The Younger Sisters' Five Week Journey Through Europe

What it’s 8am, what happened to the night time? We boarded our flight from Boston about 6 hours ago, and I think that I slept maybe an hour. But we are here, we are in Ireland; Dublin, Ireland. After we drowsily made our way through customs, and got our first passport stamp of the trip, we headed out to tourist information kiosk in Terminal 1. I had done my research and planned it so our accommodations were within walking distance from a Hop on Hop off bus stop; which would be our main source of transportation in Dublin. However, we had to get from the airport to the city center where the bus started its route. In my research I also found a pass, called the Dublin Pass, which got us entry into most of the major sites we were planning to see. This pass also included bus fare from the airport to the city center. Originally I had planned on getting the pass for one day. But after being awake for 20 hours I was easily persuaded by the lady selling the passes that a 2 day pass was wha...

Today was spent on airplanes and in airports. Our flight left San Francisco for Boston at 8:45am. A flight I had flown so many times over the last 11 years. However, this time Boston was only a layover and Dublin was our final destination, and this time I was not traveling solo as many times before, Jen was with me, and our journey was beginning. Our parents dropped us off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. I had decided when planning this trip that there may be a time along the way that my knee would stop cooperating and I didn't want that to keep us from seeing things, so I researched and found a transport wheelchair that was light weight and compact. The chair only weighed 19 lbs and fit into a small trunk space (compact rental cars in Europe are super compact). The chair was tricky sometimes, I didn't end up needing it as much as I thought, which was good, but it also was a pain to transport especially getting on trains with it. But I ended up really needing it whe...

Everything is packed. Two girls have managed to squeeze five weeks of clothes and toiletries into one suitcase. Might be the first of many miracles that happened on this trip. This trip is actually happening. In my life, I usually dream up big things, big adventures, wild plans, but never do they actually happen.     About two years ago, as 30 was suddenly not so distant, and my health was becoming increasingly poorer, I had an “its now or never moment”. Still single, with limited responsibilities, and a love for Europe I began to plan a once in a lifetime trip, leaving no desired spot off the itinerary and giving myself no time or budget restraints. I still remember the day that I began to plan the adventure. One afternoon while I was visiting home in California, my mom and I watched another unrealistic but wonderfully romantic comedy, “Letters to Juliet.” The story and characters left me feeling happy and hopeful, but most of all the setting of the film spar...

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of our trip to Europe. Its hard to believe that a year has gone by. It is even hard, sometimes, to believe that we even went. I look at pictures of all the wonderful, dream-like places we went and it feels dream like. I remember coming back last October, literally beginning work (nannying) and life the very next day, and everything was back to normal, back to the same old routine. I'm not sure what I expected, but I guess for all the planning I did and money that was spent, I think I expected life to be changed a little more than it was. Back in Idaho, like I had never drove through the green countryside of Ireland, or rode down the grand canal in a gondola, or ate and ate and ate real Italian food in Italy. After life did get back into a routine and a few months had past, I started working on a photobook of our trip. It took me 4-5 months to search through 10,000+ pictures, edit the good ones and then arrange them in the album. They ...