No News Is Good News

I haven't heard anything from Peace Corps yet. From the PC message boards I occasionally scan, it seems that nobody has received an invitation for anytime after September. So I just have to be patient and let things take their natural course. A good distraction though has been the planning of my family's big European vacation next month. Of course, I have been left to do 99% of the planning. As it stands, the plan is as follows. My parents and I will fly from Richmond to Paris on July 5th and then take a train immediately to Dijon to hook up with my brother who has been working there since last year. We will hang around Burgundy for four days and then rent a car and travel across the German border into Freiburg, a beautiful college city in the Black Forest region of Germany. We will spend two days there, then drive to Paris. We will spend four days there, one of which will be Bastille Day (July 14th), a French national holiday similar to our Independence Day. I have heard it is a once-in-a-lifetime sight with a huge military parade with tanks, jets, and the French president, as well as a fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower. I can't wait to see this! From there, my parents will return home, and my brother and I will continue on a flight to Madrid where we will spend another five days. I have already booked a hostel in the heart of the city, and hopefully we will make one or two daytrips to either Toledo, Segovia, or El Escorial. Finally, after years of taking Spanish in middle school, high school, and college and after years of wanting to travel here, I will finally get to go to Spain! Overall, I am super excited about this trip, not only because of the great places we'll see but also because of the chance to travel Europe with my parents, who have not done much international traveling at all. It's a great diversion from the long wait for Peace Corps. If anyone has any suggestions on things to see or do (or not see or do) in any of these destinations, please let me know. Hopefully, I have some good news from PC in the weeks ahead.