You can't always get what you want-Rolling Stones and travel style

Travel Style...help us Angelina, we pray!

  Today I'm flying all solo on the ol' iPad hoping this blogging experiment will work. So here's one more before we head off.  Travel style....discuss. Do you have any idea how many web pages and Pinterest boards spring open when you google search "travel style"? I lost count after seventeen- hundred, sixty-three. And of those, fifteen-hundred feature Angelina Jolie. I guess when you are flying around the world adopting children you need to have a savvy stylist to go along.  I know... This is supposed to be an educational tour but I'm getting life lessons pushed out here! (And don't think just because you are one of the only three males going that this stuff isn't critically important and, dare I say, life-changing. Just look at what good style did for Angelina, a girl who attended her first marriage Ina t-shirt with the grooms name written in blood to a woman who wows the red carpet.) I also have proof that this is a much-needed education in math for males, as witnessed by my brother's astutely inept calculations on the last blog entry that 3 skirts + 4 tops = 12 days. Even an astronaut knows that just equals...well...B-squared  (boring and B.O.) So here's a list of fashion must haves for touring Europe: 1. Large dark glasses (so either people don't recognize you as an American movie star or they THINK you are one--much more likely) 2. Floppy hat (see above.. It's part of the movie-star mystique) 3. Cross-body bag, preferably leather and clutch sized. (This is so thieves and pick-pockets and muggers have to actually hurl you physically across the piazza as they rip the bag from your body as opposed to simply slipping it off your shoulder and running like mad as you scream Aiuto! Which I think means "stop" in Italian.  4. Perfect lengthed shorts: which means neither "booty" or "Bermuda." Now this is a tricky one and may require hours of shopping NOT at American Eagle or Eddie Bauer. These must be constructed of this season's go-to fabric called...well shoot I packed them already so I can't tell you...but it's something similar to the curtain fabrics used by both Maria von Trapp and Scarlette O'hara to construct comely outfits for children and seductresses. 

Kute kids' Klothing

5. Something that shows the shoulder- but NOT the arm. Yes, this is the travel look of summer. Something either missing the shoulder seams or slipping somewhere short of the Famous Flashdance sweatshirt scene.. (Everybody say "if you close your eyes you can see the music") 6. Perfect pair of wedges (just to be clear for my brother... That's not the same thing as a wedgie...these are shoes) 7. A nude lipstick (really? What's the point? If God would have wanted our lips skin-colored....plus it's just embarrassing to say) 8. I will spare you the undergarments (but suffice to say that you don't want bra straps showing so just get ready for that skin blister you're going to have under your left arm pit after a 17 hour day in a strapless equipped with rubber stay-put band liners). NOW THAT, my friend, IS AN EDUCATIONAL TOUR!  But here's the thing...what you're supposed to look like, and what you feel like as you attempt to feel like what you're supposed to look like are two different animals. It's sort of like, "I've always wanted to be one of those women who wear floppy hats through Europe...but I always feel like a goofball wearing a truckers cap backwards every time I try to pull it off." Anybody smelling what I'm saying? I mean, we all look at Angelina and go, "ahhhh." But try to emulate and all you're going is,"I am a fraud!" And there you have it. Right back to boring and body odor. Europe here I come!

What you want

What you actually end up looking like