Countdown to Reading Week: 7 Days!

OK, first, the Reading Week plans.
Let me just say that planning a week of traveling (especially on a student budget) is not easy. Rachel and I had basically no idea how to go about doing this. We didn't even know where we wanted to go. We had a few vague ideas, and, being list-makers, we decided to write them down. We ended up with an entire page of places, including London, Bath, Dublin, Paris, Nice, Prague, Italy, Greece, and Germany. And that's just what I remmeber! Clearly, we needed to narrow it down. Having never been to Europe, I want to see and do everything. Other than definitely wanting to Prague to visite my cousin George, I didn't have any strong preferences. We both want to go to London, Bath and Paris, but since those are relatively close, it makes more sense to do them as weekend trips.

So, we were left deciding between the rest of our option. Rachel's been on a few vacations in Europe, and had a better idea of what she wanted to do, so I pretty much let her decide. Greece is on the top her list, so we looked into that first. We initally tried to plan a trip that would include Greece and Prague. We began loking into flights, hoping to find something affordable. Initially, we found a pretty inexpensive flight to Prague, but the cheapest one from Prague to Athens was over $3,000. We thought that was the end of our Greece trip, until I realized I had selected Athens, Georgia, not Athens, Greece. Fixed that, and the price went down substantially. Seemed like it would work, and we planned to get together later to buy the tickets and book the hostel rooms.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that I should contact George and let him know that I want to come for a visit (perhaps before I book my flight, in fact). After about a week of waiting to hear back from him, figuring out I had an old email address, and waiting for my Mom to get me the new one, I finally get a reply. Good thing I asked, because it turns out he and his wife Marketa are going to be in the States during most of our Reading Week. Bummer. However, they are getting back on Thursday and he graciously offered to let us stay with them Thursday to Saturday. Not the original plan, but still good.

Meeting with Rachel again. This time, we're REALLY going to make our plans. Turns out there's some kind of unrest or something in Greece, so we scratch that idea. Back to squre one. We entertained the idea of doing a Mediterranean cruise. Haha. Not on this budget. But. now, we were fixated on Italy. So we look into flights and hostels, and it seems doable. We factor in the two days in Prague. We figure out the that cheapest way to get home from Prague is to fly on EasyJet through Geneva. To do that, we have to stay one night in Geneva. I'm not complaining. (By the way, EasyJet is AMAZING. Yea, they only fly to like 3 places from Edinburgh, and yea you can only take a suitcase that weights like 3 lbs., but seriously, the flights are sooooo cheap.)

And so, after much deliberation, and much time spent on the money conversion website, here are our final plans:

We leave next Saturday, fly to London, then connect to Pisa (yes Mom, the one with the tower).
2 days in Florence
Train ride
3 days in Rome
Another flight
2 days in Prague
Plane again
1 night in Geneva
Last one (we're gonna be so sick of peanuts)
Back to Edinburgh

How fabulous is that? Best part, all the travel was less that $500. Hostels were pretty reasonable. That means we might actually have money left for attractions, and shopping, and food! We're still working on what we actually want to do and see in each city. I'm sure it will be hard to fit everything in. I know we can't do it all, but it will still be an amazing trip. I can't wait to tell you about it. The current plan is to bring the laptop. With any luck, there will be WiFi and I can post throughout the trip.