The modus operandi for that trip is much the same as we've (I mean Peter and I) envisioned for the 2008 go-around. In short, we secure flights to and from our start- and end- (respectively) points, splurge for unrestrictive Eurail passes, mold the flimsiest of itineraries, pack a bag (one) and wing it. As green and unworldly as any travelers before us, I think we did pretty well.

We booked a two-way flight between Boston's Logan International Airport and London Heathrow. As an undergraduate at Dartmouth, Peter had spent a semester abroad at London School of Economics (LSE) and fondly remembered the International Student House (or ISH), a sort of upscale youth hostel. We reserved a room (our only such reservations) there for the first and last nights of our trip. We coughed up somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 USD for 14-day student Eurail passes (requiring a bit of misrepresentation of my eligibility as a 'non-matriculated Harvard scholar'). Lastly, we grabbed one-way tickets on RyanAir (one of Europe's budget airlines) from (just outside of) Stockholm to Stansted (near London).

To my dear mother's chagrin, that was all the planning we'd muster. The weekend before, I bought my way into the REI co-op and procured a swank hiking pack. The night before our departure, I filled that Bad Larry with what had to be eighty pounds (if not more) of assorted shit. The Rune's a terrible packer, no doubt about it. Worst inclusion? How about a battery-charger? I won't even begin to try and justify it.

At any rate, that's the planning (or 'Boston') phase. The preface, if you will. Now, a continuation of the author's foreword.

Due only to the erosive nature of time elapsed (and not to any substance we may or may not have experienced in Amsterdam), the details are a little sparse. I have an underutilized journal and scrawled-on napkins from assorted Scandinavian coffeehouses, though, and I'll continue to exploit them for this long-overdue exercise. To what end?

For one, my compulsion to document everything has -- amazingly enough -- eluded this momentous excursion. Likely because it's a daunting task. For another, I'll not be doomed to repeat past shortcomings by failing to analyze my earlier goofs. Some (read: packing a battery charger) are as unforgettable as Nat King and Natalie Cole. Others (example escape me ... y'see?) are not as self-evident.

Those are selfish reasons to consume public bandwidth, no? Well, I'm sure things aren't so different five years later. We had better luck with currency exchange and the ever-expanding European Union led to the expansion of Eurail coverage. I'm sure the latter also increased homogeneity between nations a shade and robbed, if only marginally, each sovereign state of a bit of its identity and culture. What can you do?

At any rate, my intentions aren't strictly selfish. I truly hope that curious souls suffering of wanderlust stumble across my musings and remembrances and find a noteworthy nugget or anecdote that they might incorporate in their own journeys.

Cheers,
The Rune

p.s. You'll note that I've cheated in the 'written from' and 'date' fields to reflect the 'topic destination' and the date visited. Apologies.

written by  the-rune on August 21, 2003 from Boston, United States
from the travel blog: EuroTrip '03
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