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!