For SBU, not your typical road trip
By Tom Chen
This isn’t your usual overnight trip to Vermont or Binghamton for an America East game. This is an 11-day tour of three major European cities. Packing for a trip like this is completely different.
Although the trip begins Thursday, everything really began during the spring when the players had to secure their U.S. Passports. Some of the players have never been out of the country, so they had to go through the whole process, including filling out the paperwork and getting their photos taken.
The team is bringing a bunch of electrical adapters for their cell phones, laptops, hair dryers, electric razors and other items. Europe has a different wattage system, and to complicate things further, it’s different in Ireland and England than it is in France, so everyone needs two different kinds of converters.
Among the other things we’ve been encouraged to pack are: driver’s license, credit cards, maps, language phrase books (for those days in Paris), an umbrella (for those days in London), a camera, gifts for the teams we are playing (gift exchange is common in Europe), and money belts.
We’ve also been encouraged to pack light. We’re allowed one checked bag at 50 lbs plus one carry-on and one personal item. Each additional checked bag is $75 per flight. However, we’ve also been encouraged to pack enough clothes for the entire trip because laundromats are hard to find and hotel laundry is expensive. What a catch-22.
It’s going to be tricky to make sure we’ve got everything we need in as few bags as possible. But that’s what last-minute packing is all about. Less than 24 hours until the flight from JFK.
