Packing...

You know, packing is no fun. Really, I mean, normal packing is no fun. Try shoving everything you'll need for two months into a backpack and pray that it stays below 44lbs. so you don't have to pay the damn airlines extra. SUPER no fun.
However, to balance out that "no fun" is the sheer excitement that I'm leaving in two days for a seven week trip to Europe! Extraordinary amounts of debt notwithstanding, this is going to be an amazing trip! For those who don't know, Danielle and I will be flying out of Seattle on Tuesday, Aug. 7, arriving in Paris Aug. 8th, spending the night, then first thing in the morning flying out to Athens. We are spending a couple days there, then head up to Prague Aug. 11. We'll spend three days there, during which time we're planning on seeing some village made up bones...Oh, sorry it's a church named St. Barbara's outside of Kutná Hora (Thank you Rick Steves!). Then we're off to Italy. Staying in Milan for the night, catching a bus early the next morning to head down to Siena. We'll get there just in time to check in then head over to the Piazza del Campo, where we'll head on up to our "private" balcony to watch the fanfare and Palio practice. The next day is the actual Palio, though we're trying to decide still if we want to brave the crowd in the Campo that day, but nevertheless will probably be partying it up with the locals in our contrada. The next day Danielle heads up to Paris for her class, while I head out to Elba for a day trip, then class begins on Monday. During the weekends I'll be headed all over Italy, hitting Venice, Rome (La Citta' Eterna), Pisa, and the Cinque Terre. After class is over I'm headed to Florence, where Danielle will meet up with me again, see the incredible art in the museums there, then hop on a train (1st class baby! ONLY way to travel!) over to southern France. We'll hop off in Nice, get on a local train over to Antibes then check into our hotel there. While there I'm hoping to pop over to Marseilles to get some REAL Moroccan food. We'll arrive in Antibes Sept. 18, then go to our hotel in Nice Sept. 21. FINALLY, Sept. 24 I catch a flight up to Paris to grab the flight on back to the good ol' U.S. of A. Whew! I'm exhausted after TYPING that! I may be incommunicado for a few days after I get back, trying to get ready for school and SLEEPING, but I'll try and post pictures and blogs during the trip so you can feel like you're really there with me! :)
Alrighty kids, I need to get back to laundry and packing, but I'll update this as frequently as possible!
Ciao!