Triumphs

Saturday morning, way, way too early for me to be awake (up since 6-something) but the thing is, there is more adrenaline in me right now than there is anything else. I'm taking on multiple personal tasks, trying to sort through very old photographs being one (it's pretty amazing, if I must say so myself, how far I've come with the Nikon and understanding it all on my own), contemplating opening up the new MacBook to load those old sorted photos, having hand-picked only the ones I felt happy that I shot, having only gotten through June of last year, though, meaning I have a long road ahead!, thinking I might review a restaurant or two, thinking about Craig, thinking about our newly scheduled trip to Europe!!!! Oh, and how we must both learn French. Back up. Early this week, we felt really quite envious of our friends Jeff, Lauren, Al and Michelle. Jeff and Lauren left in early July for their honeymoon: Greece and Italy. We spent last weekend with Al and Michelle in New Jersey, in their home near Spring Lake and on their boat on some water (which finds my skin flaking off in gross quantities), during which time they described their upcoming trip to Rome, Madrid and wherever Al's family is in Spain. Craig and I don't deal well with travel envy, so, what do we do? We scheme our own trip! Beginning Monday and trickling through mid-week, we decided we'd like to spend Thanksgiving of this year traversing unfamiliar territory. We debated back and forth about countries, cities, and what not, but wound up finding extremely affordable flight options into Amsterdam and out of Paris, with a stop in Brussels via train in between! Elated? Ecstatic? Out of my mind? I don't know how to describe how I feel about this. It's funny...I know people travel Internationally all the time. But somehow, in some weird sense of a way, I feel like it's this giant blessing granted on Craig and me when we make the decision to do this/pay for this/execute this. I feel like the Universe is apologizing for how many times it has slashed us, ruined things for us, by granting us with this new travel experience. Are we terrified? Of course! In Amsterdam, English is spoken but the streets are all Dutch names which include more than half of the alphabet in their spellings, and prostitution and drugs are legal (zoiks!) and canals divide the entire city, bunches of canals, dividing sections from one another...do we swim them??? Then there's Brussels in Belgium, where, who knows if any English is spoken...then there's Paris, France where NO English is spoken and all of the Parisians are going to SPIT in our WINE because we are dumb Americaines! Bah! How exciting is all of this?? To know that we might get lost in cities (we never get lost in cities) and to know that we might be faced with options that are completely out of our world??? So much more adventurous than England, so much more mysterious! I can't wait. I'm so completely filled with this trip. I'm nervous, happy, excited and a lot more. I just can't imagine! Craig, me. Wandering strange streets, snapping photos of exotic old architecture. Faced with decisions. I'm so thrilled. The Eiffel Tower won't just be something I see in movies. The Louvre!!! The Louvre! Pyramide du Louvre: I.M. Pei designed that! He designed my art building at IU! Canals flanked by colorful old architecture...really? I get to see that?? I'm just so blown away. I'm...I've got no words. This is a trip of a lifetime. This is real life, seeing something that really exists that we don't get to see every day. I just can't wait. How perfect. Sorry to gush, it's likely annoying. But this is big. And I can't wait.