Input needed.
 

I mentioned a few months ago that my wife get to take an all expenses paid trip. we are set for an 8 day cruise around the mediteranean august 12-20. spain, italy, france, 7 different ports such as Barcelona, Rome, Nice, Marseilles, etc.

we've been pretty pumped for this obviously. i'm not generally a nervous type and i'm definitely not someone that is always fearing the unexpected. i am, however, a little concerned about travelling right now. London has been hit twice, and apparently they picked up another guy from an unrelated cell today, Egypt got hit with 7 different bombs today.

we really want to go to Europe, but i've just got an uneasy feeling. i know the odds of something happening are astronomically low. but on the other side Mr Murphy tends to stack his law against me.

if we back out of the trip, i can exchange it for a week at Beaches Turks and Caicos resort, another resort in the British Virgin Islands, or the Bahamas. It will still cost us nothing. nothing except the opportunity to see some beautiful parts of Europe.

Serious questions: am i just being irrational in my concern here? would you switch trips if you were in my shoes? any thoughts and comments are welcome.

I wouldn't switch trips. I also wouldn't pack an American Flag T-shirt.

I wouldn't switch either. But I'll admit I'm sometimes a little paranoid myself, and I would probably participate in fewer excursions in the various port cities--I'd spend more time on the ship than on land.

well, see that is the thing. we cruise all the time so although we enjoy the ship, i don't need to travel to europe for that. the purpose of this trip is to see the various sights in on land.

if we want to sit back and do nothing then going to a beach resort will work - hell even my drinks are paid for if we do that. ;)

I've been wondering why you seemed so nervous - you know - missing cellerites, where can we reach one another if the cellar vanished, etc.

Well, we both know the odds are against anything happening. Zillions of people fly everywhere every day, take cruises, etc., and are none the worse for the experience. Heck, even 99.9% of our guys come back from Iraq.

But what's logic in the face of a BIG HORRIBLE CAN'T BE TALKED OUT OF IT FEAR? I'm not putting you down - my ex-husband, a rational person and a manly man in every single way, had a deep seated fear of flying long before 9/11 was ever dreamed of. It made travel difficult, to say the least. When there was no way out of it but to fly, he would drink a pint of bourbon and pour himself onto the plane and then this big 6'3" guy who fought forest fires without blinking an eye, went hunting in the darkest, wildest areas of the mountains and faced down cougars and grizzlies without a second thought, would sit quaking in his seat and grab hold of my hand during take-off and lift-down and bumpy parts in between.

What I would say is that the point of a vacation is to have a good time, right? It doesn't sound as though the European cruise would be a good time for you. And frankly, all those places in 8 days, you are not going to see anything, anyway. You'd be better off reading about them in a travel book.

My suggestion is to opt for a more soothing close to home experience. If you ever get the chance to see Europe properly - not some wham, bam, thank you ma'am fling, THEN consider working on your fear of foreign countries. For the trip you're describing, its not worth it and no shame changing plans.

How does your wife feel?

actually, i don't have any overwhelming fear of travel right now. the missing cellarites thread has nothing to do with this - that is more due to the fact that working alone as i do, the cellar really is a very large part of my social network, whether that is pathetic or not, you can decide.

i'm actually hoping Jaguar and other folks that are currently nearer that part of the world will chime in and give some hint as to the atmoshpere right now. if it is just business as usual then i'll post pictures of the med next month. if everything is clamped down so as to be noticeably tense, then i'd like to stay in our own hemisphere and drink some coronas on a beach.

I say go... Americans tend to be more paranoid than any other people in the world. I have always felt a heck of a lot safer in Europe than in the US... I've been in regular contact with a lot of my friends over there and they pretty much said its business as usual.

Go. You have more chance of being run over by a bus. If you have an obvious accent you could always cop out and sew a Canadian flag on your bags!!

nope, no accent. no problem. so it seems like everyone agrees that as long as i don't wear my I love GWB! hat, my american flag leather motor cycle jacket, my tshirt with a picture of a camel with a JDAM in its rear, and i don't carry Sean Hannity's book around, i should be ok. fair enough.

*no i do not own any of those items*

It's OK, Lookout, we're family. You can tell us! :D

Go. If your concerned, just get some stage makeup, make yourself look swarthy and act suspicious. That way the authorities will be watching over you.

You could take your assistant in case things go bad. That way it wouldn't be a total loss. ;)

I don't either, but I could probably come close ... hindsight being 20-20 I do regret having donated my Ollie North: Warrior, Patriot tee shirt during a cleaning out for a move frenzy. Somewhere, there is probably mental patient still wearing it.

Go, enjoy your trip.

And whatever you do, don't think of Leon Klinghoffer.

You'll be fine.

What's that? Why yes, I do suck. ;)

Dude, you have to go. Before we took the kids to CR one of my co-workers confided in me that she would be terrified to travel outside the US/Canada. This is a person who can handle a building full of children with autism, afraid to travel? Our lives an be so insular and Lord knows it'd be nice for some Euros to meet a patriotic type American that isn't a cartoon.