New Orleans

Belated post, but great success! We had an AWESOME time in New Orleans. Pics are here on Facebook.

We're already planning another trip for this summer after I graduate from nursing school: Philadelphia and NYC with a jaunt up to Rhode Island so I'll be down to three states that I have to visit before having visited them all (woo!). Tyler's visiting a friend who now lives up in Philadelphia and I'm looking to make a triumphant return to the Mütter Museum, which I visited with my dad when we drove back from moving away from Bennington in 2005.

So yes, all went well, very well.

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWN

Vacation in less than 24 hours.

Well, to be specific, our train leaves from Memphis in 27 hours, but we're both finished with our normal lives at 9pm CST, so really it's 'vacation' in 19 hours. We're definitely going to sleep on the train on the way down there, because as you can see by the current time stamp, I've been up very late doing paperwork. Tyler, being the true gentleman that he is, stayed awake to keep me company despite the fact that he also has a lot to do tomorrow.

I haven't packed at all. It's definitely going to be a last minute thing. Probably a poor decision, but hey, when would I have found time? At least Tyler's packed!

Four more days!

Tyler and I leave from the Memphis train station at about 7 on Thursday morning.

In case you haven't guessed, we're supporting the Saints in the Superbowl today because we're staying in the French Quarter a few days before Mardi Gras. Allow me to make this into a math problem:

French Quarter + impending Mardi Gras = debauchery

(debauchery) + Saints Superbowl win = ULTRA MEGA DEBAUCHERY

This could be more epic than first expected. GEAUX SAINTS!!! WHO DAT.

EDIT: OH GOD IT'S GOING TO BE BEAUTIFUL.

Planning locally

True, we won't be going to Europe until next summer, but we're still traveling here and there. We've been on one 'long' trip together: a few months ago, we drove from Nashville to the Cincinnati area to see the Creation Museum and Big Butter Jesus with our friend Sarah -- it was as delightfully horrible as you imagine, I assure you. In December, I made a successful long-distance trip with our friend Zola and it ended with us not killing each other (in fact, I think it made us closer as we were part of live meme creation and developed an idol in the form of our porter on the train... Roger be praised). For our anniversary (and Valentines), Tyler and I made the joint decision to make a trip down to New Orleans.

I know, sort of stupid timing. Mardi Gras starts on the 16th and we'll be there from the 11th to the 13th... and our hotel is in the French Quarter. When we informed my dad about the location of our hotel, he assured both of us that we would see more debauchery than either of us could have imagined previously. I gently told him that we'd be there for pre-Mardi Gras and he continued on to say that we were insane, as he saw inordinate amounts of debauchery and he was there during the month of October.

But yes, on the 11th, we'll be leaving Nashville at around 2 in the morning to make it to Memphis to catch the City of New Orleans to, well, New Orleans. We have coach seats on the way down and a roomette for our return on the 13th. A whirlwind trip to be sure, but with work AND school, we tend to have interesting schedules.

The most interesting thing about it will be figuring out what I'll eat. It hasn't been mentioned before, but I have celiac disease, which means I can't eat anything containing wheat, barley or rye -- a lot of the time, I can't have oats because of cross-contamination. I also don't eat red meat. Tyler doesn't have any allergies or other major dietary issues, but he's pretty picky. Europe will be interesting, or at least eastern Europe -- I know for sure that Germany, Scandinavia and Italy are really good about gluten-free options because of the high number of people diagnosed with celiac there.

But yes -- transportation and accommodations are the easiest things to figure out BY FAR. Zola can vouch for this fact as she dealt with my 'I need food for all four days that we're on trains' issues on the way to Seattle in December. Tyler and I would like to keep our baggage down to one bag each, but if I decide that I need to bring food, it will be... yeah, interesting. We're walking from the AMTRAK station to the hotel, so less is more in terms of luggage.

Starting to stock up our wishlists

We've been snowed in for the last couple of days, so I've had some time to consider some of the logistics involved in the plan. I don't feel like I can really make a serious business plan without a physical map, so I've been dummying up possible branches of the drive based on the hotels that I've found. I came up with a plan that can hit everything we need to hit in the 21 days.

We're playing it safe, however, and are setting aside 30 days for the trip just in case something cool arises on our drives. It's a very extended distance, after all, on a continent filled with marvels that we may want to look farther into.

But anyway, the helpful part of my day was spent looking through phrase books and PacSafe items. I put them on our European wishlist for safekeeping and am looking forward to adding more and more things as the months go on.

Introduction

Last night, I suddenly remembered that Europe has much less surface area than America.

Last night, I spent several hours looking at maps and realizing how little time was required to hit the vast majority of the continent.

This morning, I found out that Renault allows one to visit a few dozen countries as part of their Eurodrive program.

This afternoon, I made a handy chart which proved that in the 21 days provided by Renault, I can manage to go to Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, San Marino, Turkey, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Vatican City. For those counting (and I am), that's 42 countries and principalities, or 18.6% of the countries of the world.

Listening to me during this entire period of realization was my boyfriend who has a Wanderlust that it trying its best to catch up to mine. He's never been off of our continent before, so an experience like this, something completely different, would be awesome for his first foray into the world of Europe. I've been to ten of the above countries (and lived in one of them) and am no stranger to travel, so I have more than a modicum of knowledge in this area of European travel.

So we're in this together. I'm the planner and will therefore be using this to keep track of my preparations: passport updates, visas (only two!), car leasing, accommodations, maps, et cetera.

And thus the nurse and computer scientist begin their plans to take over Europe. It should be pretty damn awesome.