Summer 2009: The trip that wasn’t

Summer vacation! Major part of each teacher’s year.

Since I started this blog, I’ve chronicled some of the decision-making process in choosing my destinations, and my trips.

• In 2006 I planned and searched and chose two NEH workshops, and then Salonika, an island and Istanbul.
• In 2007 I planned and stalled and chose:  Berlin, a huge train ride, Salonika, my island again, and Sofia, Bulgaria. I was searching for tomato-cucumber salad that really just wasn’t up to par that almost-drought summer.
• In 2008 – the timing was all lousy. I ended up with some day trips, a few days outside of Boston, and volunteering in New Orleans.

And in 2009? Ugh. Last summer programming. I will be a scheduler no longer. But that made it doubly hard to get the work done, to get my mind to it. And I never pulled the trigger on the major trip I was planning. But what a trip! I had it all laid out – connections, flights, things to see. Places just to hang out.

What I would have done (had I just done it)

1. Fly from New York to Rome. Connect to Ancona, Italy. Hang out for a day.
2. Take an overnight ferry on Jadrolinija to Split, Croatia. Day on the beach.
3. Next morning a bus ride to Mostar, BiH (Bosnia). Look at the architecture. Have a bite.
4. Bus onward to Sarajevo. Major destination 1. Tour. Coffee shops. Think about picking smoking back up (but won’t). Eat. Be lazy. Make friends. Relax. The winning trip would have been to time the trip for when erstwhile math blogger E was there, but she was in and out in late June, early July, so that wouldn’t have been this year in any case.
5. Train through Belgrade. Last time I did that, the connection was blown and I overnighted. Not this time! I would have left generous time for an easy connection to Skopje, Macedonia. One day or so for touring, museums.
6. Train onward to Salonika. Thessaloniki. My favorite city in Greece. Who knows? 3, 4, 5 days? Plenty to do, plenty to see, nice people, good museums, dripping with history (it’s an old city, unlike Athens which is a modern city built around a few old ruins), great food.
7. And then an island, likely Alonnisos, for a week or a little less. Cross paths with some friends. Maybe a hop to a second island. And back home.

View Fantasy Trip Summer 2009 in a larger map

Fantastic trip. Would have been perfect for 25 days… Maybe next year?