Callie's intro

So sometime early in the summer of 2008 I became completely overwhelmed by the dullness of my daily routine. I have been living in R-town for 6 years now, and I have only lived outside of this state once, and that was only for 8 weeks during an internship. I am still young - only 23 - and I felt the need to seize the opportunity to travel while I'm still physically and mentally able. And while I'm young enough not to care about staying in hostels lol. I was feeling completely restless, and decided that I needed to get out of the country, out of my comfort zone, if only for a little while.

So, I sent out a facebook message looking for travel partner(s) to just about anyone I thought I could handle backpacking through Europe with for a few weeks. I was super-excited when Carrie said that she would be interested. It works out well for both of us, since we both are applying to graduate-type schools for entrance in Fall 09. That schedule allows us the convenience (or apparent convenience) of quitting our jobs a bit earlier than we normally would, as I doubt anyone has 3 weeks of vacation from work.

So here we are, with a rough idea of the countries we want to visit (Ireland, England, France, Italy, Switzerland) and a rough sketch of our path of progression through Western Europe. We will continue to catalog our progress on planning the trip in the days/weeks/months to come. In the meantime, I should probably start looking for independent health insurance to cover me between job quitting and starting up under school insurance (given that I actually get into graduate school...well...let's not think about that just yet).

Our plan as of now is to leave sometime in early-to-mid-June through early-to-mid-July. I have a wedding to attend to in mid-July, so we have to get back before then. It is a bit earlier than I would have ideally liked to go - but whatever, life can't be too convenient. I'll just eat rice and tuna for a month afterwards or something.