Intro and Omens

Introduction

“Western Europe in only 6 weeks? Impossible! Can’t be done!” Yes, Josh Ryder and I had heard this many times before. But as Josh always said, it’s like those Biographies you see on VH1. Anyone who’s anyone had those people when they were first starting out… the ones who constantly told you that you’d never make it. And its those same people that give you the strength to prove them wrong. This was actually Josh’s trip that he had planned on doing for some time; I just kinda tagged along. I graduated college and decided that I didn’t want to get a job, so Europe is just the next logical step.

Planning for the trip went something like this. We got everything Rick Steve’s ever wrote and started circling everything we really wanted to see and do. Josh and I each had our own “Command Central” which consisted of a large map that we could stick pins into. So after picking out everything we wanted to do, we connected all the major points with string and BAM! We had our trip. We roughly figured out how many days we’d want to spend in each city, and left ourselves a few extra days play at the end and our planning was done. All was left was to pick up a few supplies. REI told me there was only 3 things I needed to worry about: Shoes, Pack and Raingear ‘Cause if your feet hurt, back hurt or you were soggy, you’d be miserable. After getting that taken care of, we didn’t really think much else about it until March 30th.



March 30th, 2004 || 4:21pm (central) 23:21 (London)

Alright this is the first journal entry for Rob and Josh’s Eurotour 2004, and I’m new at this journaling thing. So I added the time and stuff at the top, we’ll see how long that lasts. Here’s the first thing I really have of note to point out:

OMENS FOR THE TRIP
(and we haven’t even left Illinois yet)

1. I overslept my alarm this morning
2. On arriving to the airport the escalator was broken, or at least was temporarily stairs. (Thanks Mitch Hedberg)
3. Josh has already started getting under my skin. He’s referring to me as “Face.” As in, “Hey Face, do you know where my bag is?” He’ll be lucky if I don’t punch him in his Face before we leave this time zone.
4. Our plane that was to take us from Chicago to London, had just got struck by lightning on its way in. As we walked to our gate we could see a bunch of stewardesses gathered around the big window facing the plane so we walked up and started asking questions. There were mechanics on big ladders near the nose of the plane checking things out but eventually they went away and the crowd dispersed. So I guess that means that all was well and we shouldn’t be concerned, right?
5. The pen I’m writing with sucks. I went to go buy a new one, and they wanted to charge me $12 – For a freakin’ pen! Airports figure that you trapped here and so they can charge you whatever they want. I showed them, I’m keeping my crappy pen.
6. Hate Josh.