Parallel Planning

All of my business training urges me to focus on my largest upcoming projects: language study in France and Italy. I still need to select a city, school and apartment in each country.

But I'm planning a walkabout, right? And what's the point of a walkabout if you follow a fixed path?

I have the general outline of the "bigger plan" sketched out. France, then Italy. And not before September, to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds. I'd say that covers the most important bases. If you want more detail, employ me.

So I am temporarily planning chronologically, rather than by "critical path." (My ardent hope is that in the next 6-12 months I will learn to view nothing, other than getting gas and finding a place to sleep, as truly critical.)

That means a young man's thoughts turn to summer. June will be spent in Berlin, diving deeper into its bountiful pockets. It's always a pretty good city, but June is its recurring debutante ball.

And for July and August? Far too hot to go south, so logically:

Behold the Scandavian Spin. I'm quite proud of it so far. It even has a nice figure-8 shape. And yes, this will be by car. Looks like a 10-14 day trip to me. I've learned that successive marathon driving days -- while they may cut down on hotel costs -- just don't pay off.

I prefer knowing that I have the option to shoot off the highway, dart through a random town, and then resume course, without worrying about hitting the day's final destination before dark.

So I've limited each day's driving to under five hours, and most are shorter. In July, with plenty of daylight, this should work well.

I'm pretty excited about this one. Scandanavia is an unknown region to me, but with my interest in design, and my family heritage, I've always been intrigued. If only I could selectively extract my 7th grade paper on Sweden from storage to take with me! Drawing the flag took me hours, but I thought it added a nice touch to the typewritten paper. ("Oh yes, Brittany, some of us grew up before clip art!") There were many Gustafs. I remember that. And I got an A.