Notes from Abroad

After some long and hard thinking, I’ve decided to do the unthinkable. I’ve decided to -gasp- leave my laptop at home for the summer.

If you know me at all, your first reaction will likely be along the lines of “WHAT!??!?!??!?!!?” followed by all sorts of visions of me going through some sort of hardcore rehab-esque withdrawal. Yeah, I’ve had those same visions. But in the end I decided that I really don’t need a laptop. For the most part I work in the cloud and while it would be nice to have my trusty MBP around so that I have at least something familiar in my life, it’s big, bulky, expensive, and distracting.

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Now that I have my working itinerary down (though it’s been through a few changes since I posted it) I figured it was time to start working on the not-so-fun part: the budget.

This part was actually a bit scary and a bit challenging: some of the numbers that I was calculating were far higher than I anticipated while others were lower. The most difficult part, though, was figuring out how much to budget in for food! I already know to avoid restaurants as much as possible and to try to go to markets and such, but it’s not like I’m going to be buying groceries for a week at a time. And I do want to have the option of eating out every once in a while, because let’s face it, I won’t be able to make pasta as well as the restaurants in Italy and I wouldn’t even know where to begin in cooking an authentic German dinner.

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t wasn’t easy, but after many, many hours of staring at maps, reading through travel books, looking at airfares, scouring flickr, talking to friends, and just plain ole daydreaming, I’ve finally nailed down a working itinerary!

I have to say, it took a lot for me to cut out places like Glasgow and Stockholm, but when it came down to which places had to get the axe, I tried to pick groupings that would logically form into a future trip: a trip to Scandinavia, for instance, would let me cover Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and a bunch of other places instead of just the first two. Same goes for the UK. The UK seems like the easiest trip to make somewhere down the line and dedicating an entire trip to the UK would let me cover the more rural parts of England and also fit in Wales and a lot more of Ireland.

So, with the exception of London, none of those places will be included in my trip this summer.

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I’m slightly geographically challenged. I have an excellent sense of direction (if I do say so myself), but when it comes to being able to place things on a map, well let’s just say it’s not exactly my forte.

That posed a bit of a problem when it came to figuring out my itinerary. I had a list of cities that I rattled off, but I couldn’t really tell you how far apart they are or where a good number of them are in relation to each other. I needed a map. A good one. Off to the book store I went, but to my surprise, price tags were upwards of $20. $20! For a map! No thanks. That’s why we have the internet. After a little poking around I found a decent, grammar school geography class map that was perfect for my needs (like I said, I’m a bit geographically challenged). I needed a way to “stick pins” in the map so I could see if any logical patterns would emerge that would help me to decide where to fly in and where to fly out. Using my trusty list, I marked down the cities on the map in 3 colors: definitely, hopefully, and possibly. (And yes, I realize those aren’t colors).

With all of the points laid out before my eyes, it finally hit me: holy crap there’s no way I’m going to cover all of this.

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I’m a huge nerd. I’m not ashamed. But I am nervous about what that means for my travel plans.

At any given time you can expect to find me with my iPhone, MacBook Pro, 2-3 cameras (film and digital) and who knows what else. I’m reliant upon technology and I’ve become accustomed to a lifestyle where I’m connected all the time.

I think, more than anything else, not having the internet at my fingertips is going to be one of the most trying parts of this trip. Not only that, but figuring out a way to maintain a manageable level of connectivity while still keeping my backpack moderately light is going to prove to be an interesting challenge.

Two problems:

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I have a very long list of places I’d like to go. I know that realistically I won’t be able to cover very many of these, but I figure it’s better to get an “ideal” list down and then pick from there. Here’s a list of places I’d like to see just off the top of my head:

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I’ve had this trip stewing in the back of my mind for a few months now, but all of a sudden I realized that it’s only about 2 months away and I haven’t done -any- actual planning. Not good, Jenn. Not good.

It’s time to get serious.

I was at the campus bookstore the other day and they had some travel guides on sale. $4.00 a piece. I, of course, grabbed a few: Let’s Go Western Europe and Let’s Go Italy. Sure, they’re the 2006 and 2007 editions, but come on, how much do the Roman ruins really change in 2-3 years? The books were pretty useful, but I think they’ll be even more useful once I nail down a preliminary itinerary and time frame so I can look up more specific things.

I think the hardest part about all of this was the sheer scope of the trip. Where do you even begin? (Answer: at the beginning), but where is the beginning? So many questions to be answered.

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