A Trip of a Lifetime

We just returned from a 10 day trip to Europe---3 days in Barcelona and then a 7 day cruise to Spain, Italy and France.  And here's the best part....both of our mothers went with us!  It was a perfect trip.  Perfect weather, perfect travel, amazing scenery, wonderful people who tolerated our pitiful attempt at their language and the company we kept couldn't have been better.

We are blessed.

At the Pablo Picasso Museum, Barcelona

There's a slideshow below [WARNING:  It's a bit long.  And yes, I recognize that this is like subjecting your dinner guests to slideshows in the living room.  BUT you don't HAVE to click on it.  There.  You've been warned.  Oh!  Oh, oh, oh!  Here's your second warning....IF you choose to click on it, I'll know.  AND you'll be obligated to watch EVERY slide show in the our living room post dinner after EVERY vacation.  MUWAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!  ok, just kidding.  I won't know.  

Really.  I won't. ]

Locations included Barcelona, Spain; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Nice and Eze, France; Santa Margherita, Camiglio and Portofino, Italy; Alghero, Italy; Mallorca, Spain; and Valencia, Spain.

A few reflections from the journey.....

-4 countries in 10 days, pretty impressive.  And amazing.  Perfect weather and beautiful, stunning scenery

-We walked.  A Lot.  I loved it.  I always think to myself, I would love to live somewhere where I could walk or ride my bike to work, have public transit, great small markets and restaurants.  But then.....then I realize I'm really a country girl at heart.  The city is great, but I really like to only visit.


-We were prepared and conquered jet lag on the front end of the trip.  But dear Lord, why didn't someone warn me upon the return!!!  A four day recovery is brutal.

-Lord, forgive me for all of the times I wasn't patient with a non-native english speaker.  I'd like to think there haven't been that many, but probably more than I care to admit. For every person who tells a visitor to the States to "learn english", shame, shame, shame on you.  How quickly we forget that our great grandparents and their parents were once visitors to the States too.  And Lord, thank you for putting patient, kind and willing to not laugh at my broken non-agreeing noun-verb Spanish in my path over the last ten days.

-Europeans do food better.  Period.  They take their time.  They enjoy it.  They don't preserve or use artificial ingredients to make it convenient.  Food and eating is part of the art and culture.  We can learn a lot from them.

-Europeans do churches better.  We saw a lot of cathedrals and we were in a lot of holy places. [not one of which included a coffee bar in the narthex----yes, that's a glimpse into my snarkiness]

-Very few adults get to travel parts of the world with their parents.  We did it with two and have memories to last a lifetime.  Indeed we are blessed.

Thanks for a great trip Mama C and J!