Originally posted by iluvtink
Good morning everybody!
Today we are all (minus the pups) heading down to CincYYYYY to see DBIL, DSIL and DN. DBIL and DSIL (Ed's bro) are going to Disney with us ELEVEN days. DN was supposed to be going, but now she is going to Europe for 2 weeks instead! Her sister has been in Luxembourg with Miami University of Ohio for a year, and it's her last two weeks there. Some plans fell through for her so she convinced her parents to let her 14-yr. old sister come and backpack through the hostels all over Europe!!! I don't know if I'd do it. She's been to Spain/Italy a couple of years ago with her parents and a tour group so it won't be completely new to be "abroad." She leaves Tuesday with a friend who is also flying to Germany to stay with friends, so she's not flying alone, and they've hired some adults to walk them through customs on each end. Still, if anyone wants to say a little safety prayer for the two of them on Tuesday and for the following two weeks, I'd appreciate it.
Okay, gotta go load the car. Y'all have a great day.
ilt
I'm saying a safety prayer for your DN's but their gonna have a great time and probably won't need it!
I took a bicycle tour of europe when I was just 16 yrs old.

I flew over to England by myself and rode bikes for a month with 16 perfect strangers(all 16 yr old guys and girls of course, except for the leader who was 24), stayed at youth hostels and flew back by myself. We had a great time and although I was pretty terrified to begin with, it was great fun and a wonderful adventure. To make things even more dramatic, this was back in 1980 when there was both the US Postal strike(so I got no mail) and the air traffic controllers strike so after a month of riding around europe, I was delayed another 3 days in London because there were NO flights out at all

. It was really scary cause I thought "here I am, 16 yrs old, in a strange country and when the heck am I ever getting home?"

It was also the summer Charles and Diana married so we so all the decorations and hoopla going on for that.

It was really quite "magical" and I'd give anything to be 16 again and do it all over, except of course, I'd stay in a fancy hotel where I wouldn't have to sleep and shower with strangers every night
Sorry for the long story but I think the girls will have a great time, learn alot and have lots of great adventures to talk about for years
But here's a hug anyway for a sweet aunt for cares enough to worry
