Ben Murrell

On Monday, I finally decided that I’d stop talking about going to Europe and go. Originally, I was going to start and end in London – the plan being that I know English so it’d be nice to be somewhere that I can communicate easily, especially since I’m going alone. I spent Monday night trying to find tickets to London and it started out good. I was finding tons of tickets for $496.50 round trip, but I wanted to wait till I figured out the train situation to buy the tickets. When I went to buy the tickets, I discovered that all of the travel sites I was using (expedia, hotwire, travelocity, orbitz) were using outdated info. Every time I tried to buy a $496.50 ticket, the price would jump to over $2000. Things weren’t looking good.

Then I found tickets to Rome, Italy for $600 and I bought them immediately – no sense in waiting again and missing out for good! I’m leaving tomorrow (Wednesday, May 20th) and returning on Sunday, May 31st. I start my job at Garmin on June 1st . Today, I made a trip out to a travel agency to pick up a Eurail pass (they can’t be purchased in Europe, and overnight shipping wouldn’t get it here on time) – I’m good to go in Italy, France, Spain, and Switzerland. I probably won’t end up going to Spain because it’s pretty far out of the way (19 hours from Rome, 9 from Paris) but I really want to because I actually know Spanish (as opposed to Italian/French).

My semi-plan is to hang out in Rome for a few days, then head to Venice, then through Geneva to Paris. I say semi-plan because I don’t really have a plan – I know I want to go to Rome, Venice, and Paris but nothing beyond that is planned. If I get a chance, I’ll post up here and put a post on twitter/facebook when I do.

Ciao!