How to Reduce Four-Plus Years Into a Box, a Suitcase, and a Carry-On in 12 Easy Steps

Photo by charlieontheradio

You've got 26 days left in Colombia; here's what you do:

1. Rip all bootleg, copied, burned, and otherwise unoriginal CDs to your computer. No need to carry home all that plastic (and the joy of this is rediscovering old tunes and artists who hadn't crooned from your speakers in a while...some good ol' Donny Hathaway, anyone?).


2. Give towels and your $50 DVD player to the sweet old lady you live with. Or to the sweet old lady next door. Or to the sweet old lady who cleans the floors at your job. Either way, there's always a sweet old lady somewhere to give something to. She can get the tube socks, too ($10 a bag at the flea market).


3. Donate Before the Mayflower (681 pages) and The Brazil Reader (544 pages) to some inquisitive English students; they'll be grateful for the cultural insight and you'll be grateful for the lightened luggage. If you really need those books again, that's what Amazon.com is for. Do NOT donate first editions or autographed copies of anything.


4. Give plastic CD and DVD cases to the art teacher who can do something creative with the images; a collage, montage, melange, or some other artsy-fartsy but interesting crap. She can also get the old in-flight magazines and back issues of Men's Health and Ebony (the Obama issues should get packed in the box, along with the CD carrying case that holds the actual DVDs).


5. Give I'm-too-sexy white crew-neck and V-neck t-shirts to friends at the gym, who are the only people your size in the country anyway; you can always get more at Target. They can have the tubs of Hydroxycut Hardcore, too, especially since the gubment said not to take it.


6. On that note, if it ain't been worn more than twice in the last four years, there's somebody else who'll wear it tomorrow.


7. Give old curriculum circulars and blank grade sheets to your students during final exams to make paper airplanes and turn the classroom into Hartsfield-Jackson.


8. Sell the roller-blades. If you ain't learnt by nah...


9. Re-write the scribblings on every other page of the six composition books you've had for years into one small notebook. Or better yet, throw them shits away. Along with all the peer-edited copies of your thesis fiction project that you've kept for the interminably-impending re-write.


10. You might have to make a Sophie's choice about the porn collection.


11. Get back to me on the shoebox full of ticket stubs, museum guides, mini-maps, boarding passes, and the Cuba Offers You government tourist guide. There has to be some kind of use for all this memorabilia. And you know the Prince poster gets rolled up and packed (stuff some dress socks in that mug to retain the shape, then break out the iron when you get home!).


12. Place regrets, fears, doubts, and other assorted baggage out by the curb.
    

Fly Brother welcomes your views. If this post hit the spot, please comment below and/or click .

How to Get to Carnival

So you want to get in on the Carnival action but don't know where to start?

Find out when.
First, you need to get the dates cornered before embarking on any pre-Lenten debauchery. True Carnivals - be they in Brazil, Italy, Spain, the Caribbean, or any other Catholic-leaning society - occur simultaneously, which means ix-nay on a year-round party binge (unless, of course, you count New York's West Indian Day parade, Calle Ocho in Miami, the Notting Hill joint, or innumerable other Carnival-esque activities that are not True Carnivals and can happen on any random date); you can only choose one event per year. Also, just like Easter, which is always forty days after Fat Tuesday, Carnival jumps around the calender every year: for 2011, the main events run from March 4th through the 8th, with celebrations kicking off a few days beforehand in spots like Salvador.

Find out where.
Besides the biggies (Rio, New Orleans, Venice), you've got the Carnivals featured here on Fly Brother (Salvador, Barranquilla, Trinidad), plus parties in Panama, Santo Domingo, the Canary Islands, Florence, Cologne, Sydney, Port-au-Prince, Goa, Buenos Aires, and Mobile, so language-barriers and dislike of long flights serve as week excuses for not going buck-wild at somebody's fête-a-tête-tête.

Find out who.
You could choose to hit Carnival solo, which is always a good way to meet new people on the road. Still, heading down with an established group is the best way to maximize your enjoyment and minimize hassles. You may think of yourself as an independent person, but you can always break away from the group for some alone time while still taking advantage of discounted airfares and accommodations, and the knowledge of local tour guides or experienced travelers. Each year, in addition to traditional travel agencies, educational institutions and individuals arrange group packages with which anyone can become affiliated: Dr. Jan DeCosmo of Florida A&M University organizes inexpensive packages to Trinidad and Salvador under the banner of "Friends of the Caribbean" (email her at k d e c o s m o [a t] h o t m a i l [d o t] c o m for more information) and the closer it gets to the blessed event, impromptu travel groups spring up on websites like Meet-Up, Virtual Tourist, BootsnAll, and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum.

Find out more.
English-language websites for Carnival in Rio, Barranquilla, Salvador, and Trinidad.