It's been quite an adventure to say the least. The original plan was to go with my entire family to visit where my father grew up in the former Yugoslavia before escaping in the 50s, never to return. In the time it's taken to get this off the ground my dad's knees have deteriorated to the point where there's no way he could walk around and enjoy himself. 

As luck would have it, some friends from high school who are affiliated (as in, basically run) the Seattle Junior Tamburitzans, the local Croatian youth dance troupe. The dancers and their families are going on a tour of Croatia and I'm tagging along with them for two weeks, and then I decided to go out on a limb and tack on five days in Rome and three in Paris by myself. Should be interesting since I don't know a lick of Italian or French. 

I plan on updating here often unless I can't find a decent internet connection, and while I'll be posting some pics here the majority will be over at SmugMug. Here's the trip-specific gallery, but once I get going you'll see featured galleries at the top of my main photos page and you can go there too.  

So that's about it for now. On Sunday I drop the cat off at my parent's house, which is always traumatic (not for me of course, for the cat. yea, that's it.) She already knows something's up, and I give her credit for trying:

Does not qualify as a carry on