"Get everything done" day

Ack! Today was the day to make good on the long to-do list I had written up the day before. I needed to make an appearance at the Center, take care of some IT support issues, print out all of the documents I needed, go shopping for chocolate (gift for someone in Chicago, via an attendee in Hawaii), buy batteries for my camera and a plug adapter for my French cellphone, a swimsuit and some flip-flops for the beach. And, eventually, I had to pack.

Ultimately, I took care of most of these items, but I had to drop the flip-flops and swimsuit. The simplest and cheapest flip-flops were 12-20€ and there were no reasonable swimsuits. Apparently, there is a reason why European men always wear speedos at the beach: there is nothing else available. I searched high and low for "board shorts"-style swimming trunks, and all I could find were handkerchief-sized speedos and thongs. There's no way I'm showing up in one of those in Hawaii.

Also, as I was packing later that night, I accidentally dropped my cellphone charger on the floor. It broke into two pieces. I swore, thinking I had busted it, but instead I found that the French electrical plug had detached from the charger, revealing an American plug underneath. Damn, I just spent about 5€ on an adapter I didn't need.

I comforted myself with the thought that perhaps this was the obligatory pre-trip fuck-up, which meant that the rest of the preparations would go smoothly. I was partly right. My preparations went fine (even though I went to bed late), but no amount of excellent packing could've made the following day any more tolerable.