I am all packed and ready to go. Ready to go to sleep like I should be? No. I’m too excited to embark on this journey!

I will be headed to Boston tomorrow to overnight with my good friends Dillard and Emma, and then Sunday morning it’s off to Frankfurt, where I’ll take a train to Bamberg and be picked up by my mother and father-in-law who have graciously offered their spare car for me to use for the next several months for my adventure. I’ll be in Germany for a week and hope to visit with two good friends while I’m there, Moritz and Juergen, and then it’s off to Ljubljana, Slovenia to begin the Eastern European extravaganza.

I will be joined for my first week by my lovely wife, Anna-Maria, and for the second week by two of my good friends and former co-workers, Sam and Harry. After that I’m on my own until mid-August when my sister-in-law Vickie will join me for a week in Greece for her birthday.

I plan on visiting Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania during July when I’m on my own. My goal is to do some street busking every day in these countries as well as booking some bar and cafe gigs, and sell as many of my “Sittin’ Out By The Fire” CDs as possible!

So that’s basically it as far as set plans go. There are many other countries I plan to visit on this trip, but that’s as far as the planning has gone thus far.

You may want to know why I’m doing this? The short version is this – I was stationed in Germany in the army and fell in love with Europe and also one of its ladies. Since then I have been back in the USA working to get my wife through medical school and residency. Last year on vacation to the Balkans, Anna Maria offered me that if I could grin and bear it in the cubicle for another year until she finished residency, she would be all for me quiting my job and doing a big solo trip back to Eastern Europe to meet people, see places, and play music while she worked on studying for her medical boards and adjusted to life as an attending physician.

At first I thought it sounded like a crazy idea, but the more I thought about it the more real the possibility seemed. So for the last 13 months, this is all I have thought about! Subsequently, I made an album of my original music that I intend to try to spread to different cultures and see where that takes me. I have no false illusions of becoming the next big star in Europe, but I think what I do will seem very unique to some of the people there and if I can sell the 150 CDs that I’m taking with me, I’ll consider it a successful music tour!

Ok, that’s all I have for now – next update will be from the other side of the pond. If you are reading this, thanks for your support and interest! I’ll update this approximately weekly and I hope to have some really interesting people to introduce you to along the way!