Head full of gravel.

Rolling over last night, I became aware that I was still actively planning our next Euro trip while sleeping.
I suspected as much, but now have concrete evidence, hence the gravel in my head.

Around about 3am, I was pitting the elegant virtue of Vienna against Leipzig and Trieste.
The battle wasn't all that pretty either.

Never mind.

Anyway, I thought that spitting it out might prevent Potsdam taking on Venice tonight, thus sparing my muddle from confusing the Earth's energy any further.

Three weeks of course has become five, and various magnificent cities have been auditioned, only to be cast aside due to reasons I can no longer pretend to guess at.
No Dubrovnik, no Oslo, no Northern Lights or fjords, no Split, no Heidelberg, no Amsterdam (boo), no Cologne.

OK, poor darling Hong Kong bought the farm this trip because it can be stinking hot October and I have to dodge hot weather.
Plus we're out of time.

We can easily duck across to Hong Kong for a week next year.
Also because I discovered that I can take sleeping pills and bomb myself for several hours during long haul flights, thus making the Asian stopover less necessary.
HellBoy informs me that after about three Temaze, I can sleep with my head on my knees.

hmmm

Paris disqualified itself by being self important, smelly and full of pretentious fuckwits on cheesey romantic weekends.
In fact, Paris can bite me on the fuzz.

Just yesterday, both London (my fault) and Venice (Jeff's fault) made it back into the mix.

By 9:36 this morning, I had to place an urgent phone call, almost waking HellBoy up, to tell him to start mentally preparing for Vienna yet again.

"OK. Good."

Any other response would have surprised me from him.

Should I call him tomorrow and tell him I'd like to collect space shells on Mars, he'd give me the green light without missing a beat.
He knows how much I like shells.

Well, in case I haven't told you, we decided that we'd bring our next Euro jaunt forward a year or so to coincide with Dad's trip.
Jeff's brother, wife and daughter have also decided to join us.

But not for the whole thing.
They are keen to go to Paris and EuroDisney and to Italy.
We are not.

Mickey Mouse + Paris = SIMONE HELL.

Plus, Italian culture is too dominated by Christianity to hold my attention.
Poor Jesus is almost as over exposed in Italy as Mozart is in Austria.
At least Mozart was real though.
And he has chocolates named after him rather than wars.

We all but sprinted through the Italian Renaissance section in the Louvre earlier this year.
I remember hearing HellBoy say,

"Oh fuck me, not this guy again," while looking at some crucifixion pic or other.

Anyway, Italy...I gotta tell ya, it's enough with the Jesus already.
Talk about monomania.
I'm trying to imagine my reaction to the Vatican City, better known as JesusDisney.
Quite probably the only place that would let Paris off the hook for being the cuntiest city.

We are having a total of three nights alone(!) after spending time with Tone and Line in Berlin and then are going to re-trace the Tischler and Planinc family footsteps with Dad and Viv through sleepy Slovenia.
After that we meet up with Greg, Giulia and Yasmin in Venice.

At this stage, the itinerary is:


Germany
Berlin/Potsdam(4 nights with Tone)
Leipzig (1 night)
Dresden (2 nights)

Slovenia (meet Dad)
Celje (1 night) = birth town
Vitanje (2 nights) = home town
Ljubljana (2 nights)
Bled (2 nights)

Italy (meet Greg and Gules and Yazzie)
Venice (2 nights)

Austria
Vienna (3 nights)
Salzburg (3 nights)

Germany
Munich (5 nights) incl trips to Rothenberg and Inglostadt

UK
London (4 nights) - return visit to Lizzie's underpants.

Yes.
I think I feel better with that stored somewhere.
It'll be interesting to see how much it changes before I make final bookings.

So, this time next year, we'll be in Celje.

Of course, my only real concern is that Souths will take this opportunity to make the finals and force a very ugly decision on me.
Those bastards.