T-Minus 60 Hours....

60 hours. 60 hours until a month of baguette munching, cheap wine drinking, sprinting through train stations, living out of a suitcase, cliché pseudo-hippie young person traveling through Europe. My general response? Yikes. I do have a plan, I have places to stay, I have transportation, etc, etc, etc. But it still feels like I'm driving the proverbial bus, through the proverbial wall of television sets, and off the proverbial cliff. Like Indiana Jones falling out of the plane in the Temple of Doom in the river raft. That's an apt description of my spring break thus far. Except costing a lot more money. I don't really want to talk about it. Any of you would be globe-trotters should know that Europe is flipping expensive. Well, the places I'm going (i.e. France and Italy) are. And the cost of getting to Turkey sort of makes me want to crawl up in the fetal position and cry. I did however get a great deal on a plane ticket from Istanbul to London Heathrow on British Airways. I'm using that as my big piece of consolation. No matter how expensive other stuff gets, I can always think about my cheap ticket on a quality airline awaiting me at the end of the line.

Am I prepared? Yes and no. As stated earlier, I have transportation and lodging accounted for, though a little more heavy on the wallet thanks to my ill-advised wait to book things. In that regard, I'm set. But overall, I haven't had a lot of time to prepare myself in a mental sense. I feel that when you're setting off for a month traveling, you should be in a certain mindset or something. I don't have that. The past week or so has been so jam packed with my dad and Kate's recent arrival that I haven't been left with much time to contemplate the journey ahead of me. It will be a learning experience then, I suppose.


As you may have guessed, my dad left Monday morning. We had a good time. The canal boat adventure turned out to be okay. We sailed up to Burton upon Trent, which apparently is the brewing capital of England. So the next day we sailed back down, collected our trusty Ford Focus, and toured the Coors Visitor Center and Museum of Brewing. Coors bought out the old brewery, it was a little disheartening to see COORS plastered all over the historic city. Sunday saw a whirlwind trip down to London which culminated in another stay in the always reliable Holiday Inn Express. And then Monday he left again. It was a good time overall. Good to see dad.

My friend Kate from home showed up yesterday with a friend of her who is volunteering near Birmingham for the year. Although I've been having things stack up on me (see spring break planning, homework, etc, etc, etc), we've been having fun. Did some swing dancing which was really good. I am so out of practice though. All sense of rhythm has left me. But they're heading out again tomorrow. Kate's departure will mark the last visitor that I will have this year. There's only about two months left in Europe. That's a sobering thought.


Today saw my faith re-established in the international postal system. My mom and grandma had purchased for me a new iPod to replace mine, which is in its death throes. It was sent on February 17th, in the hope it would arrive by my birthday. Well, it didn't. And subsequently failed to arrive afterwards, leading both my mom and I to suspect that some corrupt postal employee had nicked it. Just when all hope was lost however, Parcel Force Worldwide came knocking with a letter notifying me of my duty to pay the duty on my luxury item being imported into the UK. After Emily and I rode a bus to the ends of the earth (i.e. the east side of Nottingham) and battled with a particularly finicky credit card machine, I've finally collected my birthday present. It's great. I'm racing to try and pack as much crap on it for the next month.

So yes, that is what is going on. Sorry for my lack of recent postage, it's been busy. I'll try to get one more pre-departure post up, then post as much as I can from the road. Final itinerary you ask? Check it.

March 24-28- Paris
March 28- 30- Pontorson-Mt. St. Michel
March 30- April 2- Avignon
April 2- 6- Nice
April 6- 9- Florence
April 9- 12- Rome
April 12-15- Sorrento
April 15- Ferry to Athens
April 16-18- Athens
April 18- 22- Istanbul
April 22- Return to London, Nottingham

That's the deal. I'd welcome any suggestions for said itinerary, encouragement, rants on how stupid I am, etc, etc, etc. Until we meet again, keep it real.