Preparing for our Trip

Well after much discussion and debate about our trip, Marty and I were very excited to just hop on a plane and see where our hearts took us in Europe, booking point-to-point trains. Things changed over the past three weeks and we’ve realized we needed to do a lot more planning. Okay, Marty is doing most of the planning, and I’m just listening to a lot of Rick Steves podcasts. I tried booking one hostel in Switzerland and that turned into a few chaotic international phone calls, emails between several alpine hostels, and frankly I’m still not sure if we have a confirmed place to stay. That was the last of my hostel bookings.

I mentioned we are planning now, but organizing this trip has been much more interesting than simply compiling a list of itineraries.  My take on planning has included: searching for cute little bed and breakfast or hip hostel on the way, looking for the most scenic public transportation routes across Europe, and getting direct recommendations on Irish countryside from my friends and family that live there.

Some other interesting tasks have come up as we plan this trip.  We learned from our good friend Stephanie that we might need International drivers permit. So Marty and I took a drive to our local AAA and walked out the door 10 minutes later with the most hilarious official document I had ever seen. Marty didn’t tell me ahead of time what he was up to but when we got to the counter to pay I was excepting to see an amazingly handsome man’s photograph but what I saw was hysterical! What do you think? I think one of us took it a bit more seriously than the other.

My List

We also decided to each create our own packing lists and compare later. My list is hand written on scratch sheets of paper around the house, while Marty’s is clearly typed and organized in a text document and saved across multiple computers, just one more example of our different personalities. Marty will probably be packing my bag or else I might forget something.

As you can see Marty is a trooper. We are going to have an amazing trip and I am so thankful that I have Marty to keep me organized, smiling, and prepared for our trip.