Friday, May 4, 2007

   My newfound Europe Itinerary . . .
I've come to the decision that I'll rave about Exo Squad right before I leave. It'll give you guys something to chew on for the next while after that.


Alright, so this is probably just as much of a way to remind myself how and what the hell I'm doing this summer as it is for telling you guys what I'm doing this summer. Let's go through the details:


Arrival in Europe:

• May 11th: The ototo and I are leaving Vancouver for London. We'll stay there with some family friends for a few days and chill. I'm looking forward to this part, as I'll be able to speak the same language as people.
  

The Contiki Tour:

• May 16: Our tour starts in London, heads to Dover and and then across the channel to France; Then through Belgium and stop in Amsterdam. Yeah, this should be a'ight.
  
• May 17th: From Amsterdam to the Rhine Valley.
  
• May 18th: Rhine Valley to Munich.
  
• May 19th: Munich to the Austrian Tyrol. I think my brother wants to go white water rafting here, which should be cool.
  
• May 20th: Austrian Tyrol to Venice.
  
• May 21st: Venice to Rome. I'm absolutely looking forward to being in Rome.
  
• May 22nd: Full day in Rome. I'm absolutely looking forward to this.
  
• May 23rd: Rome to Florence. There's a lot of Italy in this tour, turns out. Neat.
  
• May 24th: Florence to Lucerne, Switzerland.
  
• May 25th: Lucerne to Paris.
  
• May 26th: Full day in Paris. I'd best make the best of this one, as I hear Paris (though full of dicks according to Ichigo of the Pulse) is pretty cool.
  
• May 27th: . . . Actually, here's where it gets kinda weird for me. At this moment I'm actually a little confused as to where the tour ends . . . either Amsterdam or London. I had always thought London, but I also thought that'd be on the 28th . . . hmm . . . . . well, in any case, I'm leaving the tour before the end. So my tour'll more or less end in France.
  

The SomeGuy Tour de Normandie:

• May 27th/28th: Now, the online tour description says that it goes to Vimy Ridge on the way back to London. If that's the case, then I'll get off the Contiki tour there. If not, then I guess I'll be getting off sooner; 'cause I need to go to the Vimy Memorial. It's like, mission-critical that I see it.
  
• May 28th: Hopefully I won't have to scrounge around for a place to spend the night, but ultimately I'll take a train this evening from Arras (town next to Vimy) to Dieppe in Normandy.
  
• May 29th: I chill out in Dieppe for a couple days. My stepdad really questioned why I wanted to come here ("it's just a city," he said), but I have my reasons . . .
  
• May 31st: Train from Dieppe to Caen. I'll then be staying in Caen for about a week. It seems like it'll be a really long time there, but there's a castle and some museums to see. Also, I wanna use it as a sort of hub where I can bus out to all the war beaches . . . I didn't plan it this way, but it seems I'll be in the area during the D-Day anniversary. I think this will be important to be a part of. Still . . . HOPEFULLY, language will not be too much of an issue here . . . but we shall see (remind me to sew a maple leaf onto my backpack . . .)
  

Northern Europe Tour:

• June 8th: Train from Caen to Rotterdam. Should arrive in that general area a bit after 4pm. Hopefully my beautiful contact shall be finished her exam by then. Otherwise, I'll be chilling for a little while until I can find her. We'll play together for a week, hopefully without ruining her studying for her next exam on the 14th.
  
• June 14th: Find passage somehow from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. I'm in no rush here, and can pretty much arrive in Amsterdam after sunset if I wanted to. Heh . . . this will allow me to skimp on staying over another night . . .
  
• June 15th: Early-assed morning flight out of Amsterdam to Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden (yes! I make it to Sweden!). So I'll have this day to look around and stuff, probably spend the night here. What can I say, it's a town named after the Geats - as an English Major who studied Beowulf, I have no excuse, especially since actually visiting Geatland is definitely not feasible this trip.
  
• June 16th: I need to find passage from Gothenburg to Skövde. Maybe I'll help renovate a house or dig a trench or learn some Swedish phrases or something if people let me while I'm here for a few days . . . so yeah, who's excited about this one?
  
• June 19th: It occurs to me that I'll be waking up hella early today . . . I may have to leave the night before actually . . . but I need to be in Stockholm this morning, preferably a couple hours before 11:25am. 'Cause I need to catch a plane back to Paris . . .
  

Expensive Island Travel: (Hehe, I bet I'm making her feel guilty . . .)

• June 19th (still): I'll be in Paris for about seven or eight hours; more likely, I'll be in the Charles de Gaulle International for about seven or eight hours because I'll probably be afraid of venturing away or something. Either way, tonight I'll be Flying to Lisbon to chill out at the airport there for another six or seven hours on lay-away (noticing a pattern?) . . .
  
• June 20th: Early morning, from Lisbon off into the middle of the Atlantic in Ponta Delgada in the Azores, where I should arrive at about 7:45am. I'll probably be really smelly by this point; hopefully that one girl won't make fun of that . . . 'cause I'll be hangin' out here for another week, which gives me a lot of time to headbutt her if I have to (though hopefully it won't come to that).
  
• June 27th: I'll spend the day travelling again, from Ponta Delgada to Lisbon, and from Lisbon back to Paris . . . where I will have from 9pm until 10:55am the next day to think of something to do again!
  

Coming Back Home:

• June 28th: So long that all the times of staying up all night haven't completely broken my brain, I'll head westbound a little before 11am today and head back to Canada. There'll be a (hopefully) short lay-away in Cowtown, Alberta where I'll catch my final connector to Vancouver International and touch down at about 2pm.
  

I need to go book hostels today before work. Hopefully that goes smoothly enough, now that I know how long I'll be staying places and stuff (well . . . save that Arras crud, but we'll worry about that later). Umm . . . this seems like a pretty good plan, I'll have a lot of time to read and write and stuff . . . so yeah. I've got my flights and most of my trains booked. Heh . . . and I need to go write a cheque for my stepdad soon, I think (booked everything online with his credit card . . . he's a very generous man).

. . . and I should e-mail the News Team soon and tell them that I won't be here May-June . . .


[EDIT:] Well, booking hostels today was a bust . . . evidently my credit card hadn't been activated these past six months after all! Alright, tomorrow it is . . . blargh . . .
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