The Scene In Which I Go To Europe

As many of you know, I had the incredible opportunity to spend the last two weeks in Italy, Spain and France.

If you're wondering why you didn't already know that, ummmmm, it's because I had the incredible opportunity to spend the last two weeks in Italy, Spain and France, and instead of spending time blogging about being there, I just kind of enjoyed it instead :)

But now that I'm back, I have some pretty amazing (and funny) scenes to share with you all, including:


The Scene In Which I Go To Venice/Florence/Milan/Barcelona/Madrid/Paris, in their respective order, where I'll be sharing fun sites that we saw, what I would (and wouldn't) do again, hotel reviews, and generally amusing stories that Younger Brother, Traveling Companion, and I found ourselves in.


Other, longer stories to look forward to include:


The Scene In Which The Baby Jesus is Everywhere


The Scene In Which the Brown Cow and Gray Donkey Make Their Debut


The Scene In Which I Am Not a Fizz-icist


and one that I'm sure is going to be tons of fun to relive, The Scene In Which We Feel Like We Are Going To, But Don't Actually, Die On The Plane Coming Home.


But before I get too far ahead of myself, here's a quick rundown of how I wound up on this fantastic adventure, and an introduction to those who came with me:

The trip was originally conceived when Younger Brother announced that he wanted to take a monthlong law class in Madrid this summer. At the time, I was gainfully employed and had both a surplus of PTO time and a steady paycheck (hah!!) so, naturally, I wanted to go visit while he was there. Younger Brother's Good Friend, who is also a friend of mine and will be known as Traveling Companion henceforth, wanted to go as well, so the three of us decided to leave about a week before Younger Brother had to be at his program in Madrid and do some traveling in Spain.

Quickly realizing that flights to Spain from the States are outrageous, we researched the most economical places to fly into and chose Italy as our arrival point and Paris (since Traveling Companion has studied French extensively and speaks it fluently) as the leaving point for Traveling Companion and I, after we left Younger Brother in Madrid.

For the numbers people, our trip included 1 boat trip, 2 overnight train rides, 3 flights, 5 total trains taken, 6 cities visited, 10 nights in hotels, and over 100 miles walked.

So while I can't wait to tell you more about our adventure, for now, I'm off to take a quick nap!