I just want warm!

I've been in the middle of planning our spring break vacation.  I should be super excited because it will be another country to check off my bucket list.  The girls have two whole weeks off school and I figured we could see a LOT in two weeks.  Well, thank you screwed up program,  Joel has to spend one of those weeks in Germany.  We actually talked about Germany for spring break.  The plant is near Berlin and would it be great to see the Berlin wall up close after watching on the news, all those years ago, it come down.  And Prague is just a short drive away.  But Turkey has been suffering thru it's coldest winter in years.  I've been told its the most snow in 20 years.  Now I'm used to cold winters.  The last 11 years have been spent in Detroit and Kansas City.  I remember one winter, where the high for two weeks was -2 F.  And the snow was blowing so hard you had to wear sunglasses to see.  But I was so looking forward to being away from it.  And it did start out that way.  We had a lovely fall.  The day I did my Christmas shopping at the Grand Bazar, it was beautiful.  But since then.... COLD.  The kids had a week worth of snow days!

So after all this cold, I really didn't want to spent spring break with more cold.  I want to lay on a beach somewhere!  Then Joel got a nice little email from Turkish Airlines about a sale.  Hmmm... Italy for 125 Euros!  So Naples it is.   At home, I rarely ever had troubles booking a vacation.  I think we used a travel agent twice and he was a coworker of dad's and gave me a pretty good deal.  But every other vacation, we planned ourselves.  Let me corrected that statement.  I planned.  It dawned on me the other day, since our very first vacation to the Dominican Republic, I have taken care of all the plans and paying for it.  Almost 11 years of vacations, all on me.  I guess planning them at home were a breeze so I never thought about it.  Then I started planning our first vacation in Europe.  Because of the move and then no internet access, planning our Christmas vacation was beyond stressful.  But it worked out and I had a wonderful time.  At that point, I could have cared less what everyone else thought.  They got a free vacations in FRANCE.

Here I am again trying to plan another European vacation.  You'd think, hey I'll just log on to my trusted sites back home and book it.  Well, the US sites just don't offer as much.   So after awhile and some research, I found some European sites (mostly UK for English).  Then the fun of trying to figure out how to pay for it.  HR here is horrible.  They haven't gotten a paycheck right since we moved here.  So for months, they keep putting it in Turkey.  Our bank debit cards don't work worldwide... lovely.  I could just put the whole thing on my credit card, but one, it's paid off and I really like seeing that, and two, I'd have to have another alert put on it and then its always a bigger hassle than needed.  UGH.  Thankfully, Turkish Airlines is easy.  Thank you EFTs!  Then finding a hotel room for 5 of us in Europe.... next to impossible.  The websites don't tell you if they offer adjoining rooms. You have just got to hope some nice family put it in their review. Then if they do, they don't guarantee them.  Finally I gave up.  Told Joel we were renting a house and that was the end of it.  LOL.  We have three picked out along the Amalfi Coast and now just need to hurry up and decide.  Wouldn't be nice if vacations just fell into your lap all planned with a shiny red bow!

So 17 days from today, we will be off spring breaking it in Italy.  I will be stuffing myself with all kinds of pasta, pizza, and gelato that I can manage.  And maybe, just maybe, it will be warm enough to at least lay on a beach.  Just for one day.  That would make me happy.