Preparation

While I am super excited about this trip to New Orleans, I am also super nervous (almost to the point of being anxious). This is all due to the fact that I am not quite sure what to expect. I have been on a long distance train trip before (to Oregon with my grandmother) and loved the trip and spending time in the observation car seeing all of the scenery. I have a bittersweet memory of this trip because my grandma got ill during this trip and passed away 2 weeks from the day we returned.   My hesitation to be fully excited is that I am not on a vacation and there is actually structure to this trip.

Because I am a full time student and work full time, I am not able to take vacations. When I did, they were done on my time and my schedule. My normal week consists of going to school every day and working 3 or 4 nights (6p-6:30a). This will be just like a typical week for me (work and school), except for the going to work part.

I had to begin preparing for this trip about 2 months ago to get my work schedule covered by others. I am very fortunate that this was able to work out. I normally work every other weekend and this trip falls on my weekend to work. I was fortunate enough to get someone to cover my weekend for me, but now have to work the weekend before we leave and the weekend we return. I also plan on getting my co-worker a souvenir from our trip to thank her for her flexibility.

At home, when I do sleep, I share my house and my bed with my 2 cats. They are like my little children. If I am lucky, they will share the bed with me. I have had to make plans to have someone visit my house daily to feed and water my cats. They are not sociable with others so I do not worry about having to have anyone spend time with them. The only thing I am concerned about is that if their food bowls get down to the ½ way full mark, they think they are going to starve and will purge- leading to a big mess. My father and my niece will both take turns stopping by to make sure they are taken care of. I am more concerned about how I will be able to sleep without them. They almost make me feel more relaxed when they are lying next to me; in fact Wrigley has to be physically touching me when she is sleeping. I know that they are both very busy during the days and nights when I am not home- protecting the house, scaring off intruders and constantly are on the prowl securing the premises. I hope they are able to relax and get some sleep while I am away. LOL!!!!

Because I have never been to New Orleans, I had never heard of the places on the itinerary. I looked through the itinerary at the places listed that we are going to visit and looked each one of them up on the internet to find their location. I then looked up where each place was on a map to see where in the city we were going to travel to. This has defiantly helped with my excitement for the trip.

To prepare for the trip, I have been checking the Weather Channel app on my phone for the past 2 weeks to see what the weather will be. Because I am always cold, I will plan on wearing a t-shirt under a sweatshirt. That way if I am warm, I will be able to take the sweatshirt off and be comfortable. I am not one to wear pj’s out of the house, but I am still debating on wearing pj’s or sweat pants on the train. I remember being very cold on the train for my last trip. I will defiantly be wearing a jacket also on the train with my blanket I will be taking. I also bought a travel pillow at Wal-Mart for the train. (I am super excited about that too because it was a special for the holidays and has a massager built in).  

I made a list of all things to take, necessities such as cotton swabs, extra shampoo and conditioner, lotion, make up remover wipes, contact solution and other personal items. I have been updating the list and double checking it for the past week now. While I am sure I will forget something, I am glad there is generally a Walgreens on every corner. Also because I have a caffeine addiction, I will be packing and keeping extra Diet Pepsi to have on hand at all times.

I will be taking my laptop, head phones and a deck of cards to keep me busy on the train also. I plan on being very busy for this trip and have already done a lot of pre-research for this class while doing the religion and culture assignments.  I have learned a lot already and am looking forward to learning a whole lot more.