Trip planning is tiresome

Yesterday I spent most of the day and a great part of the night as well as my first hours up this morning planning trips and calculating how I could pack visiting as many cities on the weekends for as cheaply as possible in my 9 weeks left in Europe. Man, was it time-consuming!

From my endless hours and calculations yesterday and this morning, it looks like my heavy trip period will be in September, where each week I will only be returning to Paris to work Monday through Wednesday. I will not be visiting Nice *tear* but will be going to Dublin, London, Rome, Venice (those are the ones now booked) as well as Barcelona, Cagliari and Milan (to be booked). Then I am torn between doing Amsterdam in one or 2 days or Stockholm for a couple days. I would love to visit the cool places in Amsterdam but I don't think it warrants more than one day yet the train price is kinda high for a one-day trip. At the same time, it would be cool to go to Sweden as it is a Nordic country and as such I imagine it to be different from the other European countries. Amsterdam or Stockholm is an ''either or'' decision because the cost of cheap hotels and even hostels are kinda expensive for both.

Anyways, since I've already done Porto, Madrid and Brussels, it looks like, if all goes well, I will have visited one city in Portugal, one in Belgium, a couple in Spain, a few in Italy, one in England, one in Ireland and then one more in either Sweden or the Netherlands. Not bad, considering I am doing this on a part-time salary, while living in expensive Paris and being limited to traveling Thu - Sun only AND I only decided to start traveling when it got warm aka June.

I really wanted to visit Nice, mainly because of the beach and the reputation of the Côte d'Azur but Barcelona and Cagliari will do...At one point, in the early hours of my planning process yesterday, when I still thought I would visit Nice, I started looking at beach photos....I've mentioned my short attention span before and it wasted no time in kicking in. Thus, I spent a few HOURS looking up beach vacations in Florida, Cuba and Mexico! One ad on the page mentioned Vegas and soon...you know it...that was me looking up Vegas trips too. But ye, the price it would cost to visit and stay a couple days in Nice in August (no space in my calendar for September), I think I could do a week's vacation in Mexico, Cuba or Florida for the same price.

Maybe you can tell from my ramblings above but I cannot believe how much time it took to plan and decide on the few trips I have booked so far. I mean I fell asleep last night with my laptop on my bed while still calculating costs and such and first thing I did when I awoke this morning was to continue the search. I just decided to stop and it is already clear past 3pm in the afternoon. Another day wasted!

Oh well, at least I should be going out this evening.

Summer in Paris and Daddy Strikes Again!

The weather in Paris has been so nice lately. Although it rained a bit this past weekend, that doesn't negate the many days of good weather...I will be going to even warmer shores in two weeks for a 4-day break in Portugal and I can't wait. I just need to get a swimsuit and I'll be set. Then hopefully, it will be London the week after. I could have gone to Amsterdam or Stockholm this coming weekend but I decided yet again to wait. Hopefully I'll get to go soon.

I have so many things to add to my Oh To Be In Paris list, I don't even know where to begin. I'll create another post after this with some of the things I want to note. Of course, I am sure I will forget a bunch because everyday I think of at least one thing and keep meaning to add to the list but alas! I have the worst memory in the world. Thus, by the time I get home I forget.

Actually, I barely have time when I get home. I was asked to work full-time hours per week for 4 weeks. The only thing is that both my boss and I forgot (at the time of writing up extra hours contract) that there was a holiday basically every week which meant I had to do full-time hours in a 4-day work week since I do not get paid for holidays. Crazy! By the time I get home in the evenings, it is almost 9pm which only gives me a few hours to make dinner and relax a bit before having to go to sleep. Thankfully, this is my last week of working crazy hours.

Hmm, what else? Oh, before I forget, I can't stop smiling to myself everytime I think of a conversation between my father and my sister that I was privy to this past weekend (overheard while talking to my father on the phone):

My sister: Daddy, do you want me to make French toast for you too?
Daddy: Yes...but look here, don't bother to dip the bread in the egg batter and don't add no sugar to make it sweet.

Oh Daddy! LOL.