Planning… from the Beginning

For a change I’m not talking about THE beginning… as in… “In THE beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” Why not, you ask? Because He didn’t have to plan… He already knew.

Me on the other hand… well, I really don’t have a clue… about much of anything… so, I plan things to the nth degree… it’s the Project Manager in me… it’s that part of me that likes being prepared… not having forgotten anything… truthfully though, I sincerely enjoy the anticipation of an event… planning… it helps me… to, well… to anticipate.

For example, I give “teas”… real ones… with tea (of course), roses, savories (finger sandwiches), tea biscuits (like scones) and petit fours (or some other luscious desert)… Part of the fun for me is in the planning… Ordering the roses, selecting the kinds of sandwiches I’ll make… setting a pretty table… and making my guests feel special…. Planning is fun, but seeing a plan come together is even better… when I err, oh I hate that… but when it comes together well… ohhhhhhhhhh… now that truly tickles me.

So… back to my vacation story… we planned… to go to Russia… waited to find the right time… got our leave approved by our bosses… bought our tickets… oh but wait… a wrinkle… the people we were going to see (our son and his family) won’t be there… they’ll be here… now what?

Well, we already had our tickets… couldn’t we… go anyway? But, what would we do there?… Oh, come on… it’s Europe… a whole world away.. that we’ve never seen much of (I’ve only been to Siberia before once, and my husband spent a few years in Germany 30 odd years ago).

Once we started talking about it… it didn’t take us long to realize… here we are on the edge of Senior Citizenry… (when we retire our income becomes… fixed)… and we’ve never seen much of the world, never in our adult lives been anywhere that didn’t involve going to see our kids (we have 5) or other members of our family… that’s what we always did if we went any where… Here’s a unique concept… we could, perhaps, take a trip… just for us… what a selfish thought that is… I’ll just have to get over it and live with myself.

Once we cleared that hurdle… we began investing in Amazon for books on Europe in general, Germany in particular… one of the books on Germany talked about cruises down German rivers… which naturally led to thoughts of cruising…. anywhere that started in Europe… Italy’s in Europe… St. Petersburg’s in Europe… Barcelona’s in Europe… after all, we could either continue our flight to Moscow and proceed from there or we could change the tickets… and when we talked to our travel agent we found that it is more cost effective to change the ticket and pay the fee than to buy additional transportation to some other city… Now the hard part… making a decision… where do we go for this wonderful, only for us, vacation? Italy, Germany, Spain????

We had to reach back to our dreams… dreams we’d had during which we’d experience fleeting “I wishes…” over the years, decades… eons… thoughts of, “oh… I’d like to see that…” So, what is “that”… and exactly what are our options?

The internet…. (William Tell Overture playing in the background) …. to the rescue… research… what’s to see in Germany?… car rentals?… hotels?… gas prices (ouch)!… Do you know a gallon of gas in March cost nearly $8 in Europe? And with our American dollar deflating, it doesn’t go as far as it used to… Quite frankly that’s one of the reasons we like the idea of a cruise… today’s dollar, with no gas… no hotels (except before and after the cruise) and we get to see as much or as little as we’d like.

Tours?.. Land? River? Baltic Sea? Cruises?.. what are our options?… within our timeframe and budget?… Well, we found two…. one 10-day cruise of the Baltic, and one 12-day cruise of the Mediteranean…