Ring ring ring ring ring! Banana Phone!

Well, here it is... My international cell phone! It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but it's most certainly a USED phone. It's so battered around the edges and looks like it's questionable about whether it's last owner survived the trip,
which led my dad to say that it's perfect for me. I have a rather dubious track record with electronics. I broke my digital camera about two weeks ago and panicked that it wouldn't be back in time for me to leave. Never fear though, Nikon to the rescue! I next day aired it to them and they fixed it within a week and even next day aired it back to me for free. I highly recommend Nikon Cameras, not only for the great picture quality I get from my camera (coolpix L3!), but for their superior customer service as well. I've been rather crazy about taking pictures of things ever since I got aforementioned camera back, so I might as well show you a picture of the gear!

My pack! It doesn't look very impressive in this picture, slightly shrunken in on itself, obviously empty. But don't worry it's hiding the extremely intimidating Heart of a Lion! That will become apparent once I sew on the pirate patches. Haha. (*cough*Note the Obama volunteer hanger on the door handle. That's right, I'm awesome and I met him*cough*)

I'll give you one more
picture of the
pack for perspective -

I clearly dislike profile shots of my face. Especially "I-just-got-out-of-bed" ones. You can see the waist strap that will help balance the weight and take some of the strain off of my poor back. It's an outdoors pack so it also has a wire frame that makes it stronger and more supportive. I really like that. My parents got me it for Christmas. They went in and said to the store guy "Our daughter is insane and is backpacking through Europe. She's probably going to have a lot of stuff, and need something strong that can handle it. She's also disorganized. (I don't know why they'd say this, but I'm positive it was brought up. Always is.) She's be going here and here and staying in hostels, and need a place too store wet things like towels after she showers. For some reason we're going to be enabler's and want to help out. What's the best pack?" And voila! My beautiful blue baby. I should name it.
I leave in five days!!