You're Dumped.

If you’ve ever been backpacking you’ll know how much it sucks carrying around a backpack. Add a trombone and it’s almost too much to bear.

Security has never been a priority for me. I trust that people won’t take my stuff. More than that, I trust that people don’t want my stuff. A bag of dirty clothes and a beat up trombone is hardly good bounty.

Over the years I’ve found some great free places to dump my stuff. Open lockers are pretty good; convenient, safe-ish and relatively unsuspicious. Free museums and galleries are great too. Check your bag in, then sneak out. The only problem is you might have the people from the gallery chasing you down the street yelling ‘hey, wait, you forgot your bag’.

My latest theory is ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t steal it’. The idea being that I hide my bags somewhere, usually in a bush, then pick them up later.

Fast forward to the Olympics in London. I decided to take my trombone to the beach volleyball to add to the already upbeat atmosphere. Unfortunately when I reached security I was informed that no bags over 25 litres would be admitted into Olympic venues.

They told me there might be lockers at the nearest tube station. I didn’t believe them. The game was about to start and I wasn’t about to miss it looking for somewhere to dump my trombone.

The venue was just by St James Park and there was security everywhere. I found a bush and stashed my trombone. I tried to look casual as I emerged from the shrubbery covered in dirt, leaves in my hair.

Four hours later I returned to discover that my trombone was gone. In it’s place was this note:

I went to the police station and picked up my trombone without trouble. I think I found a new place to leave my stuff.

A Time for Change

I have a love-hate relationship with coins. I love that they’re money, but I hate pretty much everything else about them. They’re heavy, noisy, easy to lose but hard to get rid of.

I learnt the importance of getting rid of coins the hard way. I tried to get rid of my coins before I left Germany but no banks would take them. Fortunately my lovely friends in Hamburg offered to take them off my hands, unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

I suddenly found myself in Scandinavia lugging over 150 euros in coins through 3 different countries with 3 different currencies. It’s a lot like putting rocks in your backpack. Stupid.

In Norway I bought myself a ticket for a fjord tour. The man went out back to print my ticket.

On his return he found 800krona in coins neatly piled on the counter.

He looked at the coins, unsure of what to do.

“So, ummm, you’ll be paying in cash then?” he asked.

Some people are not so nice about it. I bought a local bus ticket in Italy. It was only a 1.50euro so I thought it would be a good opportunity to use up some of the annoying bronze coins I was lugging around.

I started counting out 1c, 2c and 5c coins. The man started to lose his patience.
“Do you have anything bigger?” he asked
I looked up from counting.
“No” I lied

I got to about 1.30 and ran out of bronze coins. I had to subtly pull out a few 10c coins. That’s when he cracked.

“No, no I can’t accept these coins” he said
“But you have to” I said, “it’s legal tender”
“I cannot! No one will take these coins.”
“I know, but you have to”

Stubborn Maya was out to play.

We argued a little longer. A line started to build behind me. I had all the time in the world, the shopkeeper did not. I won.

Packing Light

Here’s the problem with travelling with a trombone: you have to travel with a trombone.

I’ve always considered myself a good packer, but it doesn’t matter how skilfully I’ve picked out my clothes or how well I squish everything in, at the end of the day I still have to carry around a massive trombone.

Last week I had my biggest packing challenge yet: to get my trombone and backpack on a Ryan Air flight as one bag weighing under 15kg.

I wasn’t particularly worried about the weight, I knew I could get it under 15kg if I tried really, really hard, it was the ‘one bag’ part that concerned me. I voiced this concern to my travel agent before I left.
“Just wrap them together” she said casually.

Of course! It was genius! Suddenly my whole notion of basic words changed. ‘What is a bag?’ ‘What is one?' The lines started to get blurry.

In the days leading up to my flight, I started hearing horror stories about how mean Ryan Air is when it comes to baggage. When I told people my plan, they were sceptical.
‘I don’t think that will work’
‘Seriously, I wouldn’t’
‘I’m not sure if you can pull this off’

Sounded like a challenge to me.
Alas, couch surfer Magnus made a suggestion that seemed to be a lot more logical.
‘Can you put the trombone in your backpack?’
Yes I could (with about 30cm sticking out the top).
I sighed, this was going to be far too easy.
I covered the sticking out trombone with my backpack‘s raincoat, and wrapped it in duct tape.

As you can see, it looks a lot like one bag. I had no problems with Ryan Air, the girl checking in didn‘t even look at it.

I understand that in some ways this is far less impressive than the top photo, but I still think it’s pretty impressive that I managed to fit a trombone in my backpack. I think I can say that aside from the trombone, I did pack light.