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.