Last Summer we took a two-week road trip to Colorado. Afterwards, we talked about going to Europe the following year - specifically Croatia with a side trip to Berlin to visit my husband's mom. The last time we visited Berlin was Christmas of 2009 when Sagey was still a baby of 6 months. We stayed there for 5 cold weeks (and I mean really frozen cold with snow) at an apartment twice the size of the one we're in now (more on that later).

Due to most of my family in Croatia not being able to make it to Brac this Summer, we decided to go to Berlin for a month. We kept checking the prices often but only saw super overpriced tickets. By overpriced, I mean over $2000. With five tickets to purchase, that was not sitting well with us. At one point we decided not to go anywhere. At that point, I got into the "not going mode" which meant I wasn't planning on making any unnecessary purchases (such as buying clothes for myself or any other travel specific purchases). So, when my husband luckily found tickets at half the price, we decided to go for it.

Even though I had three weeks to prepare, I did what I've always done...procrastinated. Even though I vowed not to be packing when the taxi arrived (as last time), I did...even worse than last time. We made the taxi man wait 45 minutes while we threw last minute items into bags and checked to see what else we might need. Obviously this is NOT the way to pack.