Today the forecast is 76 degrees and sunny. Tomorrow it’s 49 and rainy. Later this week we’ll be in the mid- to upper 30s. What the hell, Pittsburgh? Apparently there are some communication issues. We’re supposed to be in the swing of spring, not back to February. It’s April! Yes, “April showers bring May flowers” but 30 degree rain storms are not going to make the flowers flourish!

I was buried in snow last week in Utah (sometimes quite literally when I fell spectacularly in the powder) so I’m just about finished with the layering and the long underwear and the freezing limbs part of the year. I am ready for sandals and skirts and sunshine. Not to mention Europe!

I’ve been obsessing over Europe lately. Before we went to Utah, it all seemed a little moot, what with the ski trip coming up, but now that the next big thing coming up (nevermind my thesis presentation, graduation…) is Europe, I’m totally and completely psyched for it. (I sound a little Valley, don’t I? More than usual?) I’ve been attempting to nail down an itinerary and get some hotels booked in advance. We don’t want to book every hotel but we definitely want to book the hotels for the major cities (Frankfurt, where we’re flying in and out; Munich, our south Germany/ west Austria hub; Paris because it’s Paris; Berlin, possibly). We’ve still got to decide how much time we’re going to spend in Italy versus Switzerland versus France and such. We know we want to spend a good amount of time in Germany, but that’s mostly because I can speak a bit of German and it’s a cool place to check out. (That, and they’re pretty friendly as a group, so long as you’re a bit on the OCD side, which I am; and we love beer.) We’re going back to Venice because we went there as freshmen and we loved it (and it was March and rainy the whole time, so we’ve got to make some of that up this year). The other thing is that I’m a fan of comfortable hotels and relaxing but Bryan’s all for the backpacking adventure (though he’s a hotel person, too). We’re not so much into the night train hostel backpacking crazy thing, but we’re going to get backpacks (for convenience’s sake) and try to do the post-college thing at least a little bit. I’m also dedicated to keeping a journal — yes, I purchased a MOLESKINE for the event (we’re not really going to have steady internet access, so I won’t be blogging very consistently). I’m also the sort of person who obsesses about calendars. This whole trip will end up being very over-planned, I bet. That’s better than under-planned!