All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.....
Not quite, but close. I'm writing this on Friday afternoon, my flight is Sunday morning, April 16 and I return home Thursday May 18.
I will fly to Paris and visit there for the first (and later second) time, and get to have dinner one night with one of my Geowoodstock housemates. Next I take the train to Basel, Switzerland, where I'll spend a few days at the homes of two other Geowoodstock housemates and go exploring (er, caching). Then trains to Rimini, Italy which is on the east coast where I'll connect with two Portland area friends and visit the 5th smallest country in the world (San Marino) where we're hosting an event cache (GCA6FWY for those who want to look at it). From there we spend a night in Pisa before arriving at the "Rome" cruise port (Civitavecchia, Italy) and embarking on a 15-day cruise though I'll only be on the ship for 13 days.
Yes, another Landsharkz cruise, with about 60 other cachers, many from Canada, some from the US and at least one from Australia. I'm rooming again with Don (another Geowoodstock housemate and my most recent cruise roommate), excited to see a bunch of friends who I've cruised with before, some friends who will be on their first cruise, and some people I haven't yet met. The cruise visits ports in Italy, Tunisia (making Africa my 6th continent visited), Spain, Spanish North Africa (where if all goes well I will get to do a short excursion into Morocco), Portugal (another new country), and France. The final stop is Amsterdam, Netherlands, but I'm not headed there. Don and I are getting off at the second France stop and taking a train to Paris for the weekend.
After the second Paris visit Don and I are taking a train to Liège, Belgium where we reconnect with the Portland friends who are disembarking in Amsterdam and will be driving down to pick us up. The four of us have an airbnb in the sprawling metropolis of Oupeye, Belgium (northeast Belgium) because one person "needs" Luxembourg and another "needs" Belgium ("needs" in this context is geocacher speak for "hasn't yet found a cache in"). Finally we will drive north to Amsterdam for a night in an airport-area hotel before flying home.
I'm looking forward to an amazing few weeks where I get to explore lots of new places, connect with European and North American friends, meet new people both on the cruise and in Paris, try not to butcher several languages, and have an amazing time. I expect to achieve my goal of visiting more countries than my age on this trip as I've already visited 56 (53 with caches, I was in Thailand, the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands before caching existed....yes I know the latter two aren't exactly countries, but I've been advised to use a single country list and for my own convenience I've chosen the geocaching.com list which considers them countries, but counts Northern Island as part of the United Kingdom. If all goes well I will set foot in 14 countries including 7 "new" ones, and expect to travel by plane, train, bus, boat, car and perhaps something else.
Alas, David has a new job and doesn't have the vacation time to join me on this adventure so he will have to live it vicariously. Perhaps some of you will reach out to him in my absence so he's a bit less lonely.
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