Realtà, ciò che un concetto.... parte due**

Waaaaayyyy back in December, when we were getting ready to turn the calendar page to January and we had to actually committ to the trip by (gasp) buying a plane ticket, I brought up the point in a blog that the fantasy play-planning was easy. And it was, but the real planning has been even more fun. Big decisions (where to fly into), little decisions (the hostel with the cockroaches, or more money for the hotel in the red light district). Little mistakes (meaning a little more money, as in Becky's choice to stay with the MP3 she is used to rather than the smaller LV125 I am taking [oops, did I mention the scooters? Oh, another blog coming, I guess.] vs bigger money mistakes (see prior blogs about Damsterdam). However, overall, we have made very few mistakes on paper, and it will be up to Reality to determine if they were big ones or minor ones.

It brings up the other subject that Rebecca (did I tell you she doesn't want to be "Becky" in Europe?) and I have talked about: Will Reality live up to Fantasy? Well, since it seldom does, I think we are pretty aware that all will not go according to plan. They say one of the ways you can tell something about a person is how they react when they lose their suitcase. Let's hope that doesn't happen, but I really think we could deal with it if it happened. We are realists. We know "life happens" and it is seldom what you expect, or what you want. But I do think we are also both rather fatalistic and look at life with a lemons-to-lemonade attitude, at least by the end of the day.

Packing light has been our goal from the start, and has been a challenge, but an interesting one. We never reached the "toothbrush and an extra pair of knickers" of my friend, Margaret, but I have figured out how to pack seven tops in a tiny little case, how to give things up that we thought we had to have, and how to multi-task other things. We are sharing some things, so we don't have unnecessary duplicates, and yet we each have our own personal items that are important to us (Me: iPod. Rebecca: Sony Reader). We each have places in "our part of the trip" that is something that one person wants to do more than the other, but we have found a way to enjoy the other person's obsession. It has made for an enjoyable process.

We also have most of the trip pre-paid. We paid for the plane tickets, rail pass, ferry, and train reservations out of pocket. We made a pool in our joint savings account where we would put in equal amounts of agreed upon money, and it is from that pool we will pay for anything that is equal cost, such as hotel rooms, taxis, tips, etc. We have estimated the cost of the rooms and put that much in equally. The only things we have left are the regional trains in Italy, and the occasional taxi ride, admission to an attraction, or.... well, food. Each of us will pay for our own food and drink. We are a little short there, and we figure we can live on bread, cheese, and wine (oh, and gelato). If we are really short on money, we will give up bread and cheese, but we recently had a very nice, very unexpected windfall from our brothers and I think we will actually be able to eat our ways across the island and continent without fear.

So what is next? Well, we have taken $100 each and left it in our Scotaly savings account, and that is our seed money for the next trip. We already have some idea of what it is, and when it will be, but time will tell. It will be a lot less expensive than this one, and not as long, but should be fun anyway. And for now, we are in countdown mode, and waiting for the adventure to continue...into the wardrobe, or down the rabbit hole, or through the looking glass, and into another world.

(** Reality, what a concept, part two)

Dee

14-0-48-15

I know it looks like the combination to a lock, but in reality it is the number of days-hours-minutes-seconds until we leave for Scotaly!! Dee very cleverly added a countdown meter to our site. I have enjoyed paying her back for that by popping the current numbers into a chat or e-mail every so often. Kind of makes one's stomach go 'blurp' and flip over. We both have tasks that need to be accomplished before we go. Some are realistic and some are imagined by both of us, and I guess when d-day comes, we will have done what we have done.

Personally, I have been packing and re-packing my backpack. Even though it's not easy to compress 5 weeks of travel stuff into 1 backpack for the trip, we are both convinced that it is the right thing to do. (My packed backpack below - yep, that's it)

We've decided to spend some time at our first destination, the Isle of Bute in Scotland, researching our ancestory. Our goal will be to find the gravesite of our Great, great, great (I think that's all the greats) grandparents that we believe are on the island. We also will be searching for Roslyn Cottage, an ancestral family cottage which we hope still is standing. One of the family cottages, Canada Cottage, IS still standing we know.

Many many adventures coming our way. Stay tuned for updates as we go :)

Becky