Packing to leave!

If you ask me what I love the most about Christmukkah holidays, it is definitely the fact that I am packing to leave! In 06 days I will be landing in one of the most beautiful places on earth - The Holy Land.

Packing is tricky. Although we can take 02 suitcases (32k each) +  handbags, and that would be exactly 06 traveling suitcases and a total of 192k, I would not dare to try to drag half of my home with us. So we just take one suitcase each. The thing is, we are experiencing a very hot summer time and we are traveling to winter, so the backpack is the heavy one. We leave in shorts and sandals and arrive in heavy coats, gloves, scarf and all that paraphernalia we need, in order not to freeze once we put our noses outside the airport.

Fragrances. Another issue. Should I take them? Should I buy new ones to attach them to a great memory of my desperately expected holidays?

Usually I do both. I bring small vial with some of my fragrances and incorporate news ones during the holidays. By doing this I feel that I have capture in a bottle, the fun of being away, the joy of my holidays.

Last year I bought Van Cleef's Lys Carmin EDP (from the Extraordinaire collection) and La Chasse aux Papillons Extrême by L'Artisan.  Lys Carmin was on my way back in a shop in the airport, so it does not really remind me of anything but my 3 hours connection in Spain. But LCAP Extrême has this fantastic travel machine effect on me! One tiny whiff and I am back to Israel having fun I the middle of a freezing to death winter day skiing in the Golan Mountains. One tiny whiff and I am back to the many trips we made around the country exploring Shuks, caverns, restaurants, forests...

Israel is one of the most fragrant places on earth. If you ask me if I agree that it is the land of milk and honey...I would prefer to say it is the land of rosemary and many many other spices.

Photo credit: + Q Perfume Blog

This year I will try to continue my quest for the love of incense notes. As you know, Israel has many Biblical sites, and incense is very common in this region. Let's see where I will find it. I remember once taking a Catholic friend in a tour to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (or Resurrection). We went to see all the archeological-historical sites and we also attended the Christian mass. I felt pretty much dragged into the monastery of Eco's book "The name of the Rose". The praying in Latin, the Franciscan monks, the huge incense burner making clouds of frankincense and myrrh... needless to say we both left the place pretty intoxicated!

HOLY SEPULCHER

This year I will not travel far to look for Alepo soaps as I did last year. I will see where the scented paths will lead my nose. I collected many pictures for future articles last year. Needless to say I haven't written a single one. I guess I have a problem to share my fantastic Israeli scented experiences, they are too complexed, to intense to put in words. I shared some of the photos in my facebook thou...

Let's see if I manage to change that aspect of personality in 2012...

So I leave you guys for now...to check if I packed enough socks for my child..tata!