fin

i am in America. no, wait. i LIVE in America. although the jumble of my life will most likely remain, the location will cease to be so exotic.

when we moved to the U.K. 41 months ago, our goal was simple: fill the passports. i hoped to average one trip per month over (what was originally supposed to be) 32 months, instead i averaged 1.25 trips per month during our year-point-five and had to have extra pages sewn into my passport. (i did make the mistake of totaling the "travel" category in our Quicken budget. but, really, i would rather have my full passport than that brand new car i could have paid cash for had i spent every night at 39 Garland Street.)

it was bittersweet leaving the island, with no return ticket booked. no more cask ale and $40 flights to dublin. no more weekly market and queues, bins, rubbish, cricket, footie, give-ways, tubes, and half-pints.

now we need to make a new goal. hrm. this could be tricky.

the final list -- number indicates overnight trip, cities during trip next to number, "A" for airport.

1. london
2. canterbury, dover
3. venice (A)
4. tonbridge, hever
5. sevilla, granada, marbella, nerja, gibraltar (A)
6. hong kong, chengdu, tongren (A)
7. k-town, portland (A)
8. dublin, cashel, killarney (A)
9. amsterdam (A)
10. brugge
11. rome (A)
12. edinburgh
    >> end of 2007
    
13. mannheim
14. boleslawiec (A)
15. naples (A)
16. prague (A)
17. dublin (A)
18. san francisco, santa rosa (A)
19. brugge
20. florence, pisa (A)
21. portland, k-town, boise, CDA, las vegas (A)
22. the cotswolds, stratford-upon-avon, warwick
23. rome, amalfi (A)
24. istanbul, ephesus, mykonos, santorini, crete, alexandria, gisa, corfu, olympia, athens (A)
25. stonehenge, salisbury (day trip)
26. zurich, lucerne, interlaken, murren (A)
    >>> end of 2008
    
27. provence (A)
28. bath
29. copenhagen (A)
30. madrid, segovia, avila, toledo (A)
31. london
32. paris
33. rothenburg, bavaria, munich (A)
34. wales
35. kas, turkey (A)
36. scotland (A)
37. yorkshire
38. boise (A)
39. normandy, brugge
40. heidelberg (A)
41. morocco (A)
42. krakow (A)
43. chiavenna, italy (A)
    >> end of 2009
    
44. london
45. las vegas (A)
    
46. norway (A)
    
47. south africa, zambia (A)
    
48. washington, d.c., las vegas, oregon, road trip to north carolina (A)
    
49. romania (A)
50. red sea, egypt (A)
51. brugge
    >> end of 2010