My wonderful backpack has turned out rather smaller than I anticipated. It looks like I’m going to be going a month on not very much clothing….. Oh well.
I’m also an idiot. Do you want to know why I’m an idiot? Well, I don’t really want to say, because I’m embarrassed to be such an idiot.
…okay, I’ll tell you. I already had a backpack. I had just forgotten about it! My true hiking backpack, big blue thing that I love, that I took on NOLS, is indeed back in the States somewhere, but I had another backpack, this an EMS 2800. I just found it in the closet this morning, filled with old hiking gear! Aggggh! Oh well, looking on the bright side, now if/when Zaubi and I go hiking we will both have a backpack.
But this brings me to the strange thing: US backpacks (as far as I’ve noticed) tend to be measured in cubic inches, thus the 2800 = 2800 cubic inches. Now, when I put that backpack and my new, 75L backpack side by side, they are *exactly the same size*. Practically identical. However, if you do that math, you see that 2800 cubic inches is a little under 46L, not 75L as this new backpack claimed to be!
Besides, our beer brewing tank thing is about 25L, and while I can see fitting the contents of 2 of the tanks (maybe) into one of these backpacks, there is NO way that 3 would fit in there.
So my question is, was I completely ripped off, or do litres with regards to backpacks mean something dramatically different than litres in the normal world, and everyone knows it but me?
This question is extremely important. It is vital to the fact that I now find myself setting off for almost a month in the Middle East with far too little underwear.
It also means that I am, for the first time in my ENTIRE life, going to be taking a long trip — drop the long, even — with basically no books to read. I find that all I managed to fit in there were two pathetically small Sudoku magazines, a Bible, an extremely battered copy of We the Living, and a small book on Beginner’s Latin: the Story of Lucia and Paulus; Conspiracy in the Cloisters.
Those of you who know me well know that for me to embark on a 26 hour journey (and much more!!) so ill-equipped in literature is sheer insanity.
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I had a lot of other things to write about, but I find myself lacking the energy right now. I could tell you about how wonderfully my online Carcassonne game is progressing (how can I bear to be away from it for a month?), the 14 apples that appeared in my fridge, or about the strange mental disorder that comes upon me every time I find myself waiting at the red light at the end of my street.
But that can all wait till later.