Today is a day of firsts: my first blog(!) and the first official day of our trip ~ an exciting day all around!  We were up until about 3am packing; good thing we have a 10 hour flight to get caught up on sleep.  We are only taking our backpacks, which don’t fit much for a 3 month vacation, but somehow I’m certain I’ve managed to overpack! 

We’re about 3 hours away from getting on the plane.  First stop is Amsterdam ~~ again, another first for me!  We’ll be there for just 4 days, which I’m sure isn’t nearly long enough, but hopefully enough to get a bit of a feel for the city and be able to see some historic and memorable sites. 

Here’s my travel tip #1: if you ever plan an excursion that takes you around the world, it’s much, much cheaper to pick a city in Europe to use as a “hub” than it is to buy an around the world ticket.   Amsterdam (or anywhere in Europe, for that matter) wasn’t originally on our itinerary, and while it means we’ll be doing a bit of backtracking during our trip, it saved us thousands of dollars (literally!) and allows us the opportunity to see a city that we otherwise wouldn’t have seen.  Double bonus!

See you in Amsterdam!