Travel Itinerary - take 2

I had a plan. Well, at least I thought I had a plan...  I was going to go to Ireland and see my family (cousins, and aunts, and uncles, Oh My!) and then fly to Lisbon, Portugal and head to the Algarves for a break before I went north to Porto and into Spain. 

So what changed? Well, I decided to go on a tour of Morocco (10,000 minutes of Morocco to be precise). This tour happens right during the time I was planning on being in the north of Spain and heading east to the Basque region. I had to make another decision and reverse my route. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to Morocco even though I am traveling alone. I've wanted to go to Morocco for years but I didn't know when or how. Well, the "when" is now, and the "how" became clear with a simple web search on Morocco. I figured that traveling with a tour would ensure that my petite femme self would be safe. 

My current itinerary looks something like this:

• August 5: depart Vancouver with C to drive to my birthmother's farm in Alberta
• August 8 - 12: enjoy life on the farm for a few days and play with my four year old nephew
• August 13: fly from Calgary to London, England
• August 14 - 17: spend time in London with my other pen-pal Gavin. Go to the Victoria & Albert Museum, perhaps squeeze in some yarn shopping
• August 17: fly to Cork, Ireland and spend the next two weeks with family
• August 30 (pending flight): fly from Dublin to Oporto, Portugal.
• August 30 - sometime at the end of September (how's that for fluid plans?!) travel around Portugal to my heart's content. Especially get some R&R in while hanging out in the Algarves:

Oh hi, beautiful place!

• October ? - 10: travel into SW Spain, including Seville.
• October 11: fly from Malaga, Spain to Casablanca (italicized because wow, I'm going to this famous place! Perhaps I'll dress a bit like Ingrid Bergman....)
• October 12-20: In Morocco (see tour link above for actual details). I definitely want to go to a hammam and get the heck scrubbed out of my skin with sea salt etc.
• October 20: Fly back to Malaga and continue towards Grenada, Spain
• October ? - November 8: travel up the eastern coast of Spain and stop in a Valencia, Barcelona, and to the Bay of Roses to see where Salvador Dali worked on his surrealist masterpieces (can you feel my excitement?)
• November 9: Fly back to Canada from Madrid.

I think its a pretty awesome itinerary with lots of flexibility (with the exception of the Moroccan adventure that is already booked, of course). Getting excited!