Departure

My last post was a bit premature, as the bad weather in the midwest has continued this week. Lots of snow in both Des Moines and Chicago has caused us both a little more stress than we would have liked this week. Nevertheless, today is the day we head out, and the snow seems to be calming down.

I'm writing this from the Des Moines "International" Airport, where we're getting ready to head to Chicago, then on to London overnight.

We left our cat Belle behind. She seemed more interested in her mid-morning nap than long goodbyes.

She will have various visitors while we're gone, and as long as they feed her, they will become fast friends.

As for us, we're hoping things go off smoothly for the rest of today and we'll check back in from London.

If anything noteworthy happens between here and there, I'll update this post.

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Update: Made it to Chicago; going to London. I used the earplanes ear plugs Martha got me, and my inner ear didn't explode. We can't say for certain whether they actually worked or not (thanks a lot, science), but we can say that they didn't not work.

Stephanie says "hi."

See you in London.

Better This Week Than Last

We are down to T minus less than one week until departure. It's a bit of a scramble to make sure we are ready to go, and we have also somewhat foolishly stuffed our regular schedule during these last days before we head out, leaving less time for final planing than we might like. I think we will have some time in the next couple of days to check all of our pre-trip boxes though.

It is a good thing that we were not planning our travels for this week, for a few reasons. Last weekend, Stephanie and I paid a visit to my sister's family in Missouri. There were several fun aspects of the trip, including an impromptu Rick Steves-themed drinking game played only by me. The one bad thing about the trip was the back pain caused by the 4+ hour drive. With the transatlantic flight to look forward to, this was not a welcome development. While we avoided the epidemic of Strep that was running through the Early/Miller household (2 out of 3 triplets and 1 out of 2 parents), Stephanie managed to contract the flu upon our return to Des Moines. On top of our physical troubles, we had 6 inches of snow that arrived on Thursday evening. So we're happy to have lucked out and gotten all of that out of the way before we leave.

Look for a true last-minute post later this week, then check back to hear about the trip.

We're Going to Europe

Hello. My name is Sam. My girlfriend Stephanie and I are about to go on a European vacation. Our plan is to use this blog to update interested family and friends on our activities, and also as a way for us to document our trip. We will try to post photos and some thoughts on the trip in real time, and also after the fact. 

Right now we're putting the finishing touches on our itinerary. Here's what we know: we're going to London, Paris and Barcelona. We mostly don't speak French, Spanish, or Catalan, so we're trying to cram some last-minute language learning (alliteration!) in at the last second.

We are almost certain that we will take in at least one football (soccer) match and one stage production. There will be visits to museums and several ancient churches along the way too. We will be taking a day trip to Cambridge in England.  We will also do our best to take some time to relax in local neighborhood pubs and cafes and enjoy life with the locals.

Check back in late February as we hit the panic/excitement phase.