Saturday, May 22, 2010

An Epic Send-Off










The going away party was an absolute success! Thanks to all of our wonderful friends for joining us. We are so lucky to have such an eclectic, interesting group of people to share our time with in Kalamazoo. For those of you who didn't make it, we were still thinking of you, and here's a little play-by-play. Around seven, people started to arrive. We ate food. We drank alcohol. We talked and listened to some sweet tunes. It was pretty much the normal night for John and I, except we had about twenty extra people around, and I got to put together a really pretty cheese platter. As usual, I got pretty rowdy by the end of the evening. My apologies for any outrageous behavior. :) You all know me pretty well, so you shouldn't have been surprised. Regardless, I had a wonderful time. It was a great party!

We ship out for Martinsville, IN tomorrow morning where we will attend yet another fabulous bash in honor of my sister, Sarah, who just graduated from University of Dayton (double major International Studies and French, honors college with highest distinction, MAGNA cum laude...I'm not bragging or anything!) We're looking forward to seeing family and friends and hopefully relaxing before our long journey. Don't forget to check in on us! We'll miss you!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Writing & Traveling



Dearest Family & Friends,

Welcome to our travel blog! During our trip, we'll be seeing, tasting, and exploring all sorts of fabulous, stimulating things and we want you to be able to follow along. Having a centralized form of communication will also save us some of the trouble of keeping up contact with everyone. We'll try to update the blog as often as possible, so bookmark this page and don't forget about us. If you want to comment on our posts, all you have to do is sign in to your google account. You can become a fan/follower of our blog that way as well.

Here's the itinerary we have in mind, tentatively:
1) London, England
2) Paris , France
3) The Loire Valley, France (this is where Sarah lived when she studied abroad and she has some great tips for us!)
4) St. Petersburg, Russia (don't be scared, we're going with Czech people)
5) PRAGUE! We'll be in Prague, Czech Republic for the duration of July. I'll be studying Modern Czech literature and workshopping stories with the illustrious Stuart Dybek. All of you know that this is a dream come true for me. John will be occupying himself by drinking beer and wandering around various parks and plazas. Here is the website for the Prague Summer Program if you're interested.
6) Berlin, Germany
7) Amsterdam, The Netherlands (or Holland, I guess. They should choose one name. It's confusing.)
*If we can get pictures uploaded as we go, we'll include some of them here, or at least links to online albums.

We're getting very excited about our big adventure! We're sort of treating it like a delayed honeymoon, and what could be more romantic than Paris in June? C'est magnifique.