Confession: I Have No Idea What I Am Doing

You probably think that my life is so put together from what I post on social media and that I am a well-prepped travel planning guru. Here’s the thing: this upcoming Europe trip scares me. We are under-prepared, hell, we aren’t prepared at all! I have a to do list as long as my arm, we are both getting over sickness, and some brilliant people decided to plan a trip right before another trip with only four days in-between. I have no idea what I am doing and I’m stressing out so I thought it would be fun to procrastinate even more and write a post I can reflect back on once I’ve been in Europe for a while.

We have known we were doing an extended stay in Europe for roughly 8 months now, so why on earth do we not even have a place to stay when we arrive in Berlin and absolutely no plans afterwards [at time of this writing?] People, I AM A PLANNER! I like to plan things! I like things to be in my control! Why can’t we get our act together enough to plan just a tiny bit? Every time we consider sitting down and planning, something gets in the way, or we just end up looking at pictures of Iceland, a place where we DO have plans! I have a hard time focusing on any one task, so imagine us trying to narrow down thousand’s of cities to choose a few to start with. Horrifying…right?!

Now we are down to the wire. We have 6 days left in Florida. It is starting to set in that we are indeed getting on a plane with a one way ticket to a country where we don’t have any accommodations and don’t know a soul, not even the language. The fact that we are going to miss our parent’s birthdays, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, and that life in the United States is going to go on without us is starting to really hit us. We are constantly reminded that our days of 4G phone service and ESPN coverage are limited. Walking Dead just came back on? Dancing With the Stars is Starting? Gotta get used to missing basically everything good on TV. Our pets? We have to leave them too, and the worst part is, they won’t even understand. Oh! And did I mention the fact that we are going to be living out of backpacks and wearing the same 3 shirts for months on end and that I will probably want to burn all the clothes I packed yet? Or that I haven’t even started thinking about packing? 

In the past few weeks, I have personally considered what it would be like if I just bailed and stayed in town. All of those things that stress and worry me would go away! I could wear all my clothes! I could be around for all of the holidays and watch TV and use 4G phone service and drink SMOOTHIES [something Europeans just don’t get]. Then I consider how I would feel after a few weeks of staying home. This is something I’ve dreamed about for years and years. Travel is in my blood. Staying home would mean giving up. Staying home would mean seeing everyone else traveling and knowing that I could have done it but didn’t.

After all of this virtual ranting, we STILL don’t know what we’re doing. Although it is hard for me, I am trying to banish the heaps of stress from my mind and get excited. This is going to be an ADVENTURE! We are literally crazy and I want to embrace this season in our lives. We are going somewhere we have never been, with no plans, not even a place to stay, for months. Staying home isn’t an option, especially since we have ways to fund these travels and we have savings. We will get over not having ESPN or not being able to be home for Easter. We will find ways to meet new people and we won’t be gone forever. 

Europe scares the hell out of me, but guess what? We’re going to jump in, feet first, and do it anyway! Thanks for listening, if you made it this far, and stay tuned for my future follow up post!