13 days, 327 hours and 19,624 minutes until Europe, but whose counting?

Jamie, Emily and I take off for Europe in 13 days! It's hard to believe we're getting so close. By the time we're walking down the Champs-Elysees we will have been planning our trip for a full year. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of effort to plan weeks upon weeks of travel. We've been so lucky in getting to discuss our travel plans with many of you... long hours at the gelato shop have yielded hundreds of great destination suggestions and information.

Our plans have undergone quite a bit of editing over time... what started out just being a trip to Italy inflated to something absurd (and impossible) involving 16 countries (for inexperienced travelers such as ourselves, once you start researching, you realize you want to see everything), to our current itinterary that covers six countries. We had to scratch a lot of great cities off our list... it was hard to part with the idea of going to Amsterdam, and we're all a little sad we won't make it as far north as Dublin (I wanted a Guiness!) We will, however, embark upon great adventures in England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Greece, including a layover in Iceland!

We hope this will serve as a convenient outlet to keep in touch by. We are all first time international travelers, so I'm sure we'll have some great stories to tell. Our journey will add another chapter to our friendship, to which we owe our gratitude to Sirena for bringing us together. Jamie and I first met in 2007, working together at Sirena. We took the same psychology classes at Western and shared a lot of laughs working late nights together at the shop. Little miss Emily was hired  in 2008, and we instantly became a three pack :)

We're getting down to the wire and the idea of packing your life into a backpack is a little overwhelming (more so for some than it is for others... Jamie and Emily!) We've crossed a lot off our to-do list, rail passes have been purchased, hostels have been booked, hand sanitizer has been bought, bandaids and passports have been packed away. Europe, here we come!

We're looking forward to hearing from everyone. Please keep in touch!