Hello!
Last spring when I started this blog, I assumed I wouldn’t keep it going past my time traveling in Europe. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to keep it going for my one month of travel. Lo and behold, here we are almost one year later and not only do I remember the password to this account, but I know how to write a blog post and even add pictures!
I’m excited to announce that I’ll have interesting new travel experiences to write about once again this spring – and my incredibly handsome and amazing boyfriend will be joining me this time 😀 Words can not describe my excitement, but let’s just settle with, “I can’t wait this is going to be the best trip EVER let’s just continue this run-on sentence forever because a grammatically
correct sentence most definitely would not be able to encompass the excitement that is impossible to express and this sentence doesn’t hold nearly as much excitement as is necessary to describe how excited I am even though it’s very long maybe I should learn more words!!!!!!!!!!!!”
We’ve got our plane tickets, Eurail passes, a tentative itinerary, and have made detailed arrangements for the first leg of the trip. We’ll be going back to a few cities that I visited last year and Tyler made me agree that when we go, I have to pretend I’ve never been there before. I totally understand his logic. It would damper the newness of the experience for him if I’m saying, “ooh last time I was here I did this, I saw this, blah blah blah” all the time. What makes the adventure great is not knowing what to expect and venturing into the great unknown together. Lucky for us, I tend to forget things very easily, so it should be a piece of cake for me to pretend I’ve never seen a lot of the things we’ll see. One thing that I have decided though, is that this time around I’m going to learn at least a few pieces of history so that I can put my experiences into context. For example, the place we’re staying in Paris overlooks the Parisian Pantheon, which serves as the burial grounds for some absolute greats – Voltaire (I’m re-reading his short story Candide, which I neglected to appreciate back in high school and it’s  actually pretty good!), Rousseau, Victor Hugo (writer of the incomparable Les Miserables), and Marie Curie (a pioneer in science who I have yet to learn more about). We’ll be staying in the center of the Latin quarter where some of the world’s most noted historical moments took place and I’m really excited to learn and see more.
Traveling with Tyler this time around, I can already tell, is going to make this trip so much different. Last time around, I just wanted to wander and gape at the beauty and newness of it all. In my mind, Europe was an empty canvas and I wanted to paint my images of it as I went along. This time, I’m learning more before I go. Understanding the basic history behind major sites and cities as a whole will help me to appreciate them that much more. I can build enlightenment upon my foundation of knowledge that I’m developing here. It’s funny because I never appreciated history until we began planning for this trip. Also, if you read my blog last year, you know that I’ve been far from ever thinking about returning to the country of France and here I am ecstatic to immerse myself in the history and culture! Maybe it’s the water here in Texas, but something’s definitely shifted, and I’m excited for 2014 Janee to get out there and See More.