Moving Forward (Completed)

Chapter Fifty Six

Katherine scanned her packing list for the umpteenth time, mentally checking off each item while picturing it's location in her bag. Packing for a three week long trip had been harder than she'd imagined, especially when they'd decided packing lighter would be better since the longest they'd be staying in one country was four nights.

"You do realize you can't actually repack your suitcase at this point." Rafael smirked when he noticed what she was looking at.

Katherine folded her list and slipped it back in her backpack. "I'm just making sure there isn't anything we forgot that we'll need to pick up when we land."

Rafael quietly chuckled and returned his attention to his book. MJ had been engrossed in her own book since the plane had taken off, if she heard the little exchange she hadn't acknowledged it. Katherine pulled out her headphones and flipped through the movie options she downloaded to her laptop. She had a book in her backpack, but wasn't in the mood to read that early in the flight.

They weren't technically backpacking across Europe, the trip was very structured; hard to get tickets purchased in advance, hotels and travel arrangements made through the travel agent Rafael had used years prior. Katherine associated backpacking with catching a train on a whim and slumming it in youth hostels, not meticulously planned itineraries and five star hotel rooms. Technically only the hotel in Paris and Rome were rated five star, but the others were still far nicer than a hostel.

They would be taking both trains and planes between countries, and had packed accordingly. This limited the number of books they could justify carrying. Katherine and Rafael had settled on two each, but the decision on which two books MJ would bring had Katherine questioning whether the poor girl might have a mental breakdown. The pile would get larger, then smaller, then disappear all together as she tried to read as much as possible to make up for the reading she wouldn't get to do while they were gone. The problem with this logic was that she could always find a new book she wanted to read.

Katherine had ended up expressing her concerns to Amanda who offered up a Kindle she never used. "Consider it an early birthday present to MJ," Amanda shrugged while handing the device over along with its charger. It had been a lifesaver. Katherine added the Kindle unlimited subscription to her Amazon account and logged MJ in on the Kindle allowing the girl to spend her evenings downloading more books than she could possible read during their trip.

They landed in Dublin at ten am local time, the plan being to check into the hotel and then keep themselves busy to stave off sleep until a reasonable hour. The hotel was in the heart of city centre which meant they could walk to various attractions in their efforts to stay awake. The room itself had a king and twin size bed, perfect to accommodate the small family, and they quickly settled in for the next two nights.

"I'm starving." MJ stated as she plopped down on the smaller of the two beds.

Katherine shuffled through a few brochures on dining options the hotel had placed on the built in desk. "Me too."

Rafael took one of the ones Katherine hadn't picked up and tossed it to MJ, taking the third for himself, figuring one of them would find something they could all agree on.

MJ furrowed her brow as she read through the description of one of the restaurants. "What's Modern European?"

Both Katherine and Rafael shrugged. "Are there pictures of the food?"

"Yes."

Rafael chuckled, "and what does it look like?"

"Expensive." MJ grumbled, passing the brochure to him.