The European dream

I'm planning to go on a vacation to Europe. My friend Sheela, and I, but here's the catch we don't have any money. Every soul I tell about the plan asks me why am I going?, I don't know I just want to go.

It all started one jobless evening in August last year. Akhila, my most hyper friend was going to Belgium to do her Masters. We had gone to say goodbye and she just mentioned in passing that we could plan a trip to Europe, and it would be fun. This opened a can of worms (words straight from my mom's mouth). You see we are the kind of people who get excited when such impossible challenges are placed in front of us. We don't do any life changing stuff, but only such bankrupting things, when they come along, we are interested :). More than the trip, I think we both just want a story that 2 girls went ALONE to Europe!. We both just hung on to that one sentence, that has been our bible for the past 8 months. We have been planning and replanning and replanning to death, I swear, that Akhila has stopped receiving our calls!

Anyway, we had initially planned to go in December, then common sense and financial problems prevailed, and we pushed the plan to April. Then again laziness reigned supreme and the plan got postponed to May. As of now, it is still May. Now it is March and we have finalised the dates. All these days we were doing tug of war with finalising the dates, we forgot about the main itinerary.

So, Now is the time to decide. One thing is for sure, we do not want to go on a package trip. The families, the kids, the guides who keep watch on people's pee schedule is just too much to handle. Maybe I'll go on it when I have 2 kids and I have given up on life. Anyway, we spoke with elusive Akhila and finalised our dates for May 4th to 17th.

We finalised on 2 options:

1) Flying from Bangalore to Rome and Flying out of Paris to Bang
2) Flying from Bangalore to Brussels and Flying out of Paris to Bang

Totally our budget is 2000 Euro for 13 days. The 1000 Euro will just fly away when we book the tickets and in the remaining 1000 we have to cover 3 places, Rome, Brussels and Paris.

All these calculations just piss me off, they make me start thinking about economics, I hate the currency exchange rate! Why the hell should we pay so much? Infact shouldn't it be the opposite? People from poor countries should be made to pay less, because they make less. Just imagine spending 1000 Euro in India, If I were a European I could've stayed here for 1 year with that kind of money. It is so unfair, we have to spend an year's savings on a 15 day trip and those people, if they have to come here they can do it comfortably with a month's pay or less!!

Anyway, all I'm imagining right now is strolling through the streets of rome and gaping at the Colosseum, eating a slice of pizza in its motherland, tossing a coin into the Trevi fountain, clicking pics in front of the Eiffel Tower, living the Da Vinci code in Louvre and Angels and Demons in Vatican city, haven't yet done research on Brussels, so don't know what to expect..but I'm all geared up..Europe, Here I come :)