A decade of this and that.....

Russell Square, London.  2007. "The only promise I'll make ya is you'll arrive in one country and leave from another, the only condition is there's no questions asked...." "I'm in...." Who'd have thought that by uttering those two simple words inadvertently I'd be committing to a journey that would take me and my fellow JT comrades across the length and breath of Europe.  Prior to that journey the only Stein I knew played up top for Chelsea not beer, I thought hostels were exclusively for chopsy Aussies with dreadlocks not cranky Northern Irish men, blogs were for IT guru's not Internet Cafe amateurs, the word Split meant ice creams not countries and the phrase walking tour sounded like torture... ok not everything's changed.So here we are ten years on.... 30+ stops on the map and the world's a very different place to when we started out on this thing and as a group we're all in different places but as far as JT is concerned ultimately everything's the same.  I sit in a familiar UK airport aware that I'm about to embark to Europe for 3 nights but no idea where it will take me.... where's left?!  As has become the tradition of late I also have a mysterious unopened package in my bag which is making me very nervous.  That said truth be told it feels like a bit of a celebration this time out - to make a decade worth of annual travels stick feels like an achievement worth celebrating. So open my first envelope at Birmingham check in...  We're off to Berlin in the heart of the motherland and the country that holds the most dots on that map of ours.  A fitting destination for celebration I'd say.... that said it's never that simple so who knows where we'll end up, who we'll meet, who's even on the tour and what's in that bloody package! So here's to ten years of being hungover in bunkbeds, to budget airlines, to sleeper trains, to Stevies tantrums, to every random stranger we've met, to every sight we've seen, to Jimbos foot jam, to climbing bastard Bulgarian mountains, to anything and everything we've seen and done on along the way.... Here's to Jimbotours - see you on the other side! PROST!!!!! Shauny G.