When I wrote the Building A Computer Is Normally Easy But Not Always post, I mentioned a big vacation that I’d describe in a future post. Time to share stories about the vacation.

It all came about thanks to a client who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. No, it wasn’t anything shady. Then I had to figure out where I wanted to go and do. Several destinations were considered and the decision was made to go on a Mediterranean Cruise. A small map of the stops is here with a larger version at the top of the post.

I was excited because I’d get to visit four countries new to me as well as a few of my favorite destinations. All of the destinations were new to my girlfriend and she got to add six new countries to her list. All in all, I was in ten countries in just under 20 days.

I learned that having the travel agent remove a space from your name causes all kinds of problems with flying internationally. Why? Because the name on the ticket (missing a space) didn’t match my passport. This prevented me from being able to check in online and I had to wait until I got to the airport. I tried and tried to get them to fix the error and nobody would do it. Oh well, I wasn’t going to let that ruin my trip.

Each of the destinations was awesome and we did our best to check out as much as we could in the time we had. There were historic sights, new foods, new beverages and a lot of fun along the way. Maybe one of these days I’ll write a blog on each of the stops along the way. It is certainly too much to try and include in this post. I did want to share the biggest highlight of the trip.

Katie and I had been dating for over a year and we’d met two years earlier. Living in different countries has been a challenge and one that we planned to solve in short order. So on our next to last night we got engaged at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Below is a photo we took soon afterwards.