Almost Ready!

Well, we leave tomorrow, and we're nearly ready (we hope!).  We've planned out our itinerary a little bit more thoroughly and intend to visit 9 countries - Ireland, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Belgium.  You can follow along on our "Where Are Kate and Paul?" page.

Last weekend we tested out our backpacks with a walk around the neighborhood (and we continued to wear them while making dinner - sorry, no pictures of that):

It seems crazy that that is pretty much all we will have for three months - just the contents of our two backpacks. Of course, we can always pick up items in Europe, but those then have to fit in the backpacks as well.

Today, we are doing other essential things such as:

• Chopping up our massive Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring. It currently weighs 2.32 lbs and covers 45 countries.  Since our itinerary includes under 10 countries, we should be able to cut this down significantly.  
• Last minute house stuff - watering plants, watering the cat, tidying up (or redding up, for you Pittsburghers) for our house sitters
• Returning library books.  Best way to pick a travel guide?  Check out as many as possible from your local library and pick the one that best meets your needs.  We have the Lonely Planet, and since we devised much of this trip after watching a plethora of Rick Steves' videos, we bought his Best of Europe for the Nook. 

Here's hoping we haven't forgotten anything!

Welcome to No Cleaping Over!

Hello, and welcome to yet another travel blog!  Clearly, travel blogs are popular since Blogger has an entire category of blog templates called "Travel."  (For the record, I didn't choose one of those).  It makes sense though.  It's an easy way to keep everyone back home up-to-date on your latest adventures.

Speaking of adventures, my husband, Paul, and I are about to embark on a three month meander around Europe.  We depart on April 30th and return to the US on July 24th.  In between those dates, we plan to visit Ireland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and maybe Austria and Belgium.  We've got the first week or so somewhat planned at the moment, and we'll just keep planning a bit ahead as we go.

Why No Cleaping Over?
The title of this blog comes from a photo I took on my first trip to China in 2006.  It was on a mountain somewhere (or at least a very large hill):

My friend and I wisely chose not to "cleap over." The background of red peppers is also a photo from China taken during my second trip there in 2008 - Paul's first trip.  This trip also included my second favorite piece of Chinglish:

What can you expect from this blog?
Hopefully, reasonably regular updates on our travels in Europe.  Most posts will probably be by me, but you might get the occasional one from Paul as well.  And pictures!  Because what's the point of a travel blog without pictures?

Look for the next post - from Europe!