Trip Overview

I have a full suitcase to unload, meaning laundry to wash and a lot of items to be put away, and emails to but I’m so anxious to share about our trip that I’ll at least start with an overview of what our schedule was like.

Thurs, Mar 29: Flew out of O’Hare at 6pm

Fri, Mar 30:  Arrived at Amsterdam (Schipol Airport) at 9:30am

Fri- Mon: Amsterdam (3 nights)

Mon, 4/2: Train to Paris

Mon-Fri: Paris (4 nights)

Fri, 4/6: Flew to Barcelona

Fri-Tues: Barcelona (4 nights)

Tues, 4/10: Flew to London (Heathrow)

Tues-Sun: Stayed in Reading, England (5 nights; with day trips)

Sun, 4/15: Flew back to O’Hare (landed around 4pm)

There’s so much information I want to share and document that I will probably end up dedicating one post per day of our trip.  Hopefully that way I’ll be able to capture everything I want without too lengthy of posts.

Obviously, a lot went into planning the trip.  Much like our wedding, planning the trip became an obsession of mine but in the end it was all worth the time and effort.  We utilized all kinds of sources to determine where we stay, what to eat, what to do, what to see, etc.  Some of my favorite sources were:

·         Foddor’s

·         Lonely Planet website

·         Rick Steves: We used his website, books, tours, and watched some of his movies

·         The Nest’s Travel board

·         Thorn Tree: Lonely Planet’s travel forum 

·         Trip Advisor

I’m anxious to start looking back at the pictures, editing and sharing.  Right now we have one of Ben’s friends staying in our guest room until the end of the month.  That room is also where the desktop computer is, so I don’t want to invade his space by spending too much time in there and I have about 16 GB (3-4GB cards and 2-2GB cards) of pictures from the SLR, so there is A LOT to go through!