Bonjour, Caio, Hello… did I miss anything?
This trip was nothing short of absolutely amazing and completely exhausting all in a beautiful way.
Time- time is such a previous thing and memories are all that we have of time that has passed. Time can feel long when you are sitting on a 13 hour travel trip home- but sitting on the coast of Monterosso in Cinque Terra, Italy- time seems to slip away as quickly as the waves. This trip was a large family trip that was planned back in 2020. Planned, saved and booked for a couple year prior to the expected departure, with a party of 27 people. Brothers, sisters, cousins, parents, grandparents and family friends… we were all set to embark on this journey together in June 2020. I will save you the story of the outcome, as I know you can fill in the blanks. We have since rebooked this trip 4 times and with the sell of the cheer gym we were with for 20+ years, my best friend Wendy and I finally got the trip rebooked for the 4th and final time and took our “small party of 9” to France, Italy, Greece and Turkey. With planes, trains, boats and automobiles, we lugged 27 pieces of luggage/bags through 4 countries, 4 flights, 3 train rides, 6 taxi rides and the 2 mile cobble stone walk we did from the train station to the cruise port in 98 degree weather. Needless to say, as we stained almost every article of clothing with our endless pasta dishes and Aperol Spritz, we contemplated either throwing away our items after use or finding DHL and shipping it home! Yet- here we are 2 hours into our 13 hour flight home and we have managed to keep all 16 checked bags and 10 carry ons and one stroller all intact and checked for our return flight home.
Home- it probably the destination I am the most excited for right now. We were counting down the days for this trip and even with all of the excitment and preparation there was a level of “we have no idea what we are doing” mixed with “we are up for the challenge”. Home is the contrary. We know what home is- a mixture of our own comforts and a list of work to be completed. Oh but boy does that sound so good. Sometimes it takes removing you from the comfort of your own pillow, clean bathrooms, laundry and a car- throwing you into an amazing adventure and then saying “do you want to stay on your roller bagging through Europe track or go back to what you know?”
Now that you know how much I miss my bed pillow and my gain detergent- let’s jump back into the trip of a lifetime. It really was surreal. For the amount of times we have planned the trip, talked about what it would be like and watched movies about the destinations we were headed to- to stand in the Mediterranean sea, take a Sein river cruise by the Effie Tower, walk the cobble stone roads of Rome and eat a greek salad in Santorini over looking the ocean and the famous white and blue buildings- it was like an out of body experience. How are we here right now? This looks like the scene from a movie! It was really some of the most breathtaking, unreal moments in my life. We fully dived into our bonjour, caio, grazie, opa and an occasional gracias- as we sometime forgot what country we were in! Like how are we in a place that has extensive history with stories in the Bible? Few words to describe the emotions but I will leave you with the work unforgettable.
In addition to the most amazing things that will forever live in my mind- there is definitely a couple of lists things that will also live in my mind. We will call these the “lessons of our euro vacation!”
What I Would Do Differently & What I Would Do Again
Each list is enough for its only post so I will leave you with this- TAKE the journey SPEND the time and MAKE the memories. Nothing we did was perfect- honestly we have more “holy cow” moments then we can count but I wouldn’t change it for the world. We have so much to be thankful for!
