Europe 2010 Liberating Trip of a Lifetime Extravaganza Overview...

I would like to take this moment to give you a little overview of my Europe 2010 Liberating Trip of a Lifetime Extravaganza since I've been posting out of order and you might be a bit confused about where I've been.  Here we go...


On April 21st I luckily got on the first flight from the US to London Heathrow in about a week!...the ash cloud calmed down enough or the airlines put enough pressure on governments or whatever, and my plane was able to fly as expected.


I'll go into more detail later but basically here's my schedule...


Spent a couple of days hanging out in London with my high school friend Corrine, who is now half British.


Met up with my friend Katie, who is living in London for six months and we traveled to Southeastern England for the weekend with a whole bunch of Young Single Adults from London.  


Came back to London and spent the next week traveling all around London and the English countryside.  I went to Salisbury, Brighton, York, Carlisle, Windsor, etc.  


Then headed to Istanbul, Turkey with Katie.


After Istanbul I came back to London and took a self-directed Bridget Jones tour of London.


Then went to the Isle of Man for a couple days.


Then came back to London.


Then flew to Norway with Katie and did the Norway in a Nutshell Tour of the fjords.


Katie then flew back to London and I continued on by train to Sweden.  I crossed Sweden and ended up in Stockholm.  


From Stockholm I took a super cheap cruise to Helsinki, Finland.


And from there a boat to Tallinn, Estonia.


Then back to Helsinki.


Then back to Stockholm for a few days.


Then from Stockholm to Oslo to celebrate May 17th (Norway's national holiday) with some local folk who invited me to spend the day celebrating Norwegian style.


Then down to Denmark for a couple of days there in Copenhagen and in Helsingor.  


And from there an interesting night train to Berlin and then a couple days in Berlin. 


From Berlin I booked it down to Switzerland to meet up with Katie in Interlaken, Switzerland for the weekend.  Went hang-gliding.  Then Katie left and I took some scenic train rides around Switzerland and then headed through France and Luxembourg back up to Trier, Germany.  


From Trier I visited the Rhine River and saw all the beautiful castles there.  I also went up to Cologne to see the giant cathedral where they supposedly have the bones of the Three Kings and paid homage there.  


Then I headed down to Rothenburg, Germany, a super cool medieval city that miraculously survived getting completely destroyed in WWII.  


From Rothenburg I headed to Vienna, Austria where I spent a few days which included a quick side trip to Bratislava, Slovakia.


Then it was down to Ljubljana, Slovenia and then over to Venice, Italy.


From Venice I headed to Verona and then from there back up through the Dolomites region of Italy and back into Switzerland, with a quick stopover in Liechtenstein, and then I took the scenic Bernina Express train ride back down to Italy.  


I traveled past Lake Como, through Milan and into Pisa.  I spent time in Pisa, Florence, and Siena before heading to Rome.


I survived claustrophobia and potential pick-pocketing and was able to see the sights in Rome before flying back to the US of A.  


And now that I've been to Europe seven times and have spent a combined total of approximately four and a half months there I am just now starting to feel like I have scratched the surface on Europe and have seen a nice majority of the continent.  Now maybe when I go back I can slow down a bit and not have to do it turbo style.  


Anyway, I got home and Russell picked me up from the airport and asked me, as he usually does upon my return to the US, "Are you sick of traveling YET?"  To which I replied, "No, not really."


But I am really tired and now have to get back to the real world and maybe start looking for a job now.  I think I have maybe now distanced myself enough from the memories of my last job that I can start to think about selling my soul once again.  We'll see how that goes.  


More trip details to follow...