Pre-Europe #2: The books

Knocking another item off the preparation list: books.

Basically - one of the most prevalent pieces of advice we've been receiving from friends is that before we leave, we should really research ahead of time what events, sights, sounds and flavours we actually want to experience in each of the major city stops we make. Most people have been saying that when they just floated along with the Contiki version of the tour at every avenue, they really missed "actually" visiting most things that they wanted to. Sightseeing tours consisted more of walking up to the outside of monuments/places and "seeing" them - but never going inside or actually exploring them.

So - knowing that, Heather finally convinced me that we needed to buy a traveller's book for the area to at least find a few key things that we would plan on actually "experiencing" on our own, regardless of what the tour was doing. Once at Indigo - it took us awhile to settle on which book would be best for us - and the one we thought we wanted didn't even seem to exist (Rick Steves' version of Western Europe, which apparently, he hasn't done...)- but finally settled on "Let's Go: Western Europe". While not being an extensive descriptor, it does cover every city we're visiting and gives us a good base of things we might want to do in each plaee, as well as some great tips on food, cheap activities and things we shouldn't miss.

Besides that - Heather also reminded me that during our only one-week vacation in Cuba - I managed to finish reading two full novels, most of which occurred on our flights - so I might as well pick up reading material while we were at the bookstore. I had a little bit of a quandry at this junction as there weren't any books that were on my "need to read" list right now, and being out of distance range to call Mandy, and at a loss of a new cell number for Daena (who are both staunch sources of good reads), i had to rely heavily on book covers and inserts - very rarely a good way to pick a book.

In then end - I picked up the following three titles (there's was a Buy 3, Get 1 Free sale) after much humming and hawing and going through a ton of choices that I never really felt good about - but yeah, they are: The God of Small Things, By Arundhati Roy, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, By Michael Chabon and finally The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, By Mark Haddon. Here's to hoping they last me through the trip and that I don't fall victim to the dreaded possibility of the "unreadable" book. I've only had two or three of those in my lifetime so far - but the thought of reaching the next one still fills me with fear.