Bon Voyage

After a week of moving, cleaning up the old house, getting our affairs in order, cleaning up the Point Loma house (thanks for letting us crash!) and packing, we are all ready to go.

So here is our final temporary itinerary:

• We leave San Diego tomorrow (Wednesday morning)
• August 12-15: New Braunfels, Texas where we will visit Shelley and Tara, spend a day at Schlitterbahn, and go on the SkyCoaster. Currently expected to be 105 degrees F with approximately the same humidity percentage.
• August 15-18: Boston, Mass to visit friends and go to places we miss from college (these include Moogy's, Roggie Happy Hour, Crossroads, and Oiishi. You can probably guess who picked what.
• August 19-22: Dublin, Ireland. We land at 5:30 a.m. If anybody knows of any early morning breakfast places that provide cots, it might be necessary. Spang will be joining us.
• August 22-25: München (Munich), Germany. We couldn't stomach paying for a few nights of Oktoberfest lodging so we decided to go before Italy and at least see it. Last time I was there I decided it seemed like a good place to be in the summer when the weather was warmer for biking around the city to the open outdoor beer gardens.
• August 25-30: Some combination of Bolzano, Verona, and Milan, Italy. We are still deciding how many nights to stay in each place and looking for accommodation. It is opera season in Verona so all the hotels are either booked or expensive. Any suggestions are welcome.
• August 30-September 1: Varenna, Lake Como, Italy. Apparently famous people live here. I just want to see it because it is in my favorite movie of all time: Oceans 12.
• September 1-4: Venice. Trying to see it before it sinks. It will also be the International Film Festival and the Bienniale Art Festival. Hopefully they are showing something artsy with subtitles.
• September 4-17: Anywhere we want. We have an apartment rented in Rome on the 17th, but nothing scheduled in between. We will definitely be going to Florence and Siena, but most everything else is up in the air. Bologna is likely. Pisa is a day trip. Lucca? Cinque Terre? Asisi? Perugia? Any suggestions either for overnight stays or day trips are welcomed.
• September 17-24: Rome. We have an apartment in Trastevere. We wanted to get a little bit more into the lifestyle.
  

After that, it's wide open. Right now we are tentatively planning to go to Paris, potentially with stops in Nice, Avignon, and wherever else along the way. But we might also go to Spain and get back to Paris later. Since the plans after Rome aren't solid, if anybody is going to be anywhere close, we can make a redirection. We like each other, but it might get lonely out there just the two of us for 3 months.

Finally, we will be updating our google map as we go along. You can see the big one below, but we will also post a more detailed view of some of the places we go.


View Boondoggle 2009 in a larger map

Getting Ready to Go, Help Us Out

Hey everybody. I've never really done one of these before so bear with me for a bit.

Ali and I are counting down the days until we leave on our trip. Unfortunately, there's a lot to do before we get to leave. I have to take the bar exam at the end of July. Then we have to pack up the house and move it all to storage while packing for our trip and getting our affairs in order for the three months or so we will be gone.

Despite all that is going on otherwise, I find it more fun to plan for our trip even if I don't intend to follow that plan once we get out there. So far we plan to be mostly in Italy and Spain with stops in France, London, Dublin, Boston, and Texas. We'll be gone a long time and will probably get sick of hanging out with only each other, so feel free to meet up with us anywhere you'd like.

With that said, here's our mostly fluid itinerary. If you have any advice or suggestions about the places we are going or places we have to go, let us know. We have enough open dates to fit stuff in on the fly:

August 12-15: New Braunfels, Texas.
August 15-18: Boston
August 19 (at 5:30 a.m.)-22: Dublin
August 22-25: London
August 25-26: Milan
August 26-September 1: Some combination of Lake Como, Lake Garda, Verona, and whatever else is in the area.
September 1-4: Venice
September 4-6: Bologna
September 6-17: Tuscany and potentially Umbria. Florence and Siena are definitely inn. Other than that we have time to fill in with other places. Hill towns? Perugia? Assisi? Beach towns? Any places that people can recommend are helpful.
September 17-24: Rome. We have rented an apartment in Trastevere for the week. We actually have an extra bedroom and would be happy to have people come join us for this part of the trip.
September 24-???: After this things are a little bit uncertain. We will definitely be going to Paris. We are not sure if we will fly and go straight to Paris or if we will take a train to Nice for a stop on the way. We will probably be renting an apartment again in Paris, although not until shortly before we go. Then we will head down to Spain. That part of the trip will probably be mostly improvised. At the very least we will be doing San Sebastian for about a week, Barcelona, Madrid, and Granada. We will also be hopping over to Morocco for a few days. Lots of other places are possible. Seville? Cadiz? Portugal? Pueblos Blancos? At that point we will have been gone for close to 2.5-3 months and might be ready to come home. Or we might want to squeeze a few more things in.

Either way, we'd be happy to have people meet up with us at any point of the trip. At the very least, we need tips and advice.

I'm not sure how much this will be updated before we go because there is so much going on, but look for pictures and notes once we get out there.