I made a list of things at work that I absolutely had to get done before I leave on Thursday. Last Friday I polished off the second last item on my list and today I went to work and finished the last of the issues so now I'm ready to go you might say. I was in Europe last year on business and stopped in Paris on my way to Germany and I post a few of my Paris pics just to get the juices going. Will do the same on Tuesday and Wednesday as well. I promise to publish a lot of newer ones over the coming month.
Some background about this trip. The genesis for this trip came about five/six years ago. My sister Mary Lou and brother in law, Ron from Florida rented a cottage up in the Muskoka's and invited the whole family up for a good time and visit. My little sister, Bonnie ( although she's only five years younger than me she is still my little sister ) and I were chatting and she asked me that if I ever went on vacation in Europe again would I consider inviting her along. My older sister Betty Anne and Mary Lou and Ron had all gone to Europe in the summer of 1997 and Bonnie had always wanted to go as well but was never able to. You might say that Bonnie is NOT a seasoned traveller so she would be highly unlikely to go on her own. So sure enough I agreed that I would invite her and hubby Tom along should I ever decide to do this again. Now fast forward to last year when I was debating all things related to life and decided to take some serious time off work during 2008. Because Bonnie has wanted to go to Europe for quite a while I specifically worked in a trip to Europe this year so that I could include her and Tom. So to make it short I called and invited her and Tom to come along, I believe that was last Christmas, and here we are only three sleeps away from leaving for Europe. Bonnie and Tom for three weeks and myself for almost six weeks.
On the Muskoka trip I also told her to hop into the car and we drove to Bracebridge and immediately signed her up for an AirMiles card. As it turned out I've got well over a million Aeroplan points so we used my points instead of her AirMiles to get frequent flyer point trips for this trip which helps with the cost. Mayby this trip will motivate her to do another somewhere and to use up her Air Miles. I may have created a monster traveller. But for this trip we are all using my Aeroplan points.
Now don't you find it interesting that my reward for flying so much is that " I get to fly some more". Go figure. But hey, I'll never use my points up and Aeroplan has sunsetted them again so I decided to use them for family members etc. starting with this trip.
Now I was visiting Windsor a couple months ago and went out for dinner with a bunch of family members and, on a whim, invited my nephew Denis ( the one "n" Dennis in our family) and his partner Janice to come over as well. As they say ..... " the more the Merrier". He couldn't come but Janice decided to come along as well so she will be joining us next Tuesday in Paris ( also on my points ... are you beginning to see a pattern here?) and that makes five of us for the Paris leg of this trip.
Now my daughter hear's about all this Europe stuff and she is quite jealous since she has to start school back at Columbia in New York on September 2'nd and can't join us. But there is not a problem I can't solve!! I suggested and she jumped at the idea of her and my bride heading to Paris in the middle of August. So it has been mother and daughter in Paris for about the last two weeks. ( also on my points ... get the picture now ). Laura actually gets back to New York tonight and I'm anxious to find out how things went. If the charges on my credit card are any indication then I think mother and daughter had a good time.
Now let me digress a little. We all have friends in high school and University that make great promises to "stay in touch" after graduation and never do. This was also the case with myself coming out of the University of Windsor. There were four buddies who were as close a friends as you can imagine and once we graduated, despite great promises we rarely saw each other. Different cities, new friends .. you know the story. Well about 20 years ago we did finally get together for a barbecue to catch up on old times and made a pact to get together at least once a year. And we have never missed a year since and enjoy every get together tremendously. I highly recommend this BTW.
A couple of the couples really like Tuscany and at our get together last fall we made a pledge that we would see if we could do our annual barbecue in Italy in 2008. It is also my turn to host the event so I copped out and offered to buy everyone a nice dinner in Siena, Italy. Not a bad substitute if you ask me and I won't have to clean up after a home barbecue. Linda, in Windsor, took charge and viola, an e-mail here, a credit card there and presto we have two weeks booked in Italy. Actually it is 3/4 weeks but because of the Paris trip my bride and I will not be joining them until week two. And other good friends have decided to join in on the Italy part of the trip as well so we now have 10 of us in Italy. Amazingly, Linda found some Villas in Tuscany that can handle a group this size so we will all be staying together in the same places. A different Villa each week for the whole party ( and what a party it will be). I thank Linda for all the hard work booking this. Getting 10 of us from different cities all on the same page is like herding stray cats. Good job and thanks once again.
Sounds exciting and I truly believe that the more will be the Merrier. So that is, in a few sentences, how about 14 of us are finding our way around Europe this September into October.
Till Tomorrow.
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