What Was I Thinking?!?!

So here I am about to embark on a three month adventure to Europe and all I could think of is what was I thinking? When I say about to embark I mean it is May and I leave September 8 but still this planning of all things Europe is mentally exhausting! Am I not going with someone who can potentially assist me in this process? Someone who can take some of the burden off me and help to avoid me ripping out all my hair, oh right I do have someone who has the capacity to fill that description but does HE? NO! I can't exactly blame him though, in the past three years in our travels I have planned and researched all of our destinations and the outings it is just this is not five days in New York or three days in Vegas it is three LONG months in Europe. 

My lessons learned so far: 

Lesson #1: There is no way you can prepay for hostels

Me being the planner and organizer that I am, I intended to reserve and PREPAY for each of the hostels/hotels that we will be staying in. The website I initially starting book with was booking.com and I thought that since I booked through them before and had to prepay for my reservation I assumed that it would be the same for the hostels/hotels in Europe. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Here I am mindlessly booking rooms and putting what I was told the price of the room on my credit card but in reality it is the amount I need to pay when I get there. This was all my own doing if you read the fine print you would see that it all needs to be paid upon arrival. I then moved on to hostelbookers.com which still would not take all my money but they did take a deposit. I am now using this website because I feel better leaving a deposit than nothing at all. So far so good at hostelbookers, I am trying to keep it as consistent as possible with one website now hopefully when we arrive at the 23 different destinations we actually have a bed!

Lesson #2: What the hell is the difference between purchasing three month continuous pass from Eurail or Rail Europe?

This lesson I have yet to actually learn. RailEurope has always been the company I have been directed to for the purchase of a Global Rail Pass for our three month stay but I stumbled upon another website that offers what appears to be the EXACT same thing for a fraction of the cost. For my boyfriend and I to purchase two youth passes with RailEurope it costs just over $6300 dollars BUT for what appears to be the exact same pass BUT two adult 1st class ones it is only $4242 dollars. Why this is the case I have no clue! I have investigated and investigated I have yet to find the differences between the two besides the cost. Both companies too seem like legitimate companies so I am truly at a loss here and if anyone has any insight it would be greatly appreciated! It is no guess though as to which company I plan on purchasing from. 

Lesson #3: I want to see it all! 

I really do want to see it all, I want to see all: the small towns, rustic villages, the big cities, the festivals, everything! I know that I am being a bit unrealistic. When planning out the itinerary I realized just how much we are going to miss and how much more I would like to see. This trip I understand is going to be a once in a life time trip but I have a feeling I will go back for one more visit at least. 23 cities in 12 countries is going to be a lot and we are already travelling every 3rd, 4th, and 5th day so I am sacrificing some sites but only for the remainder of my sanity that I will have left after planning. 

Lesson #4: It is too easy to stay behind. 

The final lesson I have learned to date is that it could be very easy for me to stay in Canada, settle down, earn money and buy a house. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, I truly admire people who are doing that but for right now there is something in my heart telling me I need to see this part of the world for this long right now. The closer we get to our departure date the more I freak out a little bit and the louder the voice in my head is saying WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I see clearly how people are willing to stay and I could easily be one of them was it not for the thousands of dollars already invested in my departure date. 

This is only phase one of planning and I still have three months left to over think, over plan and attempt to over pack. I imagine it is going to be a loooong summer of planning but it will be a summer that goes by super-fast!