And yes, what a great thing just to dream — dreaming itself is a wonderful, worthwhile experience! I think we give our kids a gift when we encourage them to dream and we take something away when we just say no. And look what happens when you dream: sometimes dreams turn into reality.

This is what I keep telling myself about living at the beach. Someday. Until then, I dream.

The Background Story:

I honestly don’t know if I really believed this trip was going to happen when I started planning it. I think I was torn between the part of me which wanted it so badly and the rational part of me which kept saying that it was never going to be anything more than a dream. At first, both Mer and Kat were onboard with my plans. They gave me carte blanche to beginning the arduous task of planning. However, after Kat moved away for the school year, we slowly grew apart, and Mer and I realised that we were going to have to forge ahead without her. We did this with more than just a little sadness, but we did not want to tie her down in her new school.

So then there were two. Mer never really asked me about the trip nor spoke about it often. I think in those early days she was merely humouring me, going along with the illusion that we were going just so that I could have my hope. And I continued, checking flights every few days, creating a route around Europe, trying to remember everyone I know over there that we could stay with to save money. The trip has been through many revisions, it once included cities such as Dublin, Berlin, Nice and Barcelona. But for reasons such as money, time constraints, and 27 hour train rides, these beautiful locations were cut from our final itinerary.

And as time went by, it started becoming more real for me; however, I quickly checked myself. I did not want to set myself up for a huge crash when it didn’t happen. So I started to look at my obsessive planning as simply a way to pass the time when I was bored. Not as real planning for a trans-Atlantic adventure with my best friend.

Then January happened. . .

And even if it hadn’t, what a wonderful year she and her two dear friends would have gotten out of it, dreaming together.

You can type “Unschooling Europe” into the Snook search box and get all their travel posts or just click here and then go to the earliest post first to read about it chronologically.

It’s on the other side of town (the old, poor side) so we’d never seen it. So stepping onto the shabby little concrete-block site on a very hot summer day when school wasn’t even in session, we were amazed and delighted to find waterfalls and features around every corner, all “on.” You could see and hear burbling water over rocks wherever you walked or sat, with country flowers tucked here and there but nothing fussy or manicured. In such an otherwise scruffy and schoolish setting, it was the oddest sense of peace and calm coupled with happy surprise and energy (the water constantly moving, as if alive and playing.)

As an old school hand I’ve been on a lot of campuses at every level from nursery school through grad school. FSU’s law school has a lovely “green” with little white cottages connected by an Old South-vernacular raised wooden walkway. Many are beautiful and expensive, some modern, some historic. But I’ve never seen this particular approach and it was just wonderful!