Wednesday + {Day Nine: London}

This morning, Rita fed us the "typical English breakfast" promised on her profile on Airbnb. Gooligan and I were unprepared, to say the least. Round one was cereal, jam, orange juice, tea, and toast. Round two was sausage, bacon, an egg, a piece of English muffin, a another piece of regular toast--all of which was fried in butter. Round three was more toast.

After breakfast, we talked to Rita a lot and Gooligan helped her change the duvet covers to prepare for Sarah and Shannon's arrival. Then we watched the news while we waited for them to call.

The moment they called, we leapt into the car and sped over to the train station to meet them. It's so exciting to see Shannon and Sarah after having planned this trip for so long together!

After giving them a few moments to settle in, we took the underground to Piccadilly Circus (a part of London really close to a lot of museums/statues/monuments, etc.) and found a delightful restaurant to eat at. Pretty great food and reasonably priced.

Gooligan and I split another salad/sandwich comb and the sandwich was so delicious, with avocado and really thick mozzarella cheese.

After dinner, we called it an early night and headed home to get some rest, since we have a lot we want to pack into our last day in England! The good news is that I think Gooligan and I understand the underground system now!

Tuesday + {Day Eight: Dublin + London, With an Unexpected Stop in Wales}

I woke up so quickly this morning that I hit my head on the wall. Hard. I was stressed about missing our taxi. In fact, I had a completely realistic dream that we had done that very thing. But thankfully it was just a dream.

We spent around twelve hours in transit today. Our taxi that we booked online never showed and we didn't have time to wait around for it, so we started to walk to the fancy hotel across the street. Our plan was to ask them to call us a cab, but then we saw several in the street. We flagged one down and got a ride to the bus station, where we caught our shuttle to the ferry.

The ferry was amazing! It was huge. There was a movie theater, three restaurants, a gift shop, and a child's playground. Gooligan and I just sort of collapsed and slept most of the trip. 

After the three and a half hour ferry ride (which dropped us off in Wales, to our surprise!) we took two trains to get to London. Probably another three or four hours in total.

We stopped in London to meet up with Liz my best friend from fourth grade! It was so surreal to see each other again after almost twelve years. I feel so lucky to have been able to meet up, since we had such a narrow window in which to do it. But it was really great to see Liz again after so long. Luckily with the internet, it's a lot easier to keep in touch with people. Hopefully one day she can come to the States and we can host her and show her around Seattle.

After dinner, since we each had some time until our next trains, we went over to King's Cross and all took photos at the Harry Potter statue. It was fantastic. Gooligan was so excited.

Then Liz helped us figure out how to get to our Airbnb. When we arrived, our host, Rita, offered us tea and muffins even though we were stuffed and it was already nine at night.

We met two of Rita's other guests--Americans from Michigan--who had a similar experience as us with Ryanair.

Just after the water boiled, the lights went out! We sat around in the candle-lit dark, sipping our tea and talking to Rita and one of her other guests.

Then, luckily, the lights came back on, just in time for bed. After all of our (mis)adventures in Dublin, we already love London. Our trip is looking up!

Friday + {Day Four, Part One: Edinburgh}

Well, we overslept. My phone died in the middle of the night and our alarm never went off. 

We had to interrupt Ritchie's shower and use his phone to call a taxi. We rushed through security, ran to our gate, and made it.

Only to be denied because we'd failed to get a stamp on our passports before going through security. In our panic, we failed to read the small print at the top of the Ryanair boarding pass.

We ran around the airport for another ten minutes being shunted about to various help desks only to realize that there was no way we were going to make our flight on time.

It cost a lot to rebook--£220.00--but we're on the next flight to Dublin. Check-in opens at 12:30; this time we'll make sure to get that silly stamp.

Sunday + {H--30}

In 30 hours our plane will take off! I'm mostly excited at this point (probably 99% excited, 1% nervous). I know this is going to be an amazing adventure for Gooligan and myself and I'm so happy to be able to share it directly with Gooligan (and her sister and her sister's friend), plus indirectly with all of my friends and family.

When we first started planning this trip, Gooligan and I worried that maybe it was irresponsible or self-indulgent. We thought it would be more responsible if we immediately launched ourselves into the next stage of our life: found jobs, found an apartment, starting pay off student loans, etc.

But through the astounding response of everyone, whether they've generously donated to our travel fund, offered us a place to stay, offered to connect us with friends abroad, or even just wished us the very best, I've come to realize that this trip is important in a lot of ways.

Gooligan and I have both grown so much emotionally, mentally, and spiritually in the last four years. We've engaged with the world, meet a wide variety of people, and been shaped by everything that happened during our time in Bellingham.

Hopefully this trip will add to our understanding of the world. Hopefully the people we meet and the experiences we have will round us out a little around the edges and give us a larger context to think about as we grow into ethical, strong, and loving adults.

But none of this trip can happen until Gooligan and I tie up the last few loose ends: we've got to pack, clean, and run a few errands.

Next time I update I'll probably be in Scotland! So until then, fly high and seek peace.

Thursday + {Your Itinerary: Part One}

This is going to be a multi-part blog entry, simply because if I created my entire itinerary for a 39-day trip in one sitting, I might explode. I've broken it down into a couple steps, mostly for my sanity, but also to make the process easier if anyone else is in a similar predicament.

STEP #1 ORGANIZE ALL YOUR INFORMATION

As I mentioned before, I approached the financial side of organizing our trip in a pretty roundabout manner. Whenever I bought anything, I took a screencap of the confirmation page, though. I remember thinking to myself, "a-ha! this will make it so easy when I organize this information later." Unfortunately, I failed to name the files with descriptions that might actually help someone locate them later, so they were just called "Screenshot 1" through "Screenshot 1000." The other night, however, I went through my entire folder of screenshots and wrote what the relevant leg of the trip on them. Now my folder looks something like this:

A peek at my amazingly organized folder of confirmation #s.

I repeated this step for all relevant information: for us, that included collecting all of our Airbnb reservations into one spot. Luckily, if you use the same website to make all your reservations (whether it's Airbnb or Couchsurfing or something else), most of your information is collected into one spot for you.

STEP #2 MAKE A NEW WORD DOCUMENT

Once your information is collected into one easy-to-access pile (whether it's still on the computer or printed out in hard copies), it's time to start making your itinerary. 

Earlier in our trip, we simply took a calendar and filled it out with the cities we wanted to go to, our host's names once we confirmed them, and how we were going to get between cities. That system worked really well for that stage of our planning, but when it comes to an itinerary, I personally need a lot more detail.

I ditched the calendar idea and simply wrote the date and then all the relevant information for that date under it. Each day is organized by time--what time we need to catch the bus to get to the airport to be early enough to check-in, etc.--but I included a lot more information under each day, too, such as our host's direction of how to get to the place we're staying, their contact information, confirmation or reference numbers, bus routes, fares for buses, etc.

STEP #3 BREAK IT INTO SMALL STEPS

Since Gooligan's sister and her sister's best friend are meeting us in the middle of our trip for a couple weeks, we're lucky enough to not have to do all the work ourselves. They've agreed to take on a lot of our mutual trip places, which means that Gooligan and I are mostly responsible for the beginning and end of our trip. I would suggest just taking it a few days at a time. Spend no more than an hour or two on the project of building your itinerary, since staring at all the information can get overwhelming.

STEP #4, which I'll blog about next time I talk about next Tuesday, is about the fun stuff: figuring out what you want to do in Europe once you're actually there!

Tuesday + {Organizing Your Finances For Your Trip}

Do not do what I did. The moment you buy anything for your trip, write it down. And write it down in the same location. Make a giant chart on the way if it's more convenient. Use an app on your phone. Write it in a word document or an email to yourself. Whatever it takes so it's all in the same spot.

Trust me: you'll thank yourself later when you don't have to dig through hundreds of emails trying to find your one Ryanair itinerary.

Granted, with so many things online these days, a copy of practically everything is sent to your inbox. And you can keep track of your card transactions online, if you sign up for online banking.

But still, it's a pain. Especially when you are buying a lot of things and some of the transactions have nondescript names that do not give you a single clue about what it is for.

Which leads to the inevitable go-fish game through your inbox, facebook messages, text messages, and recall of verbal face-to-face or phone conversations to figure out what exactly that $233.13 purchase bought and who paid for it. Not to mention the pain that comes with trying to figure out currency exchanges on top of tracking down receipts.

Speaking of paying for things: among decisions that you could (and probably should) file under "not the smartest move this bear has ever made," Gooligan and I started to buy things for our trip without taking a look at our bank account to figure out how, exactly, it would make the most sense to organize our accounts.

Currently, Gooligan and I are sharing my bank account. And one debit card.  (That was exciting, let me tell you, when I had to travel to my last residency with a cash-only budget because Gooligan needed to deposit her paycheck into my account while I was away in order to feed herself, pay rent, etc.)

It started with the intention of being a temporary arrangement, but visiting the bank and setting up a new account has been a pain, considering our bank's closest branch is in a town thirty miles away and one or both of us works typical bank hours.

Anyway, it has actually been a really great experience sharing finances with Gooligan. I think it has deepened the trust in our relationship, for starters, not to mention make things easier when it comes time to pay bills.

There has only been one drawback: our credit union caps the number of times you can make withdrawals from your savings account without getting dinged. Gooligan and I each have a savings account. If we had split each bill evenly and paid each other back immediately, we'd drown in $20 fees. Instead, we have taken turns paying for things in chunks, then periodically sorting out who owes who what and squaring our accounts.

Our approach has been a little haphazard, and I definitely do not recommend it for everyone. With another person, there would have been some feathers ruffled undoubtedly, but Gooligan and I have done a great job communicating and checking in and it's worked for us.

Just remember to print those receipts and collect them in a safe spot!