Introduction

Welcome to the blog for our Europe 2008 vacation! This is my 16th vacation to Europe and Libby’s 25th (she traveled extensively, especially to England, as a child). What’s unusual about this trip is that it will be our first cruise in Europe… indeed, it's really our first cruise of any sizeable duration.

As usual, we’ll be making our annual visit to the Allen House and spending a week in London. However, this year it will be interrupted by a 14-night roundtrip cruise out of Southampton (the one of Titanic fame) in England to the Western Mediterranean on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Jade. In all, we’ll be traveling 23 days, which is by far the longest single trip of our adult lives.

I setup this blog in about 15 minutes this morning. Because I was lazy, I did a very quick configuration that is bereft of glitz and glam. After all, the blog is just covering a three week period of our lives. Besides, I prefer the minimal to the baroque anyway.

My thought was that the blog would make for an easier—and more universal—way to communicate about our vacation, especially while we’re actually traveling. It’s also something of an experiment for me: seeing how I like the “blogging lifestyle” while chronicling in prose my travel experiences (two activities in which I’ve never seriously engaged). Of course, I’ve enjoyed reading other “real-time” travel narratives (especially those of my good friend, D) and more recently from those onboard cruises (the Jade Virtual Cruise report and the 2008 World Cruise blog). All of these sources—as well as prodding from friends and colleagues—served as inspiration for this endeavor.

Once traveling, I expect the blog will be fairly text heavy with minimal pictures (as I’d like to control my Internet access "donations," especially aboard ship). I will, however, endeavor to post daily updates during the travel period of June 7 - 29, 2008.