Baggage check

I made a spreadsheet of conversions for our bags with the limits for our airline (Aer Lingus) and we decided on what to buy based on that.

I'd bought six large duffel bags from Amazon, and although I'm not a fan of utilizing their services, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. So I did.

I'd originally bought smaller bags for our trip, as I'd seen quite a few expats manage them for the packing of worldly goods. Then I checked our baggage weight and sizing and went up a level. I packed the first set of heavy plasticy-canvas within the duffels, shored up the duffels with cardboard either sheets of it or boxes (thanks, Chewy for perfectly sized boxes), or a few plastic bins.

Then once packed, the day of the flight, we duct taped all the seams and wrapped the bags in industrial grade plastic wrap like you see when movers come in. It was a very sweaty and tiring process, we showered after it was done.

I then weighed the bags with a travel luggage scale and updated the sheet, just in case. I didn't want anything to have to be reshuffled at the airport in our final hours in the U.S.

We took the bags, ourselves, and the cat to a VRBO for the final days in town, so we could be completely done with the apartment and feel good about where we stood with luggage.

It ended up being a great move to make to really get us in mode for trip over the water. We crammed into a cute but tiny basement area gone cottage in the Mt. Baker neighborhood of Seattle.

We ended up being right next to a restaurant that was part of the small local chain we went to very often near our old apartment. We rented a SUV to manage the bags, and make final errands in Seattle. I was a calm mess of nerves, like when water looks inviting but is just rippling below the surface. It was all going so well, and in hindsight would continue to throughout.

There was just so much to carry, literally and figurately, out of the U.S. The place we were born, the city we'd met and spent most of our lives, lived the longest. Saying goodbye, taping up and wrapping our lives into six bags plus carry on was a feat that I won't forget.