I don’t leave for a couple days, but my trip is already behind schedule. I just found out it takes five business days to ship Eurail passes to the States. I’m down to a couple business days and half a weekend in the US, so as far as train tickets go, it looks like I’m going to have to just wing it once I get there.
Just wing it: that’s kind of the theme for this trip so far I think. I haven’t really had too much time to prepare, so my “itinerary” is about as vague as the Iraqi Exit Strategy. I know where I’m going though. I’ll be flying into Amsterdam, then making my way across Europe to Berlin, Prague, and Vienna. From there, I’m flying to Tel Aviv, to live three weeks with my Dad in Israel. Then, I’m flying back to Vienna, retracing my steps back to Amsterdam, and finally returning home to California five weeks later. Last week, I gave this lengthy summary to one of my co-workers who had been to some of these places before. After I had finished, he said bluntly, “you’re not gonna get past Amsterdam.”
We’ll see, I suppose. (Will our young hero have the will power to make it through The City of Debauchery to find his Father in the Desert?! Find out next week…)
I’m going to attempt to update this blog pretty regularly once I get over there. I’m using it as an exercise to practice my writing, but also because I don’t want to have to tell each and every one of you about every detail of my trip when I can just say, “oh, you can read my blog.” I have to admit that I got this idea from my Dad, which makes me the first person in history to ever say they started blogging because their sixtysomething year old Dad is doing it. Actually, it probably makes me the first teenager to say they did anything because their sixtysomething year old Dad is doing it. Well, look at this. It’s the first post and we’re already making history.
