We're leaving on a jet plane - next stop London!

What do you take for 21 days in Europe? Not much if you are rock star packers like us! This is it folks. That is all of our luggage. How amazing/unbelievable is it? I am not going to lie- I didn't even think we would be able to accomplish it. But here is the photographic evidence.

Today's the day! We are finally off on our trip. I know that neither of us can believe it - we have been planning so long that it seems unreal that it is finally here. As you can tell Mike is ready to roll!

We arrive in London at 6:15 tomorrow morning. As most of you know, neither of us are what you would call morning poeple so this may be a problem. Mike said I should give a preview of each city/place we are visiting for everyone. So here it is.

First, London is hella expensive so we are not staying at any cute British bed and breakfast or inn. We are too poor. Instead we are staying Hotel Ibis which is farther out of the city center but literally right next to a train stop and most importantly we can afford it. Oh well, at least it isn't an American chain hotel.

We are not sure what we are doing on Saturday. We are going to make some plans on the plane. We'll have plenty of time that is for sure.

Love you all!

Mike and Gena

Packing

There are a lot of doubters out there as to whether I can actually survive in just a large backpack for 3 weeks. Today as I was not thinking about the coming bar exam I decided to pack. For you non believes I have included my clothing for the trip.








That my friends is a single 9 x 12 mesh packing cube. First it is not all the way full and second it includes all of my clothes for the 3 weeks except for socks/underwear and what I am wearing on the flight.

More to come as I put together the other stuff we need. But I hope I have made believers of you all. I will be traveling with a single carry on size backpack that weighs less than 20 pounds.

It's Almost Time!

The book that started it all! Rick Steves Europe through the Backdoor was given to me as wedding gift from Mike. It was tucked inside a beautiful Coach travel tote. I married a great man!

The countdown is on for the Shelton's European Vacation. A lot of planning has gone into this and we are hopeful to not be too much like the Griswolds. We will in fact be visiting many of their favorite locations though - including Stonehenge and while this will be our first day with a car we will try our hardest not to knock it down.

As many of you know, we have been planning this trip for about 18 months. The decision to take a big trip to Europe came when Mike and I were discussing our honeymoon. It wasn't feasible last year because of the election (yes we are political nerds) so we decided to combine it with a postbar exam trip. I finish the Ohio Bar on Thursday, July 30 at 12:15 and we leave Cbus for Philly at 3:41 on Friday, July 31 : ) Moss doesn't grow on a rolling stone. Thanks to cost savings days our trip has grown from approx 10 days to 21. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

To give you a rough idea of where we are heading here is a basic schedule for our 21 day trip. London, Dublin, West Ireland/Dingle, Normandy, Paris, Swiss Alps, Munich, Rhine, Amsterdam. It should be a whirlwind trip but we are looking forward to it.

For ease of communicating with our friends and family we are going to both be posting on this blog regularly while abroad. This will let us tell stories and share pictures as well go. I expect there will be a couple packing posts as well. We are going for the full 21 days with a just a big backpack a piece and well this should be interesting.

Gena