A promise is a promise.

When Stewart and I first started dating, he promised to take me to Europe someday. Unfortunately for us, planning vacations around our busy schedules has been really hard throughout the past few years, and we’ve barely been able to organize some long weekends (Las Vegas, San Francisco) and camping trips in the three years we have been together.
But now that I am officially done with school and will not be attending law school in the fall (more on that later), and Stewart is no longer a probationary firefighter, so we decided to take the plunge and really make it happen.

We bought our plane tickets today (for a steal of a deal) and I could not be more excited! We fly into London on October 17 and fly out of Paris a little more than three weeks later, on November 8. I know this isn’t enough time to get even a snapshot of everything that I want to see, but at least I will be able to get a little taste of Europe… finally!

I am one of the only people I know who has yet to travel abroad. Stewart is a seasoned veteran. A British citizen, he’s had a passport since the day he was born and traveled to Europe every couple years as a kid. He even lived in England for 15 months shortly after graduating from college. So I will have a very experienced tour guide on my hands!

So now, we’re at the point where we need to start making some plans and developing a realistic itinerary. We know we will start in London and the surrounding areas, where we will visit Stew’s family and friends, followed by Dublin (which I am desperate to see since my mom’s side of the family is 100% Irish!) and then from there we need to prioritize. Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna… I’d like to see them all. Rome is on our “must see” list and we will at some point make our way over to Barcelona to meet up with my friend who will be living in Spain at the time. And of course we will have to eventually make our way up to Paris and will spend a few days there before flying home.

So many amazing places, so little time. It’s really overwhelming at this point, but I’m sure that over the next few months we will settle on a good schedule. My organizational nature just can’t have it any other way, even though I’m sure Stew would prefer that we just head over there and travel by the seat of our pants.

Bon voyage!!