Preparation and a vague itinerary

Hello! I see you have found your way to my brand new blog. A place where all of my adventures will be recorded... or at least the ones I can be bothered writing about. The theory is that this way I will only have to tell the stories once and so am more likely to communicate reasonably frequently. Also, if I relied on mass emails I would probably forget someone who cared and include someone who didn't. This way you can check as often as you want without being pestered by me when you have more interesting things on your mind.
In case anyone hasn't already heard, the reason this mass communication device is required is because in 5 days I am going to Europe. It's a little hard to believe that it is finally time to go. I have been planning this for so long that I sort of felt like it was only ever going to be a plan and not an actual event. But now that I have started crossing things off of my many lists of things to do before I go it is beginning to feel real.
As for my plans, they are not so plan-like. Mostly just deadlines to be certain places but all the in between stuff I will just make up as I go. Catie will be joining me for the first part and she is much more of a planner than I am so there are some detailed plans right up until the day she leaves and then there's almost no planning at all. So if you want to know what my itinerary is looking like read on, but keep in mind that it is VERY flexible. If you don't care where I'm going to be then what are you doing reading this anyway?
12 Sept 2011: Fly from Christchurch to Singapore to Frankfurt to Istanbul. Arriving Tuesday the 13th.
12 - 27 Sept 2011: travel around Turkey
27 sept 2011: Fly from Istanbul to Casablanca
27 Sept - 1 Oct: Morocco
1 Oct: Ferry from Tangier to Spain
1 - 17 Oct: Spain and Portugal
17 Oct: Catie flies away to London, Reykjavik and Toronto, I move on to Southern France.
17 Oct - Christmas: South France, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic
Christmas in Prague
After Christmas - 22 Feb 2012: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxenbourg, France, Britain and Ireland
22 Feb 2012: Fly from London to Toronto (I arrive at 4.30 in the afternoon if anyone wants to put that afternoon aside to pick me up)
22 Feb - 10 April: Canada and USA
10 April: Fly from San Francisco to New Zealand.
Home on the 12th of April 2012.
So there you go. Now you have all of the information in a place you can't lose it.
And that should suffice for now. I don't really have any adventures to tell you about yet. Unless you care about the difficulties of buying togs and sun hats in winter or how to decide how many pairs of shoes are necessary, which you probably don't. And even if you do, I don't care enough to take the time to tell you about it. So instead I will not waste any more time that I should use for packing. Next time you hear from me I will be somewhere far more exciting than my own kitchen.

NB: If you were wondering about the title I will give you a clue: The Iliad is the story of Ilium and the Aeneid is the story of Aeneas. Though, that might not be so much a clue as the entire answer.