A Sisterchicks Adventure is in the Making!!!

My sister, Julie, is not only my sister. She's my Sisterchick. Julie loves to travel as much as I do but she hasn't had the opportunity to go much outside the US.

On her 50th birthday I was in San Diego near where she lives and we spent the day hitting a few fun spots. While having tea at the Hotel Del Coronado I made my sister a simple promise. I promised I'd take her with me on one of my travel adventures.

More than half a decade has passed since that San Diego birthday and I haven't made good on that promise. Yet. But I hope to in 2010. I have an opportunity to speak at a conference in England in the fall and I have enough frequent flyer miles for two tickets to Europe. So I called Julie and asked if she wanted to come along.

Her response was, "yeeeeeeeeee -- yes!" Or something like that. It was hard to decipher exactly what she was saying inside all the squealing. Then she cried. She said just the night before she'd been watching The Amazing Race and praying, "God when will it be my turn? It's been in my heart so long to go see other places in the world."

I told her I almost called her at 10pm the night before. That's when my husband and I were talking about me inviting her and when he agreed it was a good idea I wanted to pick up the phone. But then I thought she might already be in bed since she had to work the next day. If I had called at 10:00, she said it would have been right when she was sighing and praying. I wished I'd called then! But I called the next morning at 8:30. She said she kept crying all morning every time she thought of how swiftly God answered her prayer.

So now we have some planning to do. First, since she's not been to Europe or Great Britain before, I asked what she really, really wanted to see most of all.

"A castle," she said.

Okay. I happen to know where we can find a castle or two in Great Britain. "Anything else?"

"What do you think of Switzerland?"

"I love Switzerland. I was just in Zurich a few weeks ago on my way back from Africa. Lake Luzern is only an hour's train ride from Zurich and I have a favorite place to eat there."

As I heard myself spouting the glories of the Alps I realized I needed to hush up. If this is going to be my sisters' adventure it needs to happen without an ongoing subtext of all my previous experiences. Her story could so easily be avalanched under all my boastful tales. And let's face it. The poor woman has spend her entire life avalanched by my non-stop stories. Ever since I was old enough to kick her mattress on the top bunk bed and make her pay attention, she has had to listen to my stories.

It's time for my sister to make her own story.

So, since I am rather compulsive about always needing to "share" a good tale, I'm thinking I'll do my sharing here. This will be a good place for me to tell the story behind the story of Julie's At-Long-Last-Adventure.

This week she promised to call so we could start discussing final dates and options. England, Switzerland. England, Switzerland. Which do you think she should go for?

Joy!
Robin