Flashback

When it comes to planning travels, I tend to like to gather a lot of information and take a lot of notes before making any decisions (which is not even remotely how Gretchen would go about planning a vacation, but maybe that explains why she has more or less outsourced all travel planning to me). So it was quite a blast from the past to pick up an old notebook in our living room and finding copious notes and lists of ideas for vacations when we lived in Switzerland. For example, I'm not even sure exactly when this is from (or even if it was pre- or post-baby), but the page I'm looking at now has the following list (my current observations in brackets)--and keep in mind that, as much as it may sound like we were jet-setters, since we lived right in the middle of Europe most of these places would have been fairly quick and inexpensive to get to:

Edinburgh [still bitter that we never went, and jealous of The Big Finn's current visit to Scotland]

Tallinn [that's Estonia, in case you were wondering...I always heard it was pretty, but it wasn't as easy to get to as other places]

Prague [we'd been there before, but I guess we thought about going again]

Salzburg [pity I never made it...maybe one of these days I'll actually watch "The Sound of Music"]

Lisbon [ditto...Portugal may be right behind Scotland in terms of regrets about not visiting]

Sevilla? [despite the question mark, we did make it there]

Casablanca? [this must not have been very realistic if it was the only one I scratched out...but the guy who cuts my hair now is from Casablanca and raves about Morocco]

Provence [can't believe we never got there, as close as it was]

Amalfi Coast? [settled for Capri instead]

Venice [one of our favorite trips]

Ljubljana [Slovenia is supposed to be one of the better-kept secrets in Europe...but I still haven't the slightest idea how to pronounce "Ljubljana"]

Istanbul [I really enjoyed it and wanted to take Gretchen, but we couldn't work it out]

I also found this list from when we were trying to squeeze in one or two last quick trips before moving back to the States (in the end we had a great weekend in Berlin and a more difficult weekend in Munich).

Then there are the pages and pages of notes from when we were trying to decide where to go for our so-called babymoon. Unlike the previous ideas, which would have been easy because they were within Europe, we were feeling more ambitious for our babymoon. In the end we were basically trying to decide between the Maldives, Dubai, and Thailand. As much as the Maldives looked gorgeous and decadent, it also would have been insanely expensive and we were concerned about what would happen if Gretchen needed medical assistance and we were on an isolated island. Dubai also looked really expensive, and in the end the whole high-rise-on-the-beach thing just didn't seem as appealing. So Phuket, Thailand--which was much more affordable, offered good health care if we needed it, and promised good food--it was. Ah, memories...