Saturday, July 14, 2007

European geography is not my forte

I feel a little pretentious making a public list of places I want to visit. Oh well, I'm over it. Plus, you secretly want to know:

• Germany: Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Wittenberg
• Austria: Salzburg, Vienna
• Switzerland: Zurich
• France: Paris, other places too?
• England: London, Stonehenge
• Ireland: I really only know Dublin
• Scotland
• Norway, Sweden, and Denmark
• Amsterdam (I know it's a city, not a country)
• Spain: Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao (just to see the awesome Guggenheim building there!)
• Italy: Rome, Venice, Milan
• Greece
• Prague
• I would also love to go to Poland, Hungary, Bulagaria, Croatia, and Egypt, but I don't know how realistic that is, considering I'm a white American female who will either be travelling alone or with other white females

Let's see if I actually get to all these places. I plan to spend all of my money and weekends on travelling. I ain't goin to Europe for a year to build my savings.



Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Can you guess where I'm going?

Yep. Germany. I'm making a blog just like every other person going to Europe for a year. I'll write about the things I do and pretend that I'm unique!

Well, I'm at least a little bit unique--how many people do you know who will be working as an au pair for a year to put off the real world? I mean, plenty of people are putting off the real world like me, but I like to think I'm doing it in a fairly new way.

OK. I'll be working in Germany (doy), in a town near Heidenheim. I'll be living with a family, they have two kids, I get my own room, etc. I have done virtually no planning. The farthest I've gotten so far is wondering if they have contact lens solution in Germany, and if so, will it deteriorate my retinas? This is, I know, just about the dumbest question ever. I'm moving from one first-world country to another. It's not like I'll have to write home for a toothbrush.

Here is one thing I have thought of that I really do not know the answer to: do German computers have USB ports? From the knowledge that Europe has different outlets, I have extrapolated that every possible opening I could plug something into must be different. I'm not even wondering about this for a good reason. I just want to know if I'll be able to plug my iPod in.

I sound ridiculous. I do not sound like a college graduate. To redeem myself, I will have the sense to stop writing now. I mean, now. Right NOW.