I'm starting with this one because there's something about heading to the airport with my black and red, little pinstriped suitcase that makes me feel ultra glamorous. My suitcase and I have been everywhere together. We've been to London, New York, Washington D.C., Geneva, Florence, Boston, Philadelphia, Hollywood, Disneyland, Munich, Pisa, Amsterdam, Hamburg and many more places. We've been all the way down to Rome and all the way up to Copenhagen. We've been in fantastic hotels and the dodgiest hostels possible. We've been in train stations, and bus stations, and plane stations (I mean airports). We've bumbled along cobbled-stone streets and cruised along the streets of Paris. In fact, I think we cruised together too, Noumea, The Isle of Pines.
Showing off? Me? No I'd never! Actually I even brought it along on a mini bus trip to Nhill, which is somewhere between here and Adelaide, to do a country performance of 'HMS Pinafore' with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Victoria. It stood out amongst the jumble of backpacks that other people thought were more appropriate. (On a side note, what kind of place is it where they haven't heard of vegetarian food?). When I arrived in San Francisco (a very good place for vegetarian food by the way - delicious soups) a security guard at the airport looked at my suitcase. "Are you sure you haven't forgotten anything?" he said. "I travel light", I said. In fact I spent three weeks in America and four weeks in Europe with just this suitcase which is small enough to fit in cabin baggage. I even did a bit of shopping along the way.
An added extra that's worth considering is a fabulous luggage tag. Mine says 'domestically disabled'. I like the idea of it. It's got one of those pictures of dissatisfied housewives from the 50s on it. It's garnered a few giggles from my family who like to think I'm a bit that way. Of course it's utterly untrue. I can cook, sew, knit, clean, decorate, look after babies, change my own lightbulbs, shovel horse manure (don't ask), and against my will I've gained more information about gardening than I ever needed to know.
Well, now my suitcase and I have a far less glamorous life. Every few months we wander down to Spencer Street Station (usually early in the morning when you get the cheapest flights). After we wait in the 'Tiger shed' for the plane to finally depart we continue the arduous journey to Brisbane, take the aiport train to Roma Street, take the greyhound bus to Toowoomba enroute through Ipswich and Gatton (even if there is noone to pick up), then a final trip by car to Wyreema. This takes the whole day. A week or so later we go through the whole process in reverse. In only three weeks from now I will take her out of the wardrobe, dust her off, and off we'll go again!
