#41 - Get my Passport

I've always been one who longed to travel the world.  From the small confines of a small rural village in Michigan, I couldn't wait to get to Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, and Cairo.  This stemmed mainly from a love of history and a chance to experience something new and different.  When I graduated and began my NMU career, this longing transferred to the south of France when I first read Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence."  It was then I dreamed of truffle hunting with a pig and eating escargot.  Never in all my thinking did I anticipate that I would learn to drink and love wine.  And that all these places, steeped in history, that I have been dying to see, are long rooted in winemaking traditions that I would kill to taste.  Nor did I think until moving to Boston that I would learn to appreciate cheese.  And so the culinary  journey can begin as soon as I am done with grad school in May.  By writing it down in cyberspace, I'm solidifying what I have been brainstorming for the last year and the reason why I FINALLY got a passport.  Beginning on August 1, 2012, I will embark on a 6-month journey to Europe, where I will eat and drink to my heart's delight.  From the chalky soils of the Loire and Champange to the banks of Bordeaux, to the Ports of Spain, Parma, and Prague (ahhh - I'm salvating already).

First things first of course:  a trek across Canada on my way home to Michigan for my birthday!