How it All Began...

July 2013

My husband and I had just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary the previous month and wanted to do something special for our 10th next year.  [READ:  I wanted to make sure that our anniversary plans didn't revolve around the Spartan Death Race as it had for the past 2+ years!]  I had begun working in public eduation the previous year so I knew I could count on a long summer vacation, my step-daugher would be with her mother, and our son was old enough to go off to Grandma's while we took a long non-U.S. vacation, the first since before he was born.  Ireland, the mystical land of our ancestors, was at the top of our list.  And then... Erica happened.

My sister Erica - my free-spirited, twenty-something, yoga-teaching, massage-therapy-practicing, acupuncture-receiving, knitting, chicken-sitting, nation-wandering, barista sister Erica said that she was obsessed with elves.  Specifically, Icelandic elves.  She was going to Álfaskólinn, Icelandic Elf School.  "When?" I asked.  [Notice that "what," "how," or "why" were never asked.  With Erica, the only question is, "When?"]

"June," she said.  "I read that after that, the tickets get insanely expensive.  Want to come with me?"  

To say that her offer made my internal Trip Tik start to flip, was an understatement. After a lifetime of various trips via plane, train, boat, bus, and car, with everyone from friends and family to colleagues and classmates and everyone in between, my sister is hands-down the BEST traveling companion I've ever had.  (See this entry for more about that!)

While the Google Map in my head was already plotting destinations for my sister and I to visit in Iceland, somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that I was married and wanted to stay that way.  Leaving my husband at home in the states while I celebrated our wedding anniversary with Erica in another country was a one-way ticket to the land of divorce lawyers and alimony.  I couldn't possibly swing two international trips in one month on a teacher's salary.  Could I?  Or could I...