The other site of the pond, again.


What’s up loyal blog readers? Even though I get the feeling that I’m likely writing to four people, you’re my fans, and I love everyone of you!

In November of 2004 I took a trip over to England with my family to visit my brother-in-law’s parents for Christmas holiday. It was a fun experience to be in a different country and to spend time going in and out of London.

At the time, I had just started my associates degree online after a very tumultuous stint of real college made me realize that I was just not suited for sitting in a classroom, especially for a technology degree that was geared for seven year olds.

Over the next 5 years I would come to realize the joys of working on papers no matter where I went. Spending countless hours bullshitting my way through papers, and always at the deadline. No matter what trips I went on, LA, Denver, Chicago, I would sit with a laptop and work on papers while my friends resented the fact.

In the end, I managed to finish a MBA with a technology management concentration. At some point in the process I told myself that when I graduated I’d treat myself to a couple weeks abroad roaming different parts of the UK and Europe if possible.

That time came in December of 2009. I booked a ticket for London Heathrow a few weeks later and started to pull together my International favors.

Eurotrip

For two weeks I’ll be roaming the streets looking for experiences and photo opportunities. Armed with a Canon DSLR and a couple of rather decent lenses my goal is to try and capture culture, landscape, and history as I wander around looking for experiences.

It’s probably worth noting my specific travel methodology. I am not much of a planner. My assumption is that if you plan, you will fail. If you don’t plan, everything will be a success. While I’m not here to argue that point with you, I will say that it has never failed me before. Karma, coincidence, and luck all seem to guide me in the right direction. Even though I haven’t stepped foot onto European soil yet, I’ve already got some amazing opportunities lined up.

So far, all I know of my travel is that I have a place to stay in Central London at a pub not far from Westminster Abby and the heart of London. Thanks to a good friend who I met through my brother-in-law it appears that for the first few days in London I will have an amazing proximity to everything I want to capture and experience.

North, to Crewe, I’ll meet up later in the week with a good friend, Chris and hope to share experiences and get exposed to local culture away from the bustle of London. When I travel, I always like to be exposed to local culture as I find it’s the most genuine experience.

Leaving Chris’ I plan to find myself in Paris and then possibly Amsterdam. These are the types of things I’ll figure out as I become comfortable and begin to wander. The trip will likely culminate with family in the South before returning to London for one last night of drunken insanity before boarding a flight back to where I’m sitting at this very moment.

The rest is up to chance. My hope is to actually get around to blogging as I’ve enjoyed in prior trips. Since I’m traveling alone I feel that I’ll have ample time to keep everyone updated and create a sort of realtime archive for myself to enjoy. I’m taking a mini laptop with me armed with Adobe Lightroom, so expect a few pictures here and there and plenty more when I return.

The only part that sucks is getting everything buttoned up for work and making sure that the world can sustain itself for a two whole weeks before you return…As one laments inside about trying to solve every problem so that you weren’t spending precious vacation time with a laptop out, working. I only intend to use my laptop for blogging, archiving and editing pictures (which will suck at 1024×576).

Otherwise, it’s break in case of an emergency.

But the best part will come tomorrow, when all the spinning and panic to get everything done at the last second (holy crap, have I actually verified that I still know where my passport is?) all spins down as I take my seat in that 767-400 bound for Heathrow.

Cheers!
lunks


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