Day One. AKA 24 hours of transit.

I have the most fabulous pajamas.

And by "most fabulous" I mean that they are the most fabulous pajamas ever.  I got them for Christmas a decade ago.  It's one of those lovely matchy-matchy tops and bottoms.  Light blue, with lovely motifs of cows jumping gracefully over yellow moons and stars.  High school aged Callie thought it was decidedly less cool and comfy (aka read less sexy) to wear the big frumpy top.  So I only wore the pants, and matched them with suitably defining T's.  The result, after 10 years of laundry, camps, trips, etc. is that there is now a solidly discernable color difference between the tops and the bottoms.  The top, in fact, might still be something that possibly resembles flannel.  The bottoms are just threadbare cotton.

These pajamas have gone everywhere I have gone.  They have camped on mountains and been laundered at mats.  They learned Spanish and floated the Mississippi.  These PJ's love Forest Grove, and it was in these Pajamas that I ended my very, very, very long travel day standing barefoot in the rain, outside the Graduate House where I have a room, repeatedly ringing the bell so that I could hopefully avoid a third walk 7 blocks down the street to the Porter's Lodge and back.

The parking garage at the Port of Portland always reminds me of leaving.  In addition to the virtual living wall of ivy along the airport-side of the garage, they've got a new system of lights on each parking spot, red for taken, green for free, so you can look down the rows, and know where your spots are--or aren't.  I'm less enthralled with the hourly rate to park there, but you can't win it all.  The smell of the rain on the concrete outside mixed with the gas and rubber is a signal to me that I have to say goodbye---sometimes it's been for a week, a month, a year--but it's goodbye, at least for a little bit.  Running late through the garage this morning---my mom helping with my bags---every whiff of oily perfume reminded me that I was yet again leaving.  Four bags, over 100 pounds of stuff, and I've already identified both things I didn't need to bring, and things I should have brought. Reminders that traveling is never easy, and that moving--no matter how well you plan--will be expensive, hard and sad.  I'd slept about 2 hours the night before with an uber cuddly dog named Toby whom I shall miss greatly, and was already late to the airport.

From there it was one last chat with my mom, airport security and then 20 hours of transit.  4 from PDX to Chicago, 3 hour layover and then 8 from Chicago to London, 2 hour wait, 3 hour bus ride from London to Cambridge.  I'm not counting the 30 minute taxi ride I shared with 2 other students before being dropped off in front of the wrong dorm, and having to trot myself back down to the Porter's lodge for directions and a map, before hauling my bags a block and a half up the street to the building in which a small dorm room was assigned as "mine."

Unpack, bundle up (it is cold here) and then fall asleep while facbeook chatting with a friend.  I woke up an indeterminate time later, changed into the aforementioned PJ's, wandered down the hall to brush my teeth and realized when I got back to my room, that I had left my waterbottle next to the sink.  I reached over, nabbed my keys, the familiar Girl Scout key chain jingling when I picked it up, and wandered down the hall.  Not yet realizing that my new key is not yet on my old keychain.

Long story short, me, my barefeet and my fabs pj's, had to walk 7 blocks to the Porter's Lodge to get a spare key and access card.  The access card didn't work to let me out of Newnham's gardens (the gardens resemble something sort of like a beautiful trap), so I had to walk back to the Porter's Lodge to get to the street, where I walked back to the graduate house, where I discovered that my card didn't work on it's door either.  It's safe to say that A) I owe a sweet woman who lives on the first floor and let me in, a serious favor, and B) I'm glad that I wasn't wearing "sexier' pajamas.

British Word Of The Day: "Love," moniker used to identify women you don't know when you need them to help you do something or understand.  Used quite frequently.

Example of use: Bus passanger has too many bags and needs to buy an excess luggage card, "I can't let you on the bus love, you need to go over there and buy another ticket for your bags."