beyond Berlin with budget airlines

Tomorrow I leave for Croatia followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), Italy and Wales. Today, I squish three weeks' worth of clothes, toiletries and assorted cables (mobile, Ipod, camera, etc) into a bag of dimensions 55 x 20 x 40 cm and carefully perch with it on the scales at regular intervals. Each time, I've swapped one scarf for a slightly smaller scarf or taken out the loose change from my handbag and hope that this will somehow drastically make a difference to my luggage weight. Low-cost carriers Easy Jet and RyanAir permit no more than 10kg per passenger and I, determined to avoid the 25 Euro fee for checked in baggage, am stubbornly pulling out all the stops to adhere to the luggage limit. I've filled teeny-weeny bottles with shampoo and face-wash, ripped pages out of my diary to avoid taking the whole book and will be wearing at least 3 layers of clothes and costume-jewellery onto the plane to thwart the restrictions. 

The itinerary has been meticulously designed, with all hostel accommodation and almost all transport pre-booked. I'm not much of a spontaneous traveller, in fact, this trip I am verging on the positively anal: researching for hours online; slowly and deliberately selecting items to pack; committing a dozen or so Croatian phrases to memory. In Croatia, I'll meet up with a friend from uni, Amelia and we'll travel together for 8 days through Dubrovik, Mostar and Sarajevo (BiH) where we'll meet up with another uni friend Vanja for a couple of days, before finishing up in Split (Croatia). From Split, I'll fly to Italy to spend a week with Daniel in Milan, Perugia and (of course) Verona and then for the final leg of the journey, I fly to Wales to spend a week with Ria, a friend from our days in Verona. My maths skills will be put to the test as I attempt to stretch my last Euros out over the next few weeks, as well as Croatian Kuna, Convertible Marks in BiH and British pounds. A return to Berlin courtesy of EasyJet is scheduled for 29 August. So for the next few weeks, updates will (hopefully) be made from a variety of locations but then again, if I decide to opt out and just enjoy the sunshine, then I'm sure you won't hold it against me.