backpack through Europe

I did three weeks in Europe, and in April am going back to the continent to do another 5!

It was amazing and rewarding, exhausting and exhilerating, I felt dirty and discusting, euphoric and awed. I was happy, grumpy, indifferent, worried. I was a lot of things, and I experienced a lot of things, and now that it’s over I’m glad I can relax (No one ever says how much hard WORK travelling is!) and also I’m in disbelief that when I wake up I’m not in a random hostel anymore. I’m super glad to have more than 4 shirts and 2 pairs of jeans in my wardrobe now, and to have bodywash, and a hairbrush, and makeup!!

I super-roughed it during my trip, because for me, that’s what backpacking represented. I’m really glad that I finally did this, and am still in somewhat of a state of disbelief.

A very sexy-looking internal frame backpack! So now I am all ready to go and do this.

I went back and read the first entry that I ever wrote about this goal, and it’s amazing how things have fallen into place since then. Not only did I get into a study abroad program, but my program provides me with over a month off – five solid weeks in a row – and I will definitely have enough money to fund my little excursion, so this is great!

That’s one of the main reasons why I love writing things down, so that you can look back on them and see how fantastic everything turned out in the end.
This should be great!

Finally an opportunity!! I’m studying abroad in England this coming school year, and in march I have five weeks off for spring break – five weeks that I am kicked out of the dorm, so I will be forced to travel! :)

I’m going to come up with a tentative itinerary and figure out what kinds of things I want to get out of this experience.

Here are some places I’ve been thinking of visiting:
Prague
Paris
Spain
Portugal
Switzerland
Italy
Amsterdam

I think it would be so much fun to do this! It seems like it would be pretty easy to plan. Just pick out some cities and specific sights, buy a Eurorail pass and find out which trains go from what cities when, and then just pack as little as possible and find out where all the hostels are on the internet.

I think I will plan to do this while I am studing abroad, if possible, since then I will already be in Europe and kind of kill two birds with one stone. The only difficult things about organizing it that way is that I might not have the money, since I’m not sure I’ll be able to work while I’m studying abroad – or whether I’ll even want to work then, and also if I could find a month to do it, since I know when you study abroad you have set dates when you come and when you leave, and there doesn’t seem to be much flexability it in.

Still, I could work next summer and save that money for backpacking during the summer after my sophmore year. I think that’s a good amount of time. I could put some of the money from working during this comming school year, and all of the money from working the summer after my freshmen year, and then I will spend my sophmore year abroad in Europe, just according to plan, and then get back in the states in early June and leave again to spend July backpacking!

That would be amazing. Okay, that’s my plan.