the beginning.

if you want to keep your memories, first you have to live them

— bob dylan —

bob dylan is a smart guy.  he knows how to roll.  i wish i had taken his advice before i slowly passed my twenties, flew past my early thirties and landed at 37 without a real sense of living the life i wanted to live.

i have always loved europe and have spent way too much time and money studying it (you’re welcome lehigh), but when was i actually going to go out and live what i loved?  you can always make a million excuses to not live the life you want to live, trust me, i’ve done it for a very long time but excuses never get you to where you want to go in the end.  that’s when i decided one gloomy, grey november day in boston that i was going to visit all 51 countries in europe by the end of 2018.  at that point i had already been to 17 (austria, belgium, czech republic, denmark, france, germany, greece, iceland, ireland, italy, monaco, netherlands, norway, poland, switzerland, uk and vatican city – incase anyone was wondering), which meant i had 34 left to visit and just a little over a year to accomplish this quest.  unfortunately i only know a few crazy travelers and they were busy with their own travel agendas, so for the most part this was going to be a solo adventure, my first ever.  my comfort zone was about to get much, much more uncomfortable.

so in order to go forward, i need to go back because countries 18 through 40 should definitely be accounted for.  some of them were absolutely amazing and i am already making plans for a second, third, tenth, visit back.  BUT, because i have not been to most of the 17 countries i visited before i started my journey (denmark, germany, iceland, and norway excluded) i am just going to focus on my trips starting from november 2017 and onwards in an effort to at least be somewhat up-to-date.  although i’m sure some of you would find my stories of drinking too much cheap italian red wine and passing out on the floor of a train from venice to rome entertaining…

keep reading, keep checking in… i promise it gets better.

NEXT POST:  my first solo adventure | sweden, finland, latvia, estonia, lithuania & denmark