The Great Circular European Railway Challenge

It's 7.20pm on a Friday night. I've had a couple of beers after work, and a burrito with habanero sauce so hot I thought I might die. Andy Murray is being hard to support on the TV and the weather is lovely and sunny and hot. I'm tempted to grab a couple of Guinness down the Vic.

But I have stuff to do. I need to pack. Because tomorrow I go on holiday. I have to get up at about 5am, leave the house to get the 6.02am train, and meet some cohorts at 7am, outside the John Betjeman Arms in St Pancras. This is a pub which is opening especially early for us (we've paid them) -- we require breakfast, champagne, bloody marys, Guinness, etc, before getting a train, y'see. Eurostar. Train no.1 of... y'know, I don't know how many trains. Let's just say no.1 of several. Come tomorrow evening we'll have seen Brussels and Amsterdam on our way to Copenhagen. 24 hours later and we'll be getting to Oslo. Another 24 hours later and we'll be on a bus to Narvik, deep -140 miles - inside the Arctic Circle, in the land of the midnight sun, wherein I hope to get a photo of broad daylight at 3am or so.

And that's just for starters.

I'm not gonna write an in-depth preview. That's all been done by people much better qualified than I: by our glorious leader, who has meticulously detailed every last bit of planning over the last couple of years at the main GCERC website, and by our resident bloke-what-does-words-for-a-living Lloyd. And to top it off, Disoriented Dave has been putting a debatably human face on the whole thing by interviewing each of us who've decided that this whole thing is a good idea. And then there's our facebook fan page. But I couldn't let it go completely unsaid in my own words, and I've been pondering bringing out the ol' blog meself for a trip of this magnitude (I seem to write most, and best, about travelling anyway, right?). At the very least you can see exactly where I am - where we are - by looking at that map over on the right. It should update pretty often, hopefully.

Here, look, a poster. See where we're going? 23 countries in 18 days. Fucking madness, I tells ya. MADNESS.

Anyway. About time I packed, I think.