The Exciting

OMG, I am rich! Not really. I finally received my paycheck. For three weeks of working at 42 hours per week, plus tips at 10 points of TRONC, I earned 592 pounds, 34 pence. Once I pay rent of 340 pounds plus the overdue deposit of 100 pounds, I will be living like the proverbial Queen of Patagonia. Working for other people sucks. The hope is that my pay for July, August, and September will be closer to 1100 pounds for each month including TRONC. If I can keep my everday expenses low I will be able to save a good portion of my earnings and hopefully that will put me in good stead for my Europe travels. When I convert my pounds saved to Euros I should get a better exchange rate than my dollars to euros. Praying hard for this and keeping my fingers crossed because I have lots of things I want to do on my travels. Drum roll as I segue into some of my plans for those who are in the need to know, yes this means you Richard and Ian. Of course my friends and family are free to read on and to ask questions or ask for further details.

So my plan is, in summary, as follows. My work visa expires on October 9, 2008 but I plan to stop working by the last day of September. At this point I will have hopefully seen all that I have wanted to of Scotland and will therefore leave my flat-share situation and become an official back-packer. Assuming I have not been able to get to Carlisle and Bolton Castles, I will travel to these locations and stay approximate 1 day in each city sight-seeing. I will then travel to York on the east coast and see where the Baroness Scrope was born and sight-see for 1 day. Then it is back finally to London where I hope to meet up with Richard. I would like to see the Changing of the Guard and tour Buckingham Palace, go inside Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and St. Pauls Cathedral. I also want to take a day trip to Windsor Castle. I expect our tours to take approximate two-and-a-half to three days as I want time to really see and be at these places to soak up the history. I also want to give us time to enjoy the city at night as most of these locations close by 6 pm and may even close by 4pm. From London we will travel to Paris, France for approximately three days during which time we will take a boat on the Seine, see the Louvre, Notre Dame, Vaux le Vicomte, Le Tour Eiffel, L Arc de Triomphe and of course take a full day to see Versailles. I went to Rick Steve's website the other day and found a three day itinerary for Paris that includes all of these places along with fa full tour guide, price list, maps, bus info, etc for Versailles and many of the other attractions. In my book steve also suggests places to stay and eat. As I left my book behind in the states, I have to rely on the website but, the book has much more information. I may send for it.

Moving on from France, Richard and I will travel south into Spain. My original plan was to make a loop of the country while hitting the most well-known cities such as Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, and others that I cannot recall right now. This is the difficulty of leaving my info back home. Anyway, the hope is that we will be able to see the history, architecture, paintings/sculpture, food/drink,and culture of the country. I hope to focus on the period of the Renaissance. My hope is to get some understanding of how the royals and nobles of the country lived during the same time as their close relatives in England and Scotland and how their unique culture effected how they made decisions of state that led to the Spanish Armada, etc. I hope to research this in all the countries I visit.

The current plan is to end up in Barcelona where we will catch up to Ian, hooray! I hope that we will have scheduled dinner plans at someplace special and especially Barcelonan/Spanish where we can get that special photo of us three celebrating our blessed success in coming to the continent.

From Barcelona we may all three travel together to Bologna where we will part ways and Richard and I will continue on. Ian will remain behind in Bologna and then perhaps fly home from there. Richard and I will carry on over to Venice where we must take a moonlit gondola ride, with the best singer, along the waterways. According to Rick Steve's website the ride may cost up to 135 Euros so we need to be sure to save for it and plan it the moment we arrive in the city. Rick also suggests a short stay itinerary of the streets of Venice that we might want to complete. Richard may depart from Venice to Milan to fly home or he may choose to accompany me into the heart of Italy. I am on to Florence on the west coast, then on to Tuscany, thence to Rome with side trips to Ostia and Pompeii/Herculanium to see the museums. All during my travels in Italy I want to taste the regional food and wine, see the historic buildings and sites both Renaissance and Ancient. I plan to complete my travel in Rome and fly home on November 5 from Rome's Fiomenucci Airport, connecting through Washington, DC then, on finally to Portland, Oregon. This flight will take all day and I will arrive home around 8:30 to 9:00pm. I may alter my plans if I can afford to. I would love to see DC or any part of New England in the fall. I also want to see my dad and my cats in California. We will have to wait and see what happens to my finances.

Cost-wise I expect my trip to cost me $3000 Euros. That is approximately $5000-$6000. My current time line is detailed below...subject to changes in mood, weather, and discoveries of better or more places to see.

September 1: Give 30 days notice at Harvey Nichols and to flat mates.
September 15: Begin packing up un-needed items to ship home.
September 27: Mail home stuff.
September 30: Last day of work. Finish packing bags for travel.

October 1:Depart Edinburgh for Carlisle
October 1- Evening: Settle in to accommodations very near to Carlisle Castle, have dinner, sleep.
October 2 - Day: Dress up as Lady Margaret Howard, 9th Baroness Scrope of Bolton. Walk 'Home' to Carlisle Castle and take a tour of 'my' house. Also take a walk along Hadrians Wall.
October 2 - Evening: Have dinner, pack, and sleep.
October 3 - Day: Have Breakfast and check out of accommodations. Tour Carlisle castle and Hadrians wall if desired then travel to Bolton and check in at new accommodations.
October 4 - Day: Have breakfast, dress again as Baroness Scrope, tour Bolton Castle and meet with Tom Orde-Powlett, Manager of Bolton Castle. Also maybe meet the Right Honourable Lord Bolton.
October 4 - Evening: Have dinner, pack, and sleep.
Sunday, October 5 - Day: Have Breakfast and check out of accommodations. Tour Bolton castle and surrounding area if desired then travel to York and check in at new accommodation, have dinner, and sleep.
October 6 Day: Tour city and historic sites. Have dinner, pack, and sleep.
October 7: Breakfst, check out, and more touring of York till afternoon. Travel to London, meet up with Richard, check in to new accommodations, have dinner, sleep early.
October 8 - Day: See London sights in whatever order we decide.
October 8 - Evening: Have dinner, see city at night, sleep.
October 9 - Day: Finish sight seeing in London and Windsor.
October 9 - Evening: Dinner, pack,sleep.
October 10 - Day: Breakfast, check out, any last minute sight-seeing or souvenir shopping in London then, travel to Paris.
October 10 - Evening: Check in to new accommodations. Have dinner and take boat tour on Seine. Perhaps, combine. Sleep if possible.
October 11 - Day: See all that is Paris, following list above and Rick Steves itinerary.
October 12: Follow Rick Steves itinerary for Day 2 of France and Paris
October 13: Follow Rick Steves itinerary for Day 3 of Versailles. Back to Paris for dinner, packing up and sleep.
October 14: Breakfast, check out, last sight seeing and souvenir shopping in Paris. Travel south to Spain stopping in Provence, Avignon, Lyon, etc if desired or scheduled. There is a complete full moon this night.
October 15 to October ?: Open for France or Spain travels. TBA Plan to arrive in Barcelona in coordination with Ian. If I am correct this will be around October 23rd.

All right. This blog is just about long enough. here is the rest of the itinerary short and sweet.
Oct 15 - 23: Madrid with side trips to Tolded, Sevilla, and Andalucia then, on to Cinque Terre or see below.

10/23 Barcelona with Ian
10/24 Barcelona to Bologna with Ian
10/25 Bologna/Parma with Richard and Ian
10/26 Bologna/Parma with Ian and Richard. Ian to return to states?
10/27 Cinque Terre with Richard - a vacation from our vacation
10/28 Cinque Terre with Richard - more R and R
10/29 Venice
10/30 Venice
10/31 Venice - Part ways with Richard?
11/1 Florence
11/2 Tuscany to Rome
11/3 Rome - See Ostia
11/4 Rome - See Pompeii/Herculanium
11/5 Home to States

If I run out of money I will have to cut my trip short and will most likely cut one day off Paris and avoid the rest
of France, and head on to Barcelona to meet Ian. Things will also change when I hear from Richard about his availability and budget. And we both need to talk to Ian about his dates of travel and whether or not he wants to room and/or travel about with us much. I hope we will have much of our plans getting reserved with deposits at least in the next couple of weeks. We really need to have our plans in final stages if possible for London,Paris, Barcelona, Bologna/Parma, and all of Italy no later than end of July. We need to decide the kind of accommodations we want to stay at and the kind of eating and sight seeing we want to do. A reality I have discovered while here in the UK is that many things cost very little but it is amazing how many fun things there are to do. Add it all up and it costs a lot to see even one city. The city's are aware of this in the UK and so they have weekly bus passes, membership packages that cover many historic sites and make it very cheap to sight see, if you see at least three to five of the sights. Bear in mind that not all the sites are within the city limits. Some are as far as a one-hour bus ride including walking. Don't forget the added costs of food, refreshments, and souvenirs. Oh yes, and those extra sites that are not covered by your membership or day ticket that you didn't know about but now have to go and see.

I need to review Rick Steve's website very closely for budget guidelines. I need to add it all up and see the grand totals. This will be in my next novel, I mean blog. hehe Toodles!