4.11.2007

Because I don't talk about it enough in general

So I could write about how my car got broken into late last week and everything was stolen from it, or I could write about how I've been grumpy for the last few days and am not sure why (weather? PMS? the fact that my car got broken into and everything was stolen from it?), or I could write about how I really need to have my eyes checked and every time I try to get that done something seems to intervene and I have no contacts left and am wearing my five-year-old scratched-up glasses, but instead, I'm going to write about what's been at the forefront of my mind for at least the last week: EUROPE!

Amidst the end-of-semester hustle (three weeks left! THREE!) and the beginning-of-summer jump at work, my mind has only been able to focus on one thought and that thought looks a lot like EUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPE in a fairly continuous high-pitched giggle. I've never been out of the country before and the decision to go to Europe this summer was almost spur-of-the-moment; the boy and I began contemplating it and then had charges on our credit cards for plane tickets about a week later. The trip kind of hung out in the back of my mind for a month or so until a week ago, when I started planning our flights around the continent and our hostel bookings. Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else.

It's been taking me longer to fall asleep at night because my mind is going over the hostel possibilities I checked earlier that day, location against price against facilities and ratings. I sit in art history class during our lectures on Roman architecture and it's all I can do to stop myself from raising my hand and yelling, "I don't have a question! It's just that I AM GOING TO SEE ALL OF THIS STUFF IN SIX WEEKS! HAHAHAHA I WINNNNN!!!" I give everyone I talk to an updated countdown every time I talk to them and I know deep in my heart that it is probably getting old for them, but because of the fact that my brain won't keep repeating, "sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks omg sixWEEKS" it's hard for me to not let it slip out occasionally, like every five minutes.

I am a little OCD and a bit of a control-freak (see also: textbook firstborn) and so I've taken the reins on planning the entire trip. I like to remind Kyle that he has such a good girlfriend who is planning everything so that he doesn't have to do any work; but in reality, whenever he says that he will help plan, no really, don't worry about anything else, he'll do the rest! I start getting twitchy and my eyeballs get a little bloodshot. I'm almost done booking everything and I'm actually going to be a little disappointed when I'm done -- nothing else to compare, obsess over, make lists about. I'll have to start planning and listing other things: what to do, what to buy, what to take, what to wear, what to eat, when we will take our scheduled bathroom breaks, etc.

The best part about this trip is that we are flying between cities instead of traveling by train, which leaves us a lot of extra time to spend in the cities instead of traveling to them. Because of this, we're visiting five different cities in two and a half weeks and basically cramming in as much as possible while we're there and probably not sleeping very much and will probably pass out from exhaustion and sleep for a full seventy-two hours when we return to the States. But it's totally worth it, because the only thing better than being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London." is being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London and then I totally thought I lost it in Paris but I found it in the bottom of my bag in Rome and then wore it twice in Florence and on the train to Pisa."