My (planned) Summer Vacation

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the large sums of money this will cost me.



My buddy Ryan called me up about a month ago to find out what my plans were for this summer. Seems he was going to be heading to Europe with his wife and would have a ton of free time on his hands while she did her scholarly things during the day.

His plan was that I schedule a summer trip to Amsterdam and meet up with them to finally enjoy the little European vacation we were supposed to have before our final year of college!

That trip was scheduled since he was studying abroad at in Sunderland, England. I was excited to go and started making plans only to be Euro-blocked by Illinois State University.  Seems that one class I would need for my major coursework was only going to be offered as a summer class...so Europe would have to wait.

If it ended there I probably wouldn't be dwelling on it almost 10 years later. But, the fun really can two weeks before I was supposed to have left for England. I got a call from the university telling me that there wasn't enough interest in the summer class so the four students who it really affected were going to be given the option of taking the class next semester along with the upper level class it was a pre-requisite for. Needless to say one can not properly get their shit together for a European trip in two weeks. Especially when you don't have a passport at the time!

With that I missed out on Stonehenge (the greatest henge in the world), all things Beatles, and a host of other bits of awesome. So, having been presented with the option to recapture a missed opportunity of my youth I said yes.

Actually I think my exact words were closer to F--K yes! But, why squabble with the details! So here I sit almost a month into the new year and it's time to work on a plan.

I think it's gonna go a little something like this:

1) Get passport -- Important first step in any travel plans that involve leaving the US

2) Find out exact dates that Ryan and his loverly wife will be in Amsterdam.

3) Figure out flight plans....

     3a) save almost all of my tax return money to help pay for decent flight package to and from

4) Start working on ideas for what to do when in Amsterdam.

     --While I think there is enough to do in Amsterdam I would also like to branch out a little using the city as my base of operations for the (hopefully) two week trip.

5) get my mind right to start working mad overtime to save up cash for this trip. I should also throw in a prayer for the US dollar gain some strength overseas!

So I am sure that this plan will grow and evolve as the year goes on. Would love to take a train ride into Paris for a day. But, at just over four hours and a few hundred bucks may have to settle for something a little closer. Amsterdam to Brussels and then Brussels to London seems to be about the same.

Plans come and plans go...but my homies stay eternal...wait...where did that come from? What I was trying to say is that while I hope and pray that this vacation comes to life in it's current form. I do plan on traveling somewhere this summer. So, if things fall through to Amsterdam for some reason maybe I'll just have to adjust my destination to London or someplace else, maybe later in the year when it's a little cheaper!!

All I know is that I am currently geared up the summer adventure I missed out on almost 10 years ago. In some way it will happen.