Viva la gin joints! Welcome back, reader. It has been ’s been over three years. To avoid such a long delay in posts in the future, send cash.
If in the last 31 words you haven’t figured out why we’re here, it is this: I am going back to Europe! Here’s where you get to read about what I am doing and subsequently cringe, cry, laugh, choke, faint and encourage. Or if the mood strikes you, send cash.
I've finally secured the means and determination to get back to my beloved continent, a mere 3 years, 3 months and 10 days after I left it a little messier and more confused than it was before me. After months of tiring over the internet, researching travel plans and tickets and tours (oh my), I've come up with an itinerary to make the most of my time and money, while hitting some of the deepest European desires I've harbored since I first landed in Rome in March of 2003: Poland, Austria (the hills are alive, and so am I!), Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
If in the last 31 words you haven’t figured out why we’re here, it is this: I am going back to Europe! Here’s where you get to read about what I am doing and subsequently cringe, cry, laugh, choke, faint and encourage. Or if the mood strikes you, send cash.
I've finally secured the means and determination to get back to my beloved continent, a mere 3 years, 3 months and 10 days after I left it a little messier and more confused than it was before me. After months of tiring over the internet, researching travel plans and tickets and tours (oh my), I've come up with an itinerary to make the most of my time and money, while hitting some of the deepest European desires I've harbored since I first landed in Rome in March of 2003: Poland, Austria (the hills are alive, and so am I!), Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The goal of this trip? ...do I need one? I just miss Europe terribly. Sometimes when I go out running through midtown, I get a vivid sensory memory and I feel like I am in 21 and in Europe again, particularly walking along the Seine River in gay Paris/Pareeee. I've come to realize that it's cigarette smoke and general urbanity that I am smelling that reminds me of Europe. What a let down. Why can't I be rushed back in memory to Spain every time I drink red wine, or wander back to foggy Londontown whenever I eat octopus? It's the strangest thing.
Ultimately I want 11 days of wonder & awe and that spectacular feeling of waking up alone in a completely foreign city where you can't even order yourself breakfast in the native language. I want to bask in the history and cob-webby old buildings that nearly ever European corner has to offer. I want to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Salzburg sights where the Sound of Music was filmed, imagining I can still smell Christopher Plummer in the air and hear Maria singing in the abbey. I have this small little life in the great big bank of lives, and I want to fill my soul with amazement as much as I can. I certainly haven't forgotten how it feels to miss your family and friends back home, and I know this won't be a fleeting feeling this time around, even if only for a week and a half.
For 3 years, I have been envisioning and planning when I can get myself back to Europe for either work, play, study or really anything that I can pass off as an excuse for which to be there for awhile. The last time I came home, as soon as we touched down at O'Hare airport, I reluctantly turned on my cell phone (neglecting the pilot's advice) for the first time in over 2 months. An unstoppable barrage of missed calls and mostly texts came rushing through, mostly from friends and family waiting to hear that I am back in the states safely. Strangely enough I also had messages from some others who arguably didn't know I was gone and had been wondering why I wasn't returning their calls. Sorry, ill-informed friends. Unbeknowst to most, I had to turn my phone right back off from the chaos of it all, and stood next to a trash can in the airport for a few minutes trying to convince myself not to throw my phone away in sheer defiance. Reverse-culture shock clearly was not good to me.
Since the last time I graced the continent I so warmly speak of, I've tripped and fallen face first into the "real world," only to find out that the majority of my 5-year plan consists of merely going-with-the-flow, Santa isn't real, and you're never too old to chase a shot of vodka with a pickle spear. It's been both the best of times and the worst of times. Life has gone on through everything it regurgitates at my world, though sometimes it felt hard to believe that it would. I intend to waste not a minute of these 12 days neglecting to do the thing that breathes as much life into me as oxygen itself.
I have a vague itinerary and have armed myself with my passport, a backpack strewn with clothes and a toothbrush. I'm not sure how many WiFi hot spots I will stumble into, so my updates may be short, sporadic, sometimes sweet and sometimes sour. In an attempt to reassure my parents that I am alive and well, as well as minimize the ungodly amount of internet portals I have gotten myself into over the years, I'll probably remain off the grid with this exception. Otherwise, I shall be free as a bird now (Lynyrd Skynyrd)! Enjoy. Check back once I've been home for about a week for glorious photos!
Most bittersweet of all: I can only justify going to Europe so many times before I have to become a WORLD traveler and not just a European traveler, so as far as personal travel goes, this will more than likely be my last trip to my beloved continent for awhile. Atop my list of next travel wishes are Israel, Turkey (technically Europe but also technically Asia too), Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Unless I shimmy myself into a career that places me back there, this is goodbye to Europe for now. I say that, yet truthfully I give it 5 or 6 years until I am back again. People have addictions, and if Europe is mine, I'm good with that. There's no 1-800-BETS-OFF for a continent.
All my love and la joie de vie,
Margaret
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