And so it begins...

As we are starting our journey for "K & m's annual European summer vacation," I figured it would be smart to test out how my new blogging setup works for this trip (although it's really too late to do anything about it at this point).

We left Austin bright and early this morning, and we were taken aback at the lines of people everywhere at the airport - waiting to drop bags, to get through security, and to board planes. All at the wee hour of 5am on a Tuesday no less! TSA Precheck certainly saved us because we would not have cleared security otherwise in time for our flight. Hello, summer vacation travelers!

We have a looong layover in Atlanta before catching our flight to JFK then onward to Madrid. Big thanks to my brother for the last minute surprise of day passes to DL SkyClub where we are currently enjoying the amenities and fresh air at the new international terminal.

We have an ambitious itinerary for our trip, with lots of transfers and go-go-go which is fairly typical of our summer European trips:

Madrid->Pamplona (Running of the Bulls)->Biarritz (and, hopefully San Sebastián) for some beach fun->Alpe d'Huez for Le Tour of course!->Paris->Cinque Terre->Pisa/Lucca->Lake District->Zurich

We are fortunate to have 3 full weeks this time around compared to our prior trips of 2-2.5 weeks. Kurt is on sabbatical from work for July and, well, I am enjoying the benefits of being self-employed. 

We really made an effort to "pack light" for this trip because we are notorious overpackers. With that in mind, we're doing some things a bit differently for this trip - first of all, I'm trying a large travel backpack instead of a suitcase this time because a large suitcase is difficult with all of the transfers-bus, train, plane, subway, and on foot. I'll weigh in on the outcome of this attempt at the end of the trip. We also opted to leave the laptop at home in favor of the iPad and portable keyboard (hence the new blogging setup). We're also trying one of the budget European airlines for one of our transfers in France for the first time. I've heard horror stories, so I'm hoping everything goes smoothly. And, yes, we learned a few things from our disaster in December when my purse (including our passports) was stolen in the Canary Islands. Copies of our documents have been made this time around!

I've been looking forward to this trip for months, and I'm so glad that it's finally here!

Here we go!