What--no tiara? The dumbest thing I've taken abroad

Happy to join in the challenge my friend and colleague Cate Brubaker of Small Planet Studio has set us globally-oriented bloggers--three blogs this month on the same topics.

 

Today's topic:

"What's the weirdest or dumbest thing you've taken abroad?"

Didn't have to think about this one at all.  Immediately I had visions (flashbacks!) of the very dressy dress I packed for my junior year abroad in England.  (I'd been told that the last group in the program I was joining had been presented to Princess Margaret, and so I think I was packing with that royal fantasy/possibility in mind. That's my only excuse.)

Now when I say dressy, I don't just mean formal.  I mean straight out poufy-poufy.  Something like this:

Well, maybe not so extreme as that.   But it was pink. And poufy. 

Maybe I needed that extra fancy dress to feel ready for my first experience abroad on my own. Maybe it was an expression of the persona I wanted to project in a country that's the setting for so many of my favorite stories. Maybe it was my superheroine costume.  All I know is, it took up quite a lot of room in my luggage.  And I wore it only once the whole year, to a dinner at an Oxford college, where I got very strange looks indeed. 

Now I know better, I hope.  By all means, pack a "dress to impress" outfit.  But think about a simple black sheath that can be dressed up or down.  Like this:

See?  That wouldn't take up much room at all. And you'd be ready for anything. Even fantasies of meeting royalty. Really.