On the road again...almost.

It's about that time.  School is ending and I'm getting the itch.  The itch to be on my own.   The itch to fly by the seat of my pants.  And lucky for me, I have quite an itinerary.

I head to Orlando at the end of the month to drop off the dog and hang out with the 'rents for a few days.  Then Dad and I head off, Krakow bound!

We will spend about two weeks exploring Krakow, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and a day in Bratislava!  Four countries in 2 weeks with my daddy!!  We are renting a car which should be really fun, as I've never done that before.  I've always been beholden to train, bus or flight schedules.  Also, we are staying out of the city in nearly all of the places so Dad can use his points.  I'm also not super excited about this prospect either, as I'm used to walking out the front door of my hotel and hitting the town.  I don't know what of the town will be outside of the Best Western, or the Marriott.  I can't imagine a ton.  But we will get to see museum on top of museum.  We will get to try a potato in every way it can be cooked(Eastern bloc joke?).  And we will get to walk everywhere and anywhere.  I am interested to travel with someone who is cheaper, even than I.  Hoping to learn a few things about finances and the areas we are visiting!

The next week or so I am solo, as my friend Sydney couldn't take any more time off of her brand new job in Munich!  After leaving my dad, I will be flying to Dubrovnik, and spending 4 days there, which is a fairly long time for one city.  However, I plan to sneak a day trip into Montenegro in there, as I hear it's beautiful.  Planning to bus/train to Sarajevo with a stopover in Mostar, a picture-esque storybook town in Bosnia.  I have been very excited about Sarajevo, especially after I read the Sarajevo Haggadah   It has religious history, cultural history and modern day war.  However, the more I researched, the more it seemed 2 days would be plenty of time.

My final piece of the trip will be Turkey.  I get to start off with one of my coworkers, which I'm super excited about.  She's heading on a silk road tour in Uzbekistan but we will be overlapping in Istanbul for a few days!!  Then I hope to do a loop including the fairy tale(sense a theme here?) geographic structures of Cappadocia(with a possible balloon ride) and my final few days at another coworker's family home in Izmir(including a day trip to the mineral rich thermal waters of Pammukale).  However, she is waiting on medical information about her mom before she can commit.  If she can't go, I have a tentative plan b, but hoping(for her sake, her mother's sake and mine) that I don't have to enact it!!