Getting Ready for Departure

Planning a sabbatical, we have discovered, takes almost as much time as the sabbatical itself. My emotions at this point, just a few weeks from departure: extremely variable. Excitement, for sure, but a good dose of anxiety about how this is all going to work, about whether it will meet our expectations, and about what we will return to. Logic, of course, says all will be well. Mainly, I am proud that we're making this happen and eager to embark on what I hope will be among the memorable times in our lives. Our itinerary:

4/16-4/22: Atlantic Crossing on Queen Mary II. If you're horrified by the apparent extravagance, please first comparison shop land vacations (and air travel) with sea-borne ones. Pretty amazing - Atlantic crossings in April seem like a bit of a bargain. That is, assuming we're not seasick the entire time, which may explain that attractive pricing (there was mention somewhere of the potential for 30-40 foot swells, but I am ignoring that - those pressure bands are supposed to work like wonders!). Rob, who has his sea legs from his many wonderful sailing experiences as a child (ask him sometime about passing through the locks on Lake Washington), is already clearly much more excited about the cruise than any other portion of our six month vacation. Hello high tea whenever you want it. Cory and Addy have formal attire, which we'll be posting photos of when the time arrives - think floppy pink bows and blue velvet blazer, respectively. Kudos to Rob for the eight hours he spent shopping for them.

4/22-4/28: Arrival in Southampton England and tour of Cotswolds and Southern England, including many garden visits and tours of old working steam rail roads.

4/28-4/29: 24 hour tour of London, mainly for the purpose of taking the kids on a ride on the London Eye. Cory doesn't know about this yet, and I can't wait to see his face when he sees it for the first time. Note to all those who are not Bill Gates: London is now, officially in the realm of INSANELY expensive. As most of you know, I am not the most price sensitive guy in the world, but this is beyond belief. Thus, we stay only one night and save our pennies for pastries in France.

4/29-5/2: Three days in Amsterdam, runner up to Barcelona as a place to live in Europe for three months. We'll be there for Queens Day, a holiday when almost the entire city shut down for a day for street fairs and other fun stuff. And the timing works for Keukenhof (the world's biggest tulip garden) as well. We'll be making a side trip to Madurodam, a toy city that I've wanted to see since my dad spoke about his trip there as a young adult. Oh yeah, I'm sure the kids will want to see it too.

5/2-7/31: Barcelona. We'll be living in in the easternish portion of the Eixample (Eixample Derecha, to be exact) the more modern grid-like portion of the city which is home to most of Gaudi's famous buildings. We're really happy with our apartment and location, and can't wait to get to know the city better than we were able to on our two day trip there a year and a half ago. Rob has been diligently studying his flash cards, and can now say "May I please have a piece of that delicious looking cake?" My Spanish, rusty from years of atrophy - ok, i never spoke it very well, but I have to at least pretend to be holding up the language proficiency of this part of the trip - is about to get one heck of a workout. Here's to English as the international language! Photo of our apartment below. We expect to take lots of day trips to the Costa Brava (the beautiful stretch of coast north of Barcelona) and then maybe a week-long expedition to Provence and Rome. We'll also be taking trips at some point to Southern Spain to visit some friends as well as a pilgirimage to the Guggenheim in Bilbao.



7/31-10/31: Paris. Apartment not fancy, but great location in the Marais and old old old building with timber ceilings and (most important) a terrace for the kids to play on. Nothing planned yet, but we're expecting to take a week-long voyage from Paris to see Austria (conveniently ignoring the political leanings there).