Hola from Madrid!

Hello Hello!

It’s 7:25PM, but my brain thinks it’s about midnight. I’m kind of fuzzy on what day it is (Thursday according to my calendar) and I’ve already managed to develop blisters from all of the walking. It’s hot as all heck and I seem to be insatiably thirsty, but it’s awesome so far!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a phone at the moment. I’ve poked around in various shops but all of the cheap phones don’t have SIM cards. I’m already starting to miss my iPhone. I’ve gone to pull it out a few times and then realized that I couldn’t use it. Ah withdrawal…

The good news is: I’m not completely Spanish illiterate! Yay! I’ve managed to survive the last 11 hours without too many problems…

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I’ll Take The Window Seat Please!

My mom came to visit me at school yesterday to take some of my winter and miscellaneous stuff home to make moving out next month easier. I took her with me to go try on backpacks and look at some tevas for my trip because she would be honest about whether I looked like a moron in goofy shoes and a giant bag.

I think that’s when it hit her that I was actually serious about this trip and she proceeded to try her very hardest to convince me that going by myself was not a very good idea. I should find someone to go with me. I should stay in hotels. I should only go for a month. I should, I should, I should…

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Planning: The Itinerary (Finally!)

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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Planning: Mapping It Out

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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