Although I am not officially done with school (my fault), I am taking a trip to Europe in a week and a half. I put off buying tickets for a few months, knowing that my obligations might extend further into the summer than I had been planning (which they did). I realized that if I did not break down and commit, the summer would slowly slip away as it too often does. After watching ticket prices to a few different cities in Europe for about a month, I finally settled on a flight from PDX to Madrid and from Geneva (Switzerland) back to PDX.
The idea is to begin in Madrid, see my friend Ana Maria who is doing a master's program in Sevilla, then travel through Barcelona and Italy to meet with my Mom, sister, and brother in Athens, Greece. They will be arriving about 2 weeks after my flight to Spain. Hopefully I get there in time! We will be staying in Greece for about three weeks, after which I will continue on my adventure North, ending up in Sweden.
I am still deciding how to travel between countries, as there are many options available (but not so many on a tight budget). I plan to couchsurf as much as possible, but am ready to sleep in the bushes or on the street if I have to. I was contemplating a Europass, but these seem overly expensive. I was thinking about hitch-hiking, but this can obviously be dangerous and unpredictable. Another option I want to look into is buying a bicycle. I will admit, I don't have a good idea of distance in Europe, or if the roads/paths/sidewalks(?) are bike friendly, so any tips on that end would be much appreciated. Actually, any tips or thoughts on these would be appreciated. I will be the first to admit I don't know everything, and so another opinion is always good to hear.
At present, I am planning to bring my tiny, pretend laptop, as it is extremely portable, but this may change. I did come across the great idea to use libraries instead of coffee shops, though, as a cheaper alternative for internet access. I still really want to bring this computer, especially since I won't have much room to keep paper notes. We'll see what happens.
Thanks for following! I will try to write again soon.
-Nick
