Rail-gate

gate handle, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

In what must be the thousandth such whiney blog post on the topic, let me say, what the fuck, Eurail, you don't include fucking Britain?

Yes, so as I have been very tardy in announcing — sorry, my jobs give me computer fatigue — Amanda and I are going to take advantage of some free lodging opportunities and spend two weeks splitting time between visiting Lynnette, Seemay, and the Continent. We leave from Houston on March May 26. It's the first international travel for both me and Amanda, and we're pretty pumped -- minus the gouging we're about to take on these Eurail shenanigans. Fuckin' limey bastards.

The comments are wide open for your suggestions, especially regarding how to get around. See the email I wrote to my more worldly friends below:

I'm trying to buy the right Eurail pass for us, and it seems like Britain is NOT included in a Eurail pass? What kind of horseshit is that? That totally screws up all my plans.

Here's the situation, and now I'm lost as to what the best pass is:
1. We fly into London.
2. We need to get on the next train to Edinburgh.
3. We'll hang out in Edinburgh for a bit.
4. A few days later we'll need to take a train from Edinburgh to either Spain or France (probably Barcelona, Madrid, or Lyon; maybe Paris).
5. From there, we'll be using Lyon as a staging area to go elsewhere in Europe. Where? We hadn't decided. We were thinking Italy, for sure (Catherine, I would LOVE to hear your recommendations on a couple must-hit places for either day trips or maybe one-night stays). Possibly Switzerland. Maybe Germany. Sweden is also an option. Ya gotta go to Amsterdam, dude. Not to mention maybe a couple other cities in France, I guess. I had just assumed we'd get the Eurail pass and wing it.
6. Come the end of our trip, we'll have to get from France back to London

Basically, I guess I'm wondering: Should we get the Eurail pass and just buy individual tickets to get around the UK? Should we buy one-way tickets from destination to destination? Or should we, say, buy a round trip ticket from London to Edinburgh, and then another round trip from London to Paris or Lyon (both of these would have a significant window between departure and return dates)? Where's the best place to buy these kinds of tickets? Online or at the terminal?

Or, to look at it another way, we have 16 days of travel, not counting the days when we arrive in London and then leave.

We're thinking of splitting it up thusly:
3 days in Edinburgh
3 in Madrid and Barcelona
1 in Paris
2 in London
2 in Italy
1 in Switzerland
1 in Sweden
1 in Germany (maybe)
2-3 in Lyon (depending on if we go to Germany; Amanda's not too psyched about a beer country)

Should we go ahead and buy our Eurail passes now and worry about England later? Or is this itinerary way too ambitious, and maybe we should think about cutting down our destination countries to England, France, and two or three other countries (which would qualify us for one of those Eurail Select Pass thingies). Or ... if we take a train from Edinburgh to somewhere in Ireland, does that all of the sudden put us on Eurail lines, which we could then take worry-free to France or Spain?

Now's a good time to start dropping me photo and/or gift requests.

Also, I've been thinking of holding a limited edition print sale (which I know is really ridiculous for digital prints) to help finance some badly needed maintenance and upgrades to my camera in preparation for the trip. Is this a good idea or entirely too self-serving?