If you know me, you’ll know that I am the biggest procrastinator there ever was. If you know my flatmates, you’ll know that they are very quickly giving me a run for my money. If you know me, you’ll know that I am also one of the most unorganized people there ever was. And if you know my flatmates, you’ll know that we’re all in the same boat. Together, we have the ability to turn even the simplest tasks like going out to meet friends for drinks or packing for a weekend trip into utter chaos.
For the most part, the week of 30 January until 3 February was simple, and could’ve been done without any stress. But if that were the case, there would be no story. Other than going to our classes (I promise we go to all of them @MegCurtinHayes), the only events we had planned were to meet my uncle for dinner and to pack our bags for our weekend trip to Paris.
Plan to meet my Uncle Paul for dinner
My Uncle Paul does a lot of travel for his work and happens to have an office just a few tube stops away from my flat. He was the first of hopefully many visitors from home to visit me while I’m living here in London. My flatmates clearly do not come from an Irish family, because “dinner with a relative” to them must’ve meant a nice meal and discussing grades, rather than dinner, sharing stories, and bar hopping. So I filled them in, gave them a crash course in all things Curtin, and we made our way to one of the pubs right up the road from our flat. We got to the pub to meet up with Uncle Paul, who was running a bit late, and met Brian Kelly (original). I knew Brian from my grandparents’ house when I was just starting high school, but he made sure to point out that I look exactly the same. I explained to my flatmates that at my grandparents house, there is a constant stream of Irish students who study at the university close by and spend holidays with us. The only major confusion was trying to make sense of the whole “Original Brian” VS “Emergency Backup Brian”. The guys shared their travel tips and “must sees” while in London, we talked about our lives as local Londoners, Uncle Paul flaunted his “Global Pub Crawl” track record (of which they were very impressed), and everyone left talking about how great the Curtin family is (duh)!
All in all, we had good food, good drinks, and a great time! 
Pack for our weekend trip to Paris
No, we obviously hadn’t planned or packed in advance.
10:30...We decided we had had a enough fun and enough drinks and were running out of time to pack for Paris. So we walked home. If you thought that since we only had a few hours before we needed to leave that we would immediately pack and go to bed early, you’d be wrong. Luckily we talked ourselves out of going out clubbing that night, but that was the end of our rational thinking.
11:30…We made it back to our room and started packing.
11:50…We forgot to do laundry. So we packed up our clothes and went to the wash to find that there were none available.
12:30…We went back to the laundry rooms with our clothes only to realize that we forgot to buy laundry detergent. In case anyone was wondering, there are not many 24 hour convenient stores in Kensington.
12:50 (probably)…We put in our laundry and waited for it to be done. If you thought that we spent our time getting our passports, information, and clean clothes organized while we waiting for the wash to be finished, you’d be wrong. Talking, watching TV, looking up cool pictures to take in Paris on Pinterest, and basically anything other than that seemed
more reasonable than actually packing.
1:00-5:00…Honestly, I’m not even sure what was happening during these hours. All I remember was that we were all crying, yelling, and laughing and it was probably all related to the fact that we were leaving for Paris is the morning and could not be less prepared.
Somehow, we woke up at 8:00 and made it to the train on time.
Plan ahead. Budget your time. Pack your bags sooner than three hours before you need to be on a train to Paris.
Tip of the day: Have family come and visit you while abroad! (PSA to all my other relatives, come visit!!)
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