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Where to go? That was the question, or at least it was after Eric interjected that he wanted to explore central america. Having seen some islands for sale at a somewhat reasonable price, Eric wanted to visit them. Thus, I found myself looking at grainy satellite photos of Belize and elsewhere. He liked the idea of visiting South America, Central America, and India. Sparking some interest with me, I looked into Macchu Piccu. Unfortunately we couldn't visit any of those locations plus europe without at least doubling the airfare cost. So either we visited europe, or some other region. Doing both really wasn't in our budget. But then again, going to europe was really not in our budget anyhow, but we were going to do it, weren't we?

For a day or two, I moped around a lot, not even mentioning the idea of a vacation. Eric had thrown a bit of a monkey-wrench into the plans by suggesting a very different destination. To tell the truth, I don't know why I wanted to go to europe. However, all those history classes teaching how civilized western and european cultures were, while denigrating the "third world countries" probably had some effect. Though I consider myself a somewhat enlightened person, and I think a lot of those stereotypes of the outside world to be silly, still, its difficult to alter one's world model without firsthand experience. We're not really going to get robbed by the police in Mexico, umm... right?

Anyhow, I got bored filling in this backstory. Suffice it to say, we decided to go on the trip to europe after all, bought the friggin' tickets, and the expensive rail pass. With hope for a life-altering, inspiring trip through europe, we set off on this grand adventure. However, we had no idea that we'd encounter the curse of living in interesting times. We'd have to cope with far more than we expected, spend far more than anticipated, deal with shady characters of 13 different countries, and always, and I mean always, search for a place to sleep that night.

Be forewarned reader, travel isn't for the faint of heart.