When you go to Europe, what's really indispensible?

Not that many things.  For example, if you don't take enough underwear or a toothbrush, they actually sell them over there.  (Or you can go to a laundromat.  Or a wash-and-fold, just like in New York.  Who wants to go home with a pile of ripe clothes?)  Same with aspirin, deodorant, spare socks, toenail clippers, etc.

Let's start over.  What can you not get over there or only with great effort and a lot of wasted time?

Here's my list:

1. MY laptop, with all the passwords saved and automatically entered when I access different Google email accounts, for example.  Going to Internet access points is a bummer: show your passport (I make them take a NYS driver's license -- no guy named Muhammed in Verona is going to have my passport for an hour, even if the guy is a Bangadeshi.)

2. MY iPod.  Over 3000 songs, podcasts that include half-hour shows of "Fibber McGee and Molly" (I used to listen to them in first run shows -- deal with it), and the latest episodes of Sarah Silverman and My Name is Earl.  Essential when you're trying to sleep in a hotel that's a knocking shop or when a Midwesterner on a train wants to badmouth the Italians.

3. Lact-Aid pills.  Or equivalent brands.  You think you can come to Italy and escape cheese?  Ha!  And why would you want to?

4. Electrical outlet adapters.  So obvious, so easy to forget when your packing.  Such a radical pain in the ass when you've lugged your computer, etc., o'er the sea.  And what would become of me without my beloved iPod??

5. Purell.  Easy to figure that out.  Trains are often bereft of soap.

6. A watchful eye and a loving heart.  People are people everywhere you go.  Only, Italians are more intensely human than most, for good and for ill.

Comments

[Marco]

Have a great trip and enjoy Merano!

[Terry Hughes]

I wish I were going, but it's my Roman correspondent, Domenico, who will be there.

I am awaiting his first report, since he was supposed to be tasting and gadding about in the Veneto the past couple of days...but he has the usual Italian sense of urgency, I discovered long ago. (Dom, get the hint?)

[Charles D]

how about a currency worth something?\http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/images/gywo.dollar.gif