17 May 2007
Americans are notoriously bad at geography
Posted by tjdotson under: Planning stages .
We had a hard time narrowing down which countries we wanted to hit while we were on that side of the pond. Chris and I wanted to start in the Netherlands because we actually know people there. Our future neighbors are currently living there while he is on assignment for Valvoline. I also have a good friend and colleague that lives outside of Rotterdam that I wanted to visit. This wonderful man and his wife also invited us to stay with them. I warned them about Sam and they still offered. What friendly folk they have in the Netherlands. That decided our starting point but where to next? We already visited Ireland, London and Paris on a previous trip so we ruled those out even though the desire to return to London is quite strong. We LOVED London and have even discussed living there after our future retirement. But I digress…. I yanked out the map and started looking at the countries surrounding the Netherlands and at that point, Mom informed me that we would be going to Switzerland. Alright, Switzerland has made the short list and by the fact that it is between the Netherlands and Switzerland, Germany also made the list. I also noticed that Rome would be a short little plane or train ride from Switzerland and I have always wanted to go to Rome. And that, completed the list. There is no way we could travel anywhere else in the amount of time we would be there. Now, it was just a matter of deciding where to go in Germany and Switzerland.