and we're off

ok, so i've been planning this trip since about september 2005. let's back track a little, i decided i wanted to go to the olympics after watching the 2000 summer games in sydney on tv. i did make it to the winter games in salt lake city in 2002 and somewhere i once read "once you've been to the games you want to go back," and it was true. i started making plans for athens 2004 but somewhere along the way i completely forgot about it... it didn't occur to me that i was supposed to be in athens until i was watching the opening ceremonies on tv when it hit me "i'm supposed to be there!" (athens was would have been awesome, i've always wanted to visit greece).   so then it was then i decided i had to make it to torino 2006 and i asked several friends if they would like to join me and there were many interested parties but ultimately it was my roommate jo who ended up accompanying me. so then in september i actually started planning everything out. i started scouting out airfare, hotel rooms, train tickets, olympic event tickets, and just general information. we found that airfare directly into italy during the games were were exorbitant, one roundtrip coach ticket was averaging $1,200. we then started scouting out neighboring countries and amsterdam, netherlands came in cheapest at $600 with a stop in london. since jo had never been to london or amsterdam she was more than willing to make a little detour. we left on 9 feb. 2006 at 12pm from phoenix. since we were on an international flight we could not check in online and we had to wake up early like we were going to work. we made it to the airport around 845-ish but only after almost getting into two accidents on the 10. and so the jourey begins...

and so the jourey begins...