I leave in less than 2 weeks, and today discovered my first would-have-been major mistake — I booked my hotel in Brussels for August, not September. Thank goodness the concierge at the hotel was double-checking my work, and emailed me! Hopefully, he’ll be able to fix it for me, as well.
But it just illustrates something I’ve been reminding myself the past few weeks — something will go wrong on this trip. After all, I’ll be gone for 5 months, staying in 22 different accommodations, taking 5 flights and 14 trains or buses. SOMETHING is going to go wrong! I keep telling myself this, but I know that when it does, I’m going to freak out. So I keep telling my Virgo self that a) when things go wrong, it’s not the end of the world and b) you can generally fix things with time or money and a sense of humor.
In the meantime, I’m double-checking my entire itinerary by importing it into TripIt, a free, online travel itinerary service. It will order everything by date, so I’ll be able to see any major gaps or issues. And then I need to let it go. I wonder if there’s a traveler’s version of the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the ability to control the things I can control, to accept the things I cannot control, and the humor to deal with the difference.”
SF Food Concierge 