Our Story

Hi all! This is our first blogging experience so bear with us here while we get the hang of things. We are two freshmen at the University of Puget Sound. Richard is a biology and Pre-Med major (Rachel says yuck – wayyyyy too much science) and Rachel is a Comparative Sociology major. This Europe trip has been a work in progress over the past month. The idea has twisted and turned and basically taken on a life of its own, gradually becoming more confusing, complicated, and expensive. We shall call it the Europe Conundrum (EC). This EC has caused sleepless nights, doodles in Stats class, and countless hours on Kayak.com and Hostelbookers.com as we tried hopelessly to make a trip that included everything we wanted.

What did we want though? That was the problem. A month ago we weren’t really sure. We began this process in the stereotypical college student backpacking through Europe manner. We were going to buy a Global Eurail pass and visit as many countries as we possibly could in a month. We were going to stay at hostels in major cities, meet people, and relish in the fact that we would be 19 and in Europe. As the planning process wore on and the price quickly went up, we began to realize that this quick sprint through Europe wasn’t what we wanted. Yes, we would have gone to 7 countries (including Slovenia – how many people can say they’ve been there?), but we wouldn’t have been able to experience the culture or people of any of these places.

I have a theory: Major cities are alike; every small village is unique in its own way. (Yes I may have just modified an Anna Karenina quote)

After this realization came to pass: at about 11:00 on a Thursday night, we proceeded to stay up until 4:00 the next morning reconfiguring our trip. This time with a new goal in mind. To explore the back roads of the countries we were visiting with the hopes of eating, photographing, and walking our way through. We cut out 5 countries, leaving us with just Italy and France. We found cheaper plane tickets, cheaper hostels, and a more meaningful itinerary. Europe for us is more than partying and meeting foreign teens at hostels. It’s about coming across some long forgotten village that has no name. It’s about learning from some little old lady we met on the side of the road. It’s about discovering ourselves through the process of discovering others.

These revelations culminated in one main goal: the writing of a book. A memoir of sorts, a guidebook of sorts, a recipe book of sorts, a photo journal of sorts. Basically all we eat, see, experience, and think along this journey will be documented in one concrete place in the hopes that we can encourage and aid others in truly exploring and getting to know Europe.  


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