[🏔️ yodel ⛰️] Day 0: Before the trip
Hello hello hello!
Thank you to everyone who's subscribed to this odd little experiment of mine. It's my first newsletter of any kind, pop-up or otherwise, and I'm super excited that you'll be a part of this.
The trip starts next Monday on the 12th and ends on the 29th, and I'll be sending out daily newsletters throughout the entire period. (This means that the next newsletter will arrive in your inbox on the 12th, probably when I'm at the airport!) You'll be following me through the cobblestoned streets of Lucerne, up a couple of nearby mountains, then up to Interlaken where I attempt to walk some mountains and lake-side trails. I'm going to be based in Grindelwald for another week of more hiking, picnics and throwing my partner SD into snow. Finally, there's a few days in Munich for Oktoberfest! I don't actually drink, so it'll mostly be me watching other people get smashed.
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So what's the point of 🏔️ yodel ⛰️?
I'm taking a leaf (more like a whole shrubbery, actually) out of Craig Mod's many newsletters and taking a much closer look at what's happening around me. I want to photograph more, write more and also think a lot more about what catches my attention and why. I've always been good about sharing effusively, through blogs and overly-excited Instagram Stories, but I usually don't stop and think about why I do what I do. I want to remember — or learn — how to be in the moment, digest it all, and then understand what it all means to me.
I've spent most of my adult life writing for other people that I've kind of forgotten what my own voice sounds like. What I'd write if I didn't have a brief, didn't have any audience or didn't have anything to prove.
Now, I don't know if any of this will actually happen in 🏔️ yodel ⛰️. I honestly don't know if anything interesting will happen. But I do want to give up and gain control of attention more deliberately too. And since I'm the sort of person who gets skittish at the idea of doing it every day 'for fun' or 'for no good reason', this trip is the perfect middle ground. It's improvising within structure.
Long story short, you could say it's part love letter, part therapy and part workout.
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Right now, I'm writing to you from the comfort of my home studio with two trusty fans trying to keep me cool in Singapore's humidity. I'm nearly through this week-long to-do list:
It's a mess of household chores, clearing out the fridge, finishing leftovers, final luggage checks and dehumidifying our mold-prone house so an entire forest of mushrooms doesn't take residence while we're away. This is also the first long trip SD and I have done since we've moved into our apartment, so all of this pre-holiday prep is very new to us. It's like exercising a muscle you never thought existed. A muscle that reminds you to eat leftover durian mooncakes. Is it excessive? Maybe, but I only know how to fight anxiety with a huge to-do list.
Side-note: Did you know that if you don't run your oven at least once a month, the components might fritz and short-circuit? I thought it only applied to big, professional ovens of the built-in kind. But no, our table-top 33L oven has the same problem too. So we need to turn on the damn thing before we leave. The problem would obviously be solved if we, y'know, baked or grilled shit more often but I still haven't crossed that hurdle.
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Packing is also another huge headache. How many of pants do we really need? Are we going to do laundry? Do I need to bring pink conditioner for my hair? Is make-up even neceesary!?
So like the Type A planners that we are, we started packing months before.
Don't look at me that way. We had to replace our broken suitcase. And some of the gear needed lead time.
Like my beautiful baby of a backpack, the Tom Bihn Synik (22L). I know it looks like a turtle. But it has pockets. Lots of them. I am obsessed. I have been testing out all sorts of load-outs (that's bagspeak for 'a set of objects') and it's been swallowing everything with aplomb.
Did I mention how much I love it?
And because I'm a vain, impractical, lover of limited edition UNIQLO clothes, my main jacket and raincoat is the hugely inflexible and heavy Marni Blocktech Half Coat. It's at least two times too big, because I'm an idiot. I am going to take a lot of silly photos in it and subject all my Instagram followers to many ridiculous OOTDs. Nothing frivolous of that sort will happen on this newsletter, thankfully.
Rounding off my personal items, is the Aer Day Sling 3, which will contain all my valuables. I've been taking it on test runs around Singapore over the past couple of months and this thing is roomy! I usually schlep a ton of stuff with me on a daily basis, and the Day Sling does a pretty good job of taking about 80% of what I carry. For a trip, it's probably just right.
What sort of bags do you use for your trips? I'd love to know.
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Anyway, I'm stoked. That this trip is happening, that I'm going to be doing a lot of walking, a lot of staring out of train windows, a lot of taking photos, a lot of picking which photos to share, a lot of writing to you guys — it's been a long time coming and I can't wait to see where 🏔️ yodel ⛰️ takes us.
If you would like to share this newsletter with your friends, this is the signup link. Otherwise, sit tight and stay tuned.
See y'all on the 12th!
Ali