planning

I think too often we talk about our trips and where we have travelled, but often the best part of the trip is the planning phase. Our group has already had a fun? fierce? chaotic? time trying to plan our trip. This was the first trip where I actually did more than just barely show up at the airport before the airplane took off. MF and I went to the travel agent and sat at her office while she wrestled with OBB, the site for booking train travel on Eurail. We affectionately named the website "Scotty", and our wonderful travel agent really did get beamed up and down trying to figure out how to use it and to plan the best route.

(Other members of our group will probably object and say that they could easily have booked it online. I will merely say that it is always easy to take the road once it's been travelled-in other words, it's easy to book the route once it's been decided. :D The aforementioned member has full liberty to respond.)

We really had to whittle down the number of cities we were initially planning to go. I think our original list included Germany, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, and Greece all in 20 days, but we soon realized that that was far too many countries and cities. We are now planning, God-willing, to go

Rome (!)--Venice--Milan--Paris--Dijon--Marsaille--Barcelona--Madrid--Cordoba--Grenada--Madrid

then back home.

I remember in Dr. Gow's history class reading Arnold's A Very Short Introduction to History about why people should study history. I liked one quote comparing history to travelling, something to the effect that the past is like a foreign country-we enjoy visiting because we understand more about ourselves when we return home. Already, as I plan for this trip, I begin to reevaluate my own routine, my own sense of normal, even the width of my bed (apparently beds are narrow in Italy).

But first I head to Pakistan. Pakistan doesn't make me understand home more-it makes me more confused. I look forward to sweltering in the heat without any power, eating mangoes, and chilling with my chachu.

Bismillah

And if you should ask them, "Who created the heavens and the earth?" they would most certainly say, "The Mighty, the Knowing One, has created them."
He Who made the earth a resting-place for you, and made in it ways for you that you may go aright;
And He Who sends down water from the cloud according to a measure, then We raise to life thereby a dead country, even thus shall you be brought forth;
And He Who created pairs of all things, and made for you of the ships and the cattle what you ride on,
That you may firmly sit on their backs, then remember the favor of your Lord when you are firmly seated thereon, and say: Glory be to Him Who made this subservient to us and we were not able to do it

And surely to our Lord we must return.

Surah Zukhruf, ayat 9-14 (Chapter 43, verses 9-14)