Now or never...

About three years ago, sitting in our first apartment together in St. Pete, I ran by Scott the crazy notion of spending three weeks abroad over the upcoming holiday season. I was anticipating a decent break from grad school and we could've scraped the money together for three weeks in perhaps Istanbul, Turkey, or even a hiking trip to Machu Picchu in Peru. That spring, we took jobs running a Farmer's Market booth on Saturdays for a local restaurant owner to fill our travel fund and eventually set our sights on Istanbul. By September, we'd collected hiking packs and travel guides, and we'd begun shopping for plane tickets.

However, in the meantime, Scott had started Orthotics & Prosthetics school and came home one night with the question that would change everything for us, "What if we moved to Germany after graduation?" He had become fascinated with German technology in the O&P industry and had found a company who might sponsor a one-year apprenticeship in Munich. It was pretty much a no-brainer for me. If ever we were going to try our hands at the whole 'sell everything you own and move to a foreign country' thing, here was the perfect opportunity. We put our Istanbul plans on the backburner (a bittersweet decision for me) and spent the next two years talking, planning, and saving for a move overseas that a lot of people (and sometimes even we) weren't sure would happen.

Here we are, though, nearly three months into life in Munich. Earlier this week, we began brainstorming a trip to take in celebration of our early November birthdays and our wedding (honeymooning one weekend trip at a time). We kicked around the idea of a weekend in Barcelona or a flight to Malaga, Spain, and then a ferry across the Straits of Gibralter into Morocco. But there sat the Lonely Planet: Turkey guide on our bookshelf. This time, "What if we went to Istanbul?" was followed immediately by the purchase of two roundtrip plane tickets. We'll spend 6 days/5 nights in Istanbul with perhaps a day trip up to the Black Sea or Troy. It only seems fitting that this is our first big trip and so Scott and I will celebrate our marriage and ring in our 36th and 26th birthdays with one foot in Asia and one foot in Europe. Now or never, right??