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Published: March 2nd 2015
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Well it's hard to believe that February has gone by so quickly!!! We have been busy visiting with family, friends, both of our schools, we have celebrated birthdays, went snowshoeing, ran (sometimes), went for long walks, shovelled, bought Kellan a car, had dinner with a number of friends, but most of all, we survived a very frigid month after leaving the tropical heat of Costa Rica! As hindsight is always 20/20, we know that we should have spent January and February in the sun, come home for March and then jet off to Europe for only two months. We were kind of shocked to come home to a whole month of "minus stupid" temperatures!!
Most of our days have been filled with long hours on the internet, researching our destinations, pouring over google earth maps and struggling to figure out how we are to get to each of our places through a myriad of strange streets! I have re-booked several of our places when they dropped in price or if better locations were found. We have our rail pass and several reservations booked for busy trains. I have bus tickets, shuttle arrangements, flights, car rentals, train and metro maps all
in my folder to go along with a very extensive itinerary. I have made several errors, like the very first train reservation I made...for the wrong day! Then I deleted all of our information for our flight home and have panicked upon realizing that sometimes we arrive in one train station and leave from another!! My head has been a whirl with both large and small details. How many other mistakes have I made?? Remains to be seen I guess. My stress level fluctuates while Curtis' stays even. His words are always, "It will be fine." Ever the optimist!!
These last few days have found us frantically cleaning cupboards, closets, putting screens back in windows, all in preparation for our return in June. Today we emptied and washed out our fridge, signed our income tax, and tried to make room in the garage for whatever, (heaven help me), Kellan brings home from school in April!
While considering what to pack for 3 months in Europe my brother said, "just pack enough for a week." Sounded like an awesome plan until I opened my backpack and started. Did that mean a week for each month we are going to be gone? What about the change of seasons? After loads of laundry, creating piles of must haves, maybes, and then the "what if" stack, we have finally zipped up our bags! Whatever we don't have, we will just buy I guess!
Both of us have been avidly trying to somewhat master a new language. Curtis is reviewing his German and I have been working on Spanish. I do great when told what to say by the people on the program!! I will just have to move outside my comfort zone and try to use what I have learned when we are in Spain. Could make for some interesting conversations!!! We have bought language books for Italian, French, and Turkish as well. Turkish is one I will never master. I have never seen so many letters in one word and they have an infinite number of "ee" sounds as well. Slovenia, Croatia and Austria will also be tricky but we are so very fortunate that English is spoken world-wide. Makes us kind of lazy though.
A friend reassured me that once we have settled into being "gypsies" and get used to moving around, I will start to relax! Last night was my night to have second thoughts. I imagined the very worst case scenarios for every situation and was pretty sure that there was no way I could survive this trip. Waking up to a sunny morning chased most (not all) of my insecurities away. I will just hang on tight to my husband, knowing that things will go awry at times but that is all part of the adventure. We look forward to meeting up with Francesca and her daughters in Verona, later with Annemarie and Roland in Vienna and finally with Curtis' family in Germany.
Adios until Madrid!!
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