Hockey Night in South Bend

My boys and I just returned from our fourth annual road trip to the University of Notre Dame for a Fighting Irish hockey game. It is one of our traditions that I give them tickets for Christmas -- and something we really look forward to doing together. We usually start the night off with amazing pizza at Barnaby's before heading over to Joyce Center for the game, and this year was no different. Then this year's game against Canisius College was quite the high-scoring event with a 10-2 win for the Irish. Woot!

And now check out the new hockey stadium going up on campus. Looks to be quite an amazing building in the works. We already are looking forward to seeing the inside of that massive architectural gem next season!

Have Backpack, Will Travel: Gearing Up for Dublin

I have started the countdown. Ten weeks from today I will be in Dublin! Once I looked at my pocket calendar and counted the weeks and realized that the trip is only ten weeks away, the anticipation really kicked in. Then once I opened the backpack that my sons bought me for Christmas, I even further realized I was going places! This is no longer a trip far off into the future and buried a bit in the back of my mind as getting through the holidays monopolized the forefront. When I booked my flight a couple of months ago, March 2011 seemed so far away. Suddenly the trip feels right in front of me, and, whoa, baby, am I excited!

This trip to Dublin is my test trip in a way. It's my easy one-stop beginner trip at stuffing a week's worth of clothes into a backpack and hoofing it alone. It's the confidence builder that I am hoping will lead to backpacking from one magical stop to another all across Europe at a later time.

And I think the biggest challenge of all will be determining what to put in the backpack. For the first time ever, I will be taking a trip without the usual six or seven pairs of shoes. Is that even possible? Sure, I could give in and take a larger wheeled suitcase overfilled with a new fresh outfit every single day with perfectly matched shoes (heels, of course), but then what's the point? I want to learn how to keep it simple, to learn how to travel without a big hulking suitcase, to be able to grab my bag from the overhead compartment and bolt. I just think there must be something so liberating about living out of a backpack.

Sure, maybe I am romanticizing a bit. But I am convinced that less really is more.

Current Literary Wish List

As I wandered around Barnes and Noble last night, I found myself so obsessively compulsively writing down titles of books that I want to read in the near future. You can see from my wish list that I currently am in travel lit mode. Here, then, are my top ten + one (just for the hell of it) in no particular order of priority or importance:

1. Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
2. Once a Runner by John Parker
3. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. 1000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz
5. Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson (or anything by Bill Bryson)
6. Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman
7. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
8. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
9. Explorers Guide: Cape Cod by Kim Grant (true, it's a travel guide)
10. Falling Man by Don DeLillo
Plus one... 11. Lonely Planet Dublin (yep, another travel guide)

If you have read any of these, or share the same desire to read any of them, do tell.

BTW, I loved The Lost Girls.