I didn’t keep a journal for the beginning of this tour, but there's sure plenty to talk about.  This was really overall about the most memorable travel experience we've had - it's astonishing how many unique and memorable tales we came back with.  I’ll come back and elaborate on this later, but for now here’s a brief summary to give some context to what follows.

• The trip vision.  We traveled with close friends of ours from Salem, Alan and Laurie.  We were bicycling, and they traveled by other means - train, taxi, maybe bus - I don't recall now.  We kept different itineraries, and hooked up for several days in key locations: Vienna, Budapest, Graz, Venice, Florence, Nice.  Why in the world were we all embarking on such an unlikely tour, anyway?
• The stress of departure.  We had an early morning departure, but we were all exausted when we left.  Laurie was down at work until about midnight the night before with a production problem (she was a computer programmer in our office), and Rachael and I were down at the emergency room dealing Rachael's lacerated hand, resulting when our cat went into a scratching frenzy under our covers in the middle of the night.
• Meanwhile, back at the office.  What was happening back in Salem?  Francey, another programmer in our office, was orchestrating a series of weekly lunchtime meetings inspired by our trip.  Each week she and our coworkers would go over where we were expected to be that week and have a potluck with dishes that went with that location - one week schnitzel, the next week pasta.

That should be enough to get us out the door at least.  Next stop, Vienna!