Aloha, blue planet.
It's been a very long time. So long, in fact, that I have moved out of my mothers house and into an apartment in the dead-center of the Powell River 'downtown core' with a couple friends of mine since I last graced the blogging world with my presence.
I've kind of fallen out of attempting to iterate everything in my life via the blogspot written word, so I'll really only tell you what I'm about to get up to and why I have decided to finally do a write-up now rather than prior or later.
I've got a bit of a cold, and technically, I should be sitting in my Criminology class seeing as I'll be missing three weeks due to my departure to Europe this approaching Tuesday!!!@@&$@$!!! but I've decided to get my most important chores for the day out of the way early before this cold saps all of my energy by 4 o'clock and I have to drag myself to my last 4 hour shift at work before I leave.
In this case, the chore I'm going to have done for today is the photocopying of important travel documents at the library just down the street from my apartment. Just so, you know, if someone robs me of my passport or it slips out on some train in Toulouse I won't be without a confirmed identity. And I won't have to wait a month or so until the Canadian Embassy is Paris can finally take the time out of its afternoon coffee and donuts to print me off a new one.
I am getting increasingly excited, but I'm really hoping that this cold subsides, at least for the most part, before I leave (so, preferably this weekend if you're listening Mother Nature).
The only thing (or, rather, person) I leave behind is my girlfriend who, regrettably, will not be accompanying me seeing as we met long after all these travel plans had already been well established. I'll be gone for 3 weeks, which isn't an obscene amount of time... but as I know from her week-long trip to Mexico last month... even 7 days is a long time when you're in love.
I feel very blessed to have a reason to look forward to coming back, however. 3 or 4 months ago, I would have seriously considered missing my flight out and beatnik scrounging my way through Europe until they finally decided to deport me. If she's reading this she can know that I'm coming back for her, and not for Powell River.
Anyways, I'm assuming you're all curious as to where exactly I'll be going in Europe. The rough and general itinerary is as follows:
On the morning on Monday, March 18th, I'll be picked up by my father, step-mother, and brother at my apartment at around 6 AM in the morning. We'll spend the morning driving down to Vancouver, where we'll be spending the afternoon before staying at a hotel overnight.
The next day, March 19th, will be similar. I'm assuming we'll spend it tying up any loose travel-ends, purchasing anything we neglected or remembered prior to leaving Powell River, and doing a bit of last-minute adventuring in the city before we catch our plane out at 8 PM.
It's an 8 hourish or so flight, so we'll be flying into Gatwick Airport in London around 11:45 AM on the 20th of March (Western European time). From there, we'll be getting picked up by family at the airport and brought to their hometown (and the town my father was born and raised in until the age of 12) of Canterbury, Kent.
We'll be setting up a sort of 'base-camp' there.
From here, it turns into a little bit of an improv where we're not quite sure where we're going to end up first.
We plan on spending at least a night or 2 in London, and renting a car to drive to Wales to visit some of my step-mothers family in the area and just generally partake in a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. We plan, also, if time permits, the drive from there to Liverpool (although this is a wildcard no ones completely sure of quite yet).
And I, between the 27th and 29th of March, will be leaving my family behind for a couple of weeks to catch a ferry from Dover to Bruges in Belgium to start my solo adventure on the mainland. From Bruges, I'll be catching a train to Paris, where I hope to see one of my favorite bands live, although we'll see how timing plays out.
From Paris, I'll be hopping across to Avignon for a couple of nights, and from Avignon I have to navigate the complicated procedure of finding my way to Barcelona.
I hope to spend a good chunk of time in Barcelona.. at the least, 2 nights.. but my charter flight back to London departs on the evening of April 8th from Saragossa so regardless of when I arrive in Barcelona, I need to be near my departure location at the right time.
After leaving Barcelona for Saragossa, I catch my charter flight back to London, and from London I'll meet with my family and head back to Vancouver on the morning of April 9th.
And there you have it, folks. I'm late for class so I'll keep all y'all updated as best I can.
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