So Fresh & So Clean, Clean
Washers, Clotheslines & Laundromats:
Coming into this trip, we knew we wouldn’t have access to wash and dry our clothes the way we’re used to and were okay with that. At first, “sink-washing,” sounded almost primitive to me (first world problems). I haven’t always lived somewhere that had a washer/dryer in my living space, but there’s always at least been a laundromat connected to my apartment complex (and when I didn’t feel like using that I could always swing by a friend’s house or my parents’ to do laundry). Case in point: I’ve never had to really hand-washed anything (with the obvious exception of the many spills I had to clean up immediately before they stained).
This could definitely be different for me because this is temporary (not a daily, indefinite living situation), but it’s honestly not too bad.
The Set-Up:
In Barcelona (and Sant Cugat del Valles, just north of Barcelona), we knew we wouldn’t have a dryer but would have a washer. For places like Geneva, Paris and Rome (where we’d have neither), we packed a bundle of twine that I had leftover from wrapping gifts last year and bought 30 packets of Tide Sink Travel Packs (see below).
They’re basically just little packets of detergent (I’m not sure whether they’re concentrated or if you’d get the same result from pouring Tide into a baggie and tossing it into your suitcase, but I’d imagine these would travel better.) with instructions on how to wash your clothes on-the-go.
1. Clean your sink!
This wasn’t a part of the admittedly self-explanatory instructions, but I’d definitely recommend it, especially if you’re staying in an AirBnB. Sure, the highly rated ones clean really well, but I’d rather spend three minutes of soap, water and elbow grease to have the peace of mind that all the “clean,” clothes are actually clean now.
2. Girl, wash your clothes!
We blocked the drain, added Tide (I mixed up the soap & water first so the first load wasn’t the only one with Tide) water and clothes, then scrubbed and mixed them around (the same thing an agitator does in a washer) until I felt they were clean.
3. Rinse & Dry
This is where our system comes in. It’s a pretty easy process, but it goes a lot faster when you have someone else working in an assembly line with you. I’d wash one load at a time (~5 shirts fit in our sink), hand them to Brock one-at-a-time so he could rinse and wring them out in the shower, then he’d hand me the previous one he’d rinsed and I’d hang it on the clothesline (We tied them diagonally across the room wherever we could, usually from two cabinet doors to a window to more cabinets).
Laundromats:
The only laundromat we’ve used so far was the one we visited briefly in Paris. Our place was just too small to consider a clothesline (~70 sq. ft., literally, by Brock’s measurements), and we didn’t want to pack our dirty clothes in our suitcases with the clean ones because we’d just have to rewash everything when we got to Rome anyway.
There were some instructions posted in English, but I just used the Google Translate app with the ones posted in French. The only difference I saw between these and other laundromats I’d used was that to turn them on, you punched a code into a coin machine instead of into the washer/dryer itself (Maybe some in the U.S. are like this, and I just haven’t used them?). Overall, it was a-ma-zing to have freshly dried clothes for the first time since we started our trip, but I do wish we’d used the Tide packs instead of the soap they sold there (I also wish we’d packed a few dryer sheets). Even when we used those Tide packs to hand-wash and hang-dry our clothes, they smelled great the next day and made me feel cleaner.
It was ~ €19 to wash/dry all of our clothes (1 super jumbo washer & 2 dryers). I’m glad we had the option because dryers were nice, but I’ll be happy to stick with hand-washing and using clotheslines for the rest of the trip.
