Hey Kids, Look, There's Big Ben Again: A Real-Life Griswold's Account of His European Vacation (Part I)

Disclaimer:  

For April School Vacation week this year, Rob and I decided--well Rob decided and I cut him a check--to take our very own European vacation Griswold style--hey kids there's Big Ben and Parliament.  Until this trip, I had never been to Europe and the only time I'd been out of the US had been via a cruise ship, which everyone seems to vehemently state doesn't count as leaving the country.  I hadn't even ever been to Canada, so you can imagine how nervous and excited I was.

I don't want to say I was completely ignorant about Europe or anything un-American, but I was nervous because I didn't know nearly as much as I would have liked to (Until about three weeks before the trip, I didn't even realize that my phone had the capability to type a Euro symbol, I reserved that strange symbol for when my friends were being complete €====8s.

And So... 

with the disclaimer out of the way, I thought I'd post bits and pieces of the trip here for your consideration, and as a point of reference for when I'm old and senile and swear I've never been anywhere and stop hiding my stuff and my days as FDR's Secretary of State were the best years of my....but I digress

So Rob searched, planned, bought the tickets, booked the rooms, found our passports, made me pack some bags (the nerve of him), and before I knew it, as if by magic, I found myself at the airport, ticket in hand and ready to depart.

We made last minute calls and we were on our way.

Gettin' There's Half the Fun (Bullsh!t)

We took a night flight where instead of sleeping I, like a dumb-flunk, managed to watch The Dark Night and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows before a brief layover in Iceland--I'm still not sure what an Icelandic Kroner is worth--and then we were back in the air and headed to Paris.

This map shows Icelandair's flight which we saw while waiting in Reykjavik. When I saw it, delirious as I was from lack of sleep, I wasn't sure if it was my eyes or if the map really was all fun-house mirror looking.  Turns out the world is round and so this is how the Earth looks if you are from Iceland.  I particularly like how Boston looks due East of Florida, while Florida itself looks like it's situated itself in cold waters similar to Maine (that's a joke) 

Where did we go, what did we do after leaving Reykjavik  What did I learn, if anything?  Stay tuned.  More to come...