitement. I'm going to England. Not only am I going to England, but I'm going to be living in England. I'll be actually, properly calling a tiny little dorm room home for nine months. I'll be traveling all over Europe, having all of the experiences I've been dreaming of for years. Now I get to dream about it without thinking, Yup, that's going to happen if I turn this application in by Tuesday... if I get accepted to the program... if my visa comes in the mail... if my parents agree to pay for it... if. If. IF. Finally, I'm looking out on an if-less horizon.

The reality of it, in other ways, isn't so comforting. For the past few days, I haven't been able to look my cat in the eyes. She went off to Baton Rouge with me and has been glued to my side for the past seven years. Now, I'm leaving her with a one-way ticket** and it feels dirty. Also, we go to school about six weeks earlier here in America, and my friends are all leaving without me. My cousin, we'll call her Josephine Pinkpants,*** is leaving in a week. My best friend from Baton Rouge is already up there getting ready for her RA job, my other best friend never left. I feel as though I'm watching my life go on without me as I'm waiting to begin a new one--like I'm in Summer purgatory.

Still, when all is said and done, reality setting in is a hundred times happier than it is sad. For one thing, it means trip planning. Last weekend my friend Cordelia Cadreshoes and I got together with a laptop and about a dozen (*cough* *cough* two) travel books**** to roughly plan out a couple of trips. There are three cities which we have to, and will, visit:

1) London. I'm not sure what sort of person goes to England without spending time in London or if ever a person existed. Frankly, I find it suspicious that neither of us are studying in London because it's not like our school didn't have any programs in London or anything. That said, we plan on spending more than a couple weekends in London. It's quite easy to get there and we have more than a few weekends worth of things we want to do there. We plan on seeing Wicked on the West End, taking a trip to Leavesden, going on a few self-guided tours, visiting the many museums, and just generally enjoying the city. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to finagle an excused absence from class to head out to the U.S. Embassy and vote in my first ever presidential election. 

2) Edinburgh. Harry Potter history aside, this city ranks at the top of our to-do list. Both Cordelia and I had actually both wanted to study in Edinburgh. I've dreamed of this city. It looks old and spooky and spell-binding, and perfect. We plan on spending at least a weekend there going on Literary Pub tours, staring up at gorgeous old castles, and well squealing over being in the city where Harry was written.

3) Dublin. Though I've read Dubliners a few times, neither Cordelia nor I found ourselves knowing much of anything about what there actually was to do in the Republic of Ireland's capital city.**** We both want to go to Ireland, though, and Dublin seems like the best first stop. After doing a little research we found plenty of things we want to do. We can't wait to hit up the Dublin Writers Museum, the Guinness Storehouse, yet another castle, a few cathedrals, and, undoubtedly, we'll be visiting a pub or two.

So I should correct myself, we'll actually definitely visit a few more places, those we don't have as detailed plans for, however. (I didn't want to display them for the world to see until after we'd left them and stalking and/or ax-murdering was no longer possible, but we've even picked out a few hostels for each city and rough dates for the trips) Once we're settled in in our respective cities, I'll show Cordelia around Nottingham and she'll show me around Brighton, where she's studying. We also have loose plans to visit Stonehenge and various castles. We even have (very loose) plans for trips to France and the Netherlands. One trip, possibly the best one, will hopefully be confirmed next weekend.

Oh! And I have an EXTRA pre-England trip.

On September 2nd, I'm going to L.A. to visit Josephine Pinkpants and do ALL OF THE THINGS there. The trip should be a nice way to re-familiarizing myself with flying and touristing and time-zone changing, and travelling in general. I'll also use it as a test trip blog, to figure out how I want to format those, as the bulk of this blog will be entirely different from what I've been posting for the past few months.

Oh, and did I mention another factor in reality finally setting in was the fact that my mom and I have booked an apartment in Paris for my winter break? Our plans have been on/off since last January, but now, everything is booked and mostly paid for. It's most definitely on for good. Instead of flying home for the holidays, I'll be staying in the Latin Quarter for a month, practicing my French and pretending to be Parisian. I'll give you more on that later as I'll undoubtedly be blogging entire books about that particular trip.

Regards,
Julia


*Well, not at this very second, but I've spent too much time gazing at it lovingly.

**So technically I have a round trip ticket, because it was HALF OF THE PRICE of a one-way ticket, but as I have no plans as to when I'm going to return this summer, and I don't want to have to commit to a date a  year in advance, I booked my ticket for

*** Please don't kill me, Miss Pinkpants.

**** But I actually have about a dozen books about traveling to Europe, and I've looked through them all. I am QUEEN of the travel books. I've read them all--from everything to Frommers to Lonely Planet to MTV to vintage 1940s Literary Travel books. I am a hundred percent ready for backpacking... okay, maybe thirty percent ready. Which is fine. Thirty percent is much better than a hundred percent. A hundred percent leaves very little room for adventure, but zero percent leaves me crying at the train station. Thirty percent gives me just enough of a destination to get lost along the way. It gives me just enough confidence to be a little too confident. Thirty percent works perfectly.

***** Just making it blatantly clear that I am more than familiar with the political boundaries in Britain and Ireland. Cordelia and I actually took a 20th century British history class together last semester and are mostly almost kind of nearly familiar with the last hundred years of current events in the British Isles. And just there? I said British Isles and not just U.K. or Britain because I'm including England and Scotland and Wales and both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. And The Isle of Man. And the Channel Islands. Blatantly Clear. Blatant. Clear. Together. (You know who has great information on the subject, plus a ton more about the geography and political history of the British Isles plus a ton of other things? C.G.P. Grey. His videos are the best. Watch them.)