Tentative, cautious spontaneity

My brain has not been in Iowa for the past few days. It's busy ambling down cobblestone streets, sipping blonde ale and savoring the best damn croissant a brain has ever had.

You see, dear blog, we are plotting another vacation.

After last year's horrendous bout of me being too persuasive and impulsive for my own good, it is understandable that we are cautious creatures when it comes to cementing our plans. The last thing we need is to frittle away another few hundred dollars and rattle our nerves when they are so tender from months spent underground hammering things. 

We hatched a plan last Thursday, amid two liters of homebrew, to visit Paris and Belgium - of course for more beer. We've been researching, pondering, mulling it all over. I've been to Brussels before and (unlike our ill-fated escape to Panama) can already feel the good vibes of the countryside calling our names. I've never been to Paris because frankly, it sounded a little too artsy-fartsy and high-minded for me. Maybe I'm getting snobbish in my old age or maybe I was always wrong, but now I'm 100% totally stoked to France this shiz up.

All signs point to yes.

We bought some CDs to help us parlez the vou and a guidebook for Belgium, but we're holding off on making actual commitments until we're quite, quite, quite positive on this (but holy heck, you guys. I have my eye on the most beautiful and perfect itinerary of all time - no flights before 9:00 a.m., no 12-hour layovers, arrivals at perfectly normal times of the day and best of all - it's out of our very own DSM and somehow does not cost arms, legs, first borns!). It seems not going to Panama changed how we travel just as much as going might have. 

So, there you have it - proof positive that I am quite old and hardly any fun anymore. But, I promise that once we actually buy the plane tickets and get there, I will do my best to dig deep and find adventure.

So, any tips for seeing Paris or Belgian breweries in ways that don't make me feel like a fuddy duddy? (First tip to self, don't ever say fuddy duddy again. Sick.)