My First Blog

Four days from now I will be catching the red eye flight from Austin to London and am hoping to God there are some bad ass movies playing during the flight or at least free booze. Long distance flights and me don't really mix well. I either become so excited at the prospect of venturing into a new country that I'm too giddy to get any rest or get screwed over with a middle seat. And I'm not talking about middle as in there's the window seat on one side and the aisle seat on the other, but when middle seats are on either side of the seat you're sitting in. Of course once you get stuck in that seat you gotta take a piss and offer an apology to every person you climb over just to head to the john. I digress. Bad seating situations aside, I'm gonna have to swallow a bottle of Melotonin or down a couple scotches before I can rest easy and not be too jet lagged when the plane touches down at Heathrow.

The past 2 weeks leading up to now have been quite hectic. Something regarding my trip has either changed or I have to keep shelling out cash to pay for train tickets or hostels. In case you haven't heard my response to, "So, what are you up to this summer?". I'm backpacking around Europe for 35 days, before starting work in August. One of my good friends from UGA was supposed to be coming along with me on this adventure, but some stuff came up in his life and he's not going anymore. It really sucks he can't go, but I've gotten over it and now this trip is all about me (let the hedonism begin). I'm gonna do Europe on my own terms and make it a memorable experience. I've liquidated all of my savings in stocks to fund this trip. It was nice owning stock in AMD and seeing the value of my holdings triple. On the other hand, the holdings in a certain computer company founded by a certain Austinite decreased roughly by half (or possibly more, but that may play to my advantage once tax season rolls around). 

With a fat sack of cash in one hand and Eurail Global Pass in the other I'm gonna try and visit as many countries as possible in my 35 day time span. A rough draft of an itinerary exists in some way, shape, or form. I start out in London. Then fly to Barcelona to meet up with Ross Cooper for 3 days. Afterwards I take a train to Madrid and meet up with my brother Brooks. Spend some time there, then take a train to Valencia. Check out Valencia for a day, then fly to Marseilles. Once in Marseilles, we're taking a train to Cannes and staying with Alexis. After an extended stay in Cannes I'm going to Genoa, Rome, Bern, Interlaken, Vienna, Prague, and arrive in Berlin on July 5th for....wait for it.......PEARL JAM. After Berlin, the rest of the trip is pretty much open for interpretation. Right now I'm leaning towards going to Belgium and The Netherlands before finally arriving back in London and flying home to Tejas. 

So that's about it. Am I scared/worried/nervous about traveling by myself? Hell naw, this is gonna be fun. Before I sign off, I'd like to dedicate this blog all my friends who dove head first into the working world after graduation. May you live vicariously through me for the next 35 days. Just kidding. Enjoy and God Bless.

-Vance Hatfield