The First Blog Entry of my Life

After writing thousands of pages of text in my word processed journal over the last twelve years, why finally start my first blog now? Because I think it would be the easiest way to keep my friends and family informed of my international adventure as it happens. As some of you know, I’m about to embark on what I expect to be my most demanding adventure yet in just 80 days, exploring all that Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece has to offer in just over three weeks.

My friend Ben and I will be flying to Budapest from New York City, then meeting up with our friend Cameron in Timisoara, Romania. He has been working there with the Peace Corps for a year, and his stay there is the motivating factor for this trip. In a perfect world, my wife would be able to accompany me, but she will be finishing up her master’s degree, and can’t miss that much class.

Why am I starting a blog dedicated to a single trip 80 days in advance? Well, for one thing, 80 days is a lucky length of time for me. I asked my wife to marry me 80 days after we first met, and that turned out pretty well, so I’m hoping for the same for this trip. Seriously, if years of journaling have taught me nothing else about myself, it’s that I better organize my thoughts though writing them down. I fully admit that I’m a bit anxious about this, the sheer enormity of organizing it and preparing for it. By keeping a journal of my progress, I feel like I’ll have a better grasp of it all, forget less, be better prepared and, well, give those who care enough to wonder what I’m up to something to read.

In the blogs ahead, I will write what I learned about myself during some of my other great adventures, and how the preparations are going for this one. As far as you might be concerned, it won’t start to get interesting until I get there, so feel free (as if you needed permission) to ignore everything up until then. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep things as interesting and concise as possible.