3 Weeks to Go

We'll, it's the inaugural post. And it's all a bit surreal.

Funny thing, I tried to name this blog site feckwork.blogspot.com but it was already taken... The recession hasn't hit the Irish anyway!

This will be our internet home for approximately the next 6 months. We're going to try our damnedest to update this site, taking into account that we'll be all over the place and we want to share our stories and pictures and the *cough* bragging rights *cough*. We're so excited.

We've stopped working, we've been approved for our loan, we've notified our landlord, started packing, ...set up the travel blog. Not much else to do now but say our farewells to Arklow and get on the plane.

We depart Dublin for Amsterdam on September 4th at 6:00 in the morning. Granted that we actually leave Amsterdam, haha, we'll be heading to the following places below via Eurorail, taking into account that we need/want to keep the train journeys short, sweet, and inexpensive.

Western Europe
The Netherlands
Amsterdam
Haarlem

Belgium
Antwerp
Bruges

Germany
Cologne
Heidleberg/Rhine Valley
Munich

Switzerland
Interlaken/Gimmelwald & the Berner Oberland

Austria
Salzburg
Vienna

Eastern Europe
Slovenia
We'll see!!!??!?

Croatia
Zagreb
Dubrovnik

Romania
Bucharest

Hungary
Budapest

Slovakia
Bratislava

Czech Republic
Prague

Poland
Krakow
Warsaw

We'll then head back to Germany for a third time to Berlin for a few days then we'll fly to New Zealand. I am dreaming of tracing every foot step of Peter Jackson and his crew. Lord of the Rings are my favorite movies ever and I can't wait to get my inner geek on. Dermot will be bungee jumping while I'm climbing up to Edoras. We'll be in New Zealand for three months (should be enough time, should be...) living and working. Then we'll fly to Australia for a month. Then back to Ireland.

The watches on our wrists will be primarily for catching the train on time. We might spend a week in Prague if we're feeling the city and we may hate Cologne and leave before night fall. We're just gonna roll with it. Such is the life, right? The only real 'clock' of the trip is that we want to spend 3 months in New Zealand (all that the American tourist of this faction is granted) with the hope that we'll be back in Ireland for a last Paddy's Day hurragh with our friends and family here on March 17th, 2009. September 08 to March 09. Let's see how much we can fit in.

Then we're home to Newtown, Pennsylvania indefinitely.

That's the plan anyway.

We're looking forward to seeing the world with just a shirt on our back and the skin of our teeth. It'll be a real change from the last two very decadent years.

We've been so fortunate in the past two years and the fact that we're getting the opportunity to do this is just beyond words. What are greater synonyms for extraordinarily lucky?

So I'll try my best to find them, the best words, and keep you all posted.

~Abby