T-Minus 2 Weeks!

Two weeks--almost to the minute--until my flight leaves for Europe. It's starting to feel like this is really happening now!

I have been dreaming of this trip since I got back from the family trip to Germany (when I was in eighth grade). As soon as I left Europe, I was thinking about when I would come back, and that time is finally (almost) here!

Even though I've been talking about this trip for the better part of 7 years, I somehow managed to neglect mentioning to my parents that, after graduation, I'd be taking a rain check on the job hunt and jetting off to Europe for half a year. We were at a barbecue with some family friends when that bomb got dropped. I was chatting with one of the dads there, who naturally asked what my plans after graduation were. I replied, with a devil-may-care shrug, that I was going to Europe for a few months. At which point my dad whipped around so fast that his sunglasses flew off and said, "You're doing what now?"

So that could've gone a tad smoother, but once he and my mom got over the initial shock (read: minor heart attack) of the idea, they became very supportive, constantly offering suggestions for places that they'd been in their youth that I should visit, ideas of how to save money while I was there, and doing their parently duty of offering advice to avoid a "Taken"-type situation. (As my dad put it, he's no Liam Neeson.)

Now that the trip is getting closer, it's pretty much all anyone talks to me about anymore. Which is fair, because it's pretty much all I'm thinking about these days.