Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts from the ‘Travel Planning’ category

T00 Whatā€™s in my carry-on

ā€œTravel day zeroā€: nothing to check

For the next 3 months, I have a medium-sized 21-Litre (21-L) Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag in blue and black, and a 32-L Timbuk2 Command backpack in black. (Both products have unfortunately been phased out of production.) These will be my ā€œpersonal itemā€ and ā€œcarry-onā€, respectively, for long-haul flights.

Whatā€™s in my 21-Litre Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag?

Messenger bag

Tilley Hikerā€™s Hat (with evaporative cooling insert)

Mountain Equipment Company (MEC) medium-sized mesh pouch in blue, containing a change of clothes

Columbia grey long-sleeved half-zip fleece

Whatā€™s in my 32-Litre Timbuk2 Command backpack?

Backpack

Centre-left

Tenba BYOB7 Camera Insert bag in black, carry-case for my X70, extra batteries, and chips.

Kompass 4in1-Wanderkarte/map, for Wettersteingebirge and Zugspitze

Centre

ā€¢ 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in charcoal grey, containing:

pouchā€™s carrying strap

small pouch with wired earphones and small USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack.

small freezer bag with ā€œEuroplugsā€ (type-C) adaptor plugs for western Europe

Charger for MacBook Pro (c. 2016; not shown)

translucent film-roll cannister, for spare change

USB-A power cube wall charger (retractable), light blue

USB-A to USB-micro cable for camera, black

ā€¢ 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in midnight blue, containing:

pouchā€™s carrying strap

WCL-X70 wide-lens with small rubber lens-hood

small clear zip-pouch with cleaning cloths

Mophie 5000mAh PowerBank, dark blue

USB-C to USB-A cable, black

Iā€™ve used the Field Pouch as a compact lightweight day-pack; canā€™t carry much except for camera, batteries, memory chips, PowerBank, cables.

Below the field pouches

USB-C to USB-C cable, white

2 pens

USB-C power cube wall charge (retractable), black

Sunglasses in hardshell case

Passport

Moleskine hardcover small lined-notebook

Portable hard disk with black USB-A to USB-microB cable

Centre-right

ā€¢ Heys medium packing cube in black; containing 3 short-sleeved shirts, 3 changes of underwear, 3 pairs socks

ā€¢ Small (<1-L) freezer bag containing:

pill jars (ā€œarts & craftsā€), ear plugs, sunscreen stick, lip balm, eyedrops, nail clipper, Mopiko ointment, toothpaste, collapsible toothbrush, small bottles with body wash/shampoo, roll-on ā€œdeoā€.

Many items on display can be replaced in my destination nations. I described my summer 2024 itinerary here.

My carry-duo for a trio of months.

Still got clothes on me back

T-shirt, half-button pullover sweater, blue jeans, light rain-windbreaker jacket; Merino wool socks, walking shoes.

Peak Design

My nods go to their Leash strap for my X70, and Everyday case for iPhone šŸ‘šŸ½

I made the images above with an iPhone15 on 7 May 2024. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-sts.

Deutschland Ticket, for Canadian visitors (May 2024)

how-to buy guide

89 days within Europe includes by necessity substantial travel by train within Germany. Iā€™ve already booked in advance a number of intercity express segments, but what about local transport and regional trains?

The ā€œDeutschland Ticketā€ (D-Ticket) is a rail ticket for one person and costs 49ā‚¬ per month on a rolling subscription. The ticket is generally valid for local transport (bus, tram, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, intracity ferry) and regional rail (RB, most RE, IRE), but not for long-distance IC and ICE routes. Intended primarily for commuters, visitors to Germany can also purchase these tickets.

Iā€™m about to buy the D-Ticket for 49ā‚¬ for the entire month of May. The ticketā€™s ā€œrolling subscriptionā€ means if I do nothing else before 10 May, Iā€™ll also automatically purchase a D-Ticket for the month of June for 49ā‚¬. Iā€™ll need the D-Ticket for May, June, July, and August; but I can only buy one month at a time.

I choose Munichā€™s MVV-App, based on successes reported by other travellers. Iā€™m only using the Munich app for ticket purchase, and Iā€™m not planning to use public transport within Munich. To buy a D-Ticket, customers are neither limited by their choice of app/method, nor by the base/location where the app is based. My question is whether a Canadian-based credit card is an acceptable form of payment by the processing company in Germany for a German-based app.

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Notes for an abridged spell

1st-quarter of 2024

A few things have happened since I last saw and spoke with you.

As the calendar transitioned from 2023 to 2024, I understood I would relive in part the trauma of living through and ā€œsurvivingā€ my parentsā€™ deaths. I knew the replay in mind, body, and spirit was entirely, critically, and consciously inevitable: one, two.

After some dawdling on my part (lasting months), my sister and I finally put up for sale the family house in Chinatown/East Vancouver. We listed the house in early-January with open-house viewing mid-month. According to our realtor, about a dozen groups of people passed through for a look. We received an offer, and after minor negotiations, we accepted in February the offer on par with assessment.

Over two separate busy sessions, we had the house emptied (ā€œruthlesslyā€) of all its items, leaving behind only appliances, light-fixtures, and very old drapes. On April 3rd, I handed all of the house-keys to the buyerā€™s realtor, ending in that simple gesture almost 50 years of our familyā€™s presence within a simple but very functional 2-storey house. By the end of April 4th (ā€œdouble 4, double deathā€), BC Hydro had cut all power to the house.

ā€œGoodbye.ā€ East Vancouver, 2 Apr 2024 (iP15).

The emotional impact wasnā€™t as difficult as I had imagined, despite my inclination to self-destruction. But typing this now in a basement apartment Iā€™ve rented for a month in New Westminster, it feels a lot like Iā€™m finally closing the doors to many things to the rapidly fading past. Am I going to look back? Perhaps. It seems unkind not to, but there is a growing sense thereā€™s more ā€œout there,ā€ if I decide Iā€™m brave enough to move forward, one foot in front of the other. But I donā€™t intend on going back.

(And yet, thatā€™s what I said when I left for Toronto in 1994, never imagining my return in 2013. Funny how my eventual refusal to abandon the parents worked out after all ā€¦)

It is an enormous mixture of satisfaction and the bittersweet: a little sad itā€™s gone and out of our hands, but Iā€™m also eager now to get out of this place.

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Danube, Donau, Christian Stemper, Wien Tourismus

My Vienna: 30 days of spring from the 6

Danube morning: photo by Christian Stemper, courtesy of Wien Tourismus (no.50401).

With this entry’s appearance, I’m on the other side of the world, 8500 kilometres away.

I dashed in and out of Vienna a handful of times between 2001 and 2003 when I lived in Heidelberg; but I have no visual records of that period in time. I’ve returned to Austria’s capital city for the first time since 2018. I wondered then how a stay in the Mariahilf, the city’s 6th district, would go.

That time is now, because I’m spending a month in the 6.

To minimize weight, I’m experimenting:
•   32-L backpack as the 1 and only piece of (carry-on) luggage, and
•   “no bricks no heavy glass”, but a compact mirrorless Fuji X70 camera.

The apartment location and neighbourhood are ideal. I’m within easy reach of the city’s U-Bahn, surrounded by the U3, U4, and U6 metro lines. I’ve already located a drugstore and several grocery stores, all inside a trivial 0.5 km (0.3 mi) walk. I’ve also been told I’ll have many Viennese coffees and several meals in the area.

There’s a lot to pursue, see, and do; and there’s no time to waste.

( Click here for more )