much-to-celebrate-monday.

Currently mourning the loss of my Florida trip at a Starbucks in University Village, I contemplated not celebrating tonight. I'm having a pity party, migraine and all, curled up on the couch closest to the window... missing my roommates, my sister and my niecey... neglecting my research project and going through all 10,788 pictures in my iPhoto instead... 

wishing I was back in Apartment 2708 or at GameDay or eating a gourmet Gallos meal or graduating college or celebrating Halloween or running a marathon or nannying baby Kate or living in LA or cuddling with Reese or playing scrabble with Grams, anywhere but here really... 

but then I stumbled upon my album titled "Eurotrip" and instantly! My heart smiled, my tastebuds salivated at the thought of gelato and my stomach grew three sizes to compensate for all the pesto lasagne I will consume. 

Carly + I studied abroad five summers ago and before we even boarded the plane home, we were already planning our next trip to Europe where we would return to all our favourite places in Italy and backpack through Spain, Greece, Austria, Prague, the French Riviera, just to name a few cities on our european bucket list. 

We didn't anticipate that this many years would fly by before our european stars would align and we would get to return to our most favourite place in the world {Firenze, that's you mi amore!}... and right now, this fleeting thought is still in the "dreaming" phase... but if there is one thing I am certain about Carly + I + world traveling it is that we make it happen. 

We have a deadline... before we turn 27. I graduate next spring and there would be no sweeter reward for surviving grad school, working and living too far from home {I'm still at my pity party, people.} than take some time off before I start my big girl job {Read: Nurse Practitioner!} than galavant Europe with my backpack and my best friend six months prior to my twenty-seventh birthday. 

Carly's show just so happens to go on hiatus soon after I graduate from UW for roughly a month and when a discussion over the weekend brought this perfect EUROPEAN STAR ALIGNMENT into sight, we basically sharpie'd it in to our 2013 planners and called it a day, a much-to-look-forward-to-day. 

I'm sure I will have gotten over myself by next Monday and I can promise an over-the-top exciting, overly optimistic celebration! Happy Monday, friends! =)