I Can't Believe I'm About to Say This

I'm afraid I'm starting to get obnoxious with all these joyous proclamations of travel. You know, the Chile trip, off to New Orleans next month. And since you must know, I'm also going to Atlanta in a couple of weeks (for work, but still, I've got some SWEET places mapped out to eat), I'll be going to Baltimore sometime this fall and I'm going to Chicago in November for the biennial Thanksgiving family gathering and I'm even going to Seattle in January. You see, I'll be gone for so long and don't know where I'll be living when I get back that I want to make sure that I make my rounds of the country to see all my beloveds. How do I finance all this reckless gadding about? Am I independently wealthy, you may ask? No, no indeed. Actually, I've always put quite a bit of my budget aside for travel; I have no more car payment, no kids, no credit card debt. I also rarely go out to eat, on my dime anyway, and have never bought any furniture or TV or anything of the sort. Some people like to spend their money on dining room sets, which is all very well and good, but as I'm far from being settled, I prefer my mismatched hodgepodge of hand-me-downs and castoffs. This leaves me with more to spend on seeing the world!

Anyway, that being a long preamble, and in my own way, an apology of sorts because every time I talk about my trips, everyone groans and says "You're going WHERE this time?" or "Didn't you just get back from your last trip?" So please don't hate me when I tell you what I'm about to tell you. I AM GOING TO ROME AND FLORENCE WITH MY BEST FRIEND! When does this ever happen? When does everything in the celestial universe line up so this can be? Well, I'll tell you. So Nicole, my dear HLP and newly minted DOCTOR, decided to take few months to herself after the rigorous education, followed by fellowships and postdoc positions and an intense licensing procedure. She's never been to Europe and was planning to take a month to go explore. We joked about how wonderful it would be to to some of the trip together but of course, it would be so absurd since I'm doing all this other travel, most notably my Chile excursion. Anyway, she sent me her itinerary this morning, with a great ticket price that she got on vayama.com Just for shits and giggles, I decided to see how much it would be to join her for the first leg of her trip, which includes four days in Rome and three in Florence. And I found a ticket that was incredibly priced!! I immediately called my friend Kristin (many trips to Italy) to ask her what she thought a good price on a ticket to Italy. She was FLOORED when I told her what I found. I called Nicole. I called my mother. I called my sister. I knocked on pops' door. I thought I'd wait 24 hours but really, all signs pointed one way. Onward to Roma! Needless to say, I am extremely excited, not only to go to Italy, but to have this time with my best friend, who is amazingly and similarly unfettered by relationships or kids or heck, even jobs. Oh crap, speaking of jobs, my boss might be a little less than thrilled by this but hey, I'm quitting in a few months anyway! No, not to be cavalier but I feel as if this is such a delightful development and I must absolutely pursue it. So, I should have an amazing time, eat phenomenal food and take fantastic pictures of crumbling buildings and broad piazzas and oh, I don't know what else but I am EXCITED!