Welcome family and friends! I'll probably be updating this blog with pictures and commentary pretty much every time I get to a computer. Feel free to leave comments under the posts I make. You can just post as "anonymous" if you dont feel like creating an account - but make sure you leave your name at the bottom so I know who is writing.

Who are the travellers?

1) Kim Partington is a student at University of Cincinatti. Kim lived in my neighborhood right down the street. She is, if not outright, one of my best female friends. She will be a fantastic asset on the trip, since my mom won't be around to make sure I'm not acting like a complete moron.

2) Rachel Christensen is a student at Iowa University. Her and Kim met in Cincinatti at their high school. I've hung out with Rachel on multiple occasions (she has visited IU, Carmel, etc); we always had a lot of fun.

3) Ted Derheimer is from Fort Wayne. We met via Sig Ep, and he has been a roomate for the last three years. Next year Ted and I will be rooming again at IU for grad schools.

4) Heather Ludwig is Ted's best female friend from Fort Wayne. Heather is a student at IU as well, and I've known her for 3 years. She has been studying in Spain for 6 weeks already, and so is meeting up with us when her classes are over.

5) Finally, I am an IU biology graduate as of May 06. I spent the first 6 weeks of the summer doing research in a lab and tutoring a bit. I worked all year but wasn't really able to save up enough money for the trip so I took out a student loan. The way I see it, 8 years from now its not going to make much of a difference if I graduate $200,000 in debt, or $204,000 in debt. Also, my older sister just got married this weekend (congrats). My little sister is cool too. And although she's probably sad that I'm going to be gone for so long, I'm leaving my gamecube at home, so she really probably doesn't mind all that much.

Our tentative schedule:
-Leave June 20; fly into London
-London for a couple days, then Dublin, then back to London
-Paris for four days
-Amsterdam
-Germany?
-Interlaken
-Pamplona
-Italy for about 2 weeks
-Slovenia, to meet my late grandfather's first cousin Zofka.
-Either Dresden or Vienna? Perhaps Prague after that.