twenty-four, eighty eight

An adventure awaits….part one.

Last week I was contemplating what to do with my leftover tax return after I pay off my bills. At first I really liked the idea of getting a kindle fire, actually I still do, but as I was driving home on Friday something dawned on me. Paradise by Coldplay came on the radio and I realized something about myself. I still have this huge desire to go to The United Kingdom and Ireland. My grandma is from Wales. She moved to England when she was about ten years old. She moved to the United States when she was 17 in 1944 with my grandpa. That’s a very cute story, she had to get her mom to lie about her age so she could marry him and come to the states, but that’s another story for another time. She still hasn’t lost her Welsh accent by the way. 

I’ve always wanted to go to the United Kingdom and Ireland. I’m a quarter Welsh (obviously) and I’ve got all these little bits of Irish and English in me. Four years ago it seemed it might have happened for me. That’s when I was in school and Erica and I we’re planning on studying abroad. Well life happened and I had to drop out of school so it didn’t work out. It didn’t work out for Erica either.

Last summer I talked about possibly finding my family in the UK on facebook with my grandma. She gave me some of their names but I lost them and was never able to find them. I just want to get to know them so bad. I want to see them. I know they are distant relatives (second and third cousins) but still you know?

I’ve never had the means to do so. It’s so much money. It takes a lot of planning. Especially because I don’t want to go there for just a week. I want to go at least a month. I’ve decided that money is no longer an excuse, which brings us back to the beginning of this blog.

I’ve decided to take the last $300-$400 of my income tax and open a savings account (with Erica) and start saving to visit the United Kingdom and Ireland.  By the way I forgot to mention that, Erica is included on this because it’s always been a desire of hers to go to the UK as well. I told her the plan on Friday night. We’ve got the basics figured out already. It’s going to cost at the very least $3000 for us to fly just by researching prices right now. We know we will need our passports and possibly VISA’S since we want to stay for at least a month. We know we want to stay in hotels, not hostels, and we’re going to try and find my family in the UK so we could possibly stay with them for a few days.

We know that we will go through a travel advisor because we have no way of planning this all out on our own. A travel advisor will be able to get us good deals and help us change our plans if something terrible happens while we are there. Erica and I really want to go before the end of the year. We know that’s going to be hard. We know it will take sacrifices. I’m going to get a job at the bank she works at and have that be my full time job and Starbucks be part time. I’ll take all my money from Starbucks and have it deposited into the savings account. I’m not sure yet what Erica will do but we’re going to figure it out.

I’m just so so so excited. I can’t wait until this actually starts becoming a reality and we find a travel agent and make our first deposits on the trip. I can’t wait to experience a part of my heritage I’ve never got to physically experience before. I do hope I find my family in England…that would be wonderful.

 This is all on this for now. I’ll keep you guys updated as things move forward.