and so it begins

today's the day! in just a few short hours i plan to begin packing and then leave for the airport. ha- gotcha! i've already packed one bag. so i only have two more to worry about. but yeah, i'm a bit behind in the packing department. it's just that the more i think about what i need to bring, the more i'll forget something important. so i basically just wait until about an hour before i need to leave and then just start stuffing it all in. it's the best way to go.

i had a moment of panic this morning when i woke up from my nap (i mean, i only slept from like 2-330, so i suppose that's a nap and not sleep) and thought for some reason my passport had expired or would expire this summer. there's nothing quite like having a freak out like that early in the morning to get you moving.

interesting experience yesterday with the credit card companies. one of them just asked me the dates i was traveling. another one asked me for countries i would be going to (like i know exactly where i'm headed this summer) and i told her a bunch and then she chided me by saying "you could have just said europe" and i responded with a hearty "you're the one that just asked me to list the countries i would be going to." so the next one i called i thought i would bypass all that and just say europe. that guy told me he needed specific countries. so i just started naming any country in europe i could think of. he stopped me after 10 or so. or maybe because i threw in australia to see if he was even paying attention. it didn't phase him. that or he didn't know that australia is not in europe.

for those of you concerned about my airplane manufacturer choice- i proudly support usa airplanes and not german, so i'll be on a boeing 767. not an airbus. i never liked the name airbus either. it just sounds like you're getting ready to board a nasty greyhound with wings. although, i have to say, one of my study group members this past year worked for airbus, and as a vietnamese-german, the way she says airbus makes it sound so sexy. it's not though. i know better than to fall for that trick. foreigners can make anything sound hot with those accents. at least, that's what it seems like to me since any time i have friends visit from overseas they're constantly asked to say things to my female friends because "the way he says wal-mart is so sexy." i doubt the brits will find my pronunciation of wal-mart to be anything special.

um- if anyone has any thoughts on places i should visit if i have some time, i'd be happy to hear them. i'm planning to go over to france (just so i can say i made fun of a frenchman in his own country)- no, i'm going to go watch a part of the tour de france i think. not because of the whole lance thing, but because when else am i going to be that close? i am also definitely headed back to edinburgh and probably dublin. maybe that's enough for now. i'm afraid to go to a country i didn't list on my credit card travel alert watch list.

hey- did you guys know michael jackson died this week? you'd think a piece of the us fell off the country and floated to sea, what with the constant media coverage. did you also know he was planning a comeback tour? holy crap!

um- billy mays died. that's more important to me. now i won't know what kind of laundry detergent or scratch remover to buy.

okay- hopefully my next post will be from across the pond (as they say). that's a pretty big pond.