My Way 14 day Best of Europe

Welcome to the club! This is a familiar theme once we return from travel. Some people adapt the way they cook once back at home. We heat our milk for coffee versus pouring cold milk into hot coffee. We buy and use a French Press Coffee maker. We learn how to make our own pasta and home made sauce. We grow our own herbs for our salads, stews, and soups.

I buy items which can be used at home from trivets to coasters to lovely bowls and body lotions or creams. I order wine from a vineyard and then share it with family and friends back at home by having a wine tasting. I order bulbs from flower shows and use them as gifts and plant some in my own yard. My lovely tin from Laduree in Paris is filled at holidays with home made goodies.

You can do all kinds of neat projects with your photographs, too. So maybe create a little space at your home to sip that glass of wine and watch the world go by, and dream of your next travel. Happy planning!

You are right, it gets you!! I want to have the European life style! I just ate lunch at Olive Garden and looking around watching people, I sure wasn't in Italy anymore!!!!!! I think it's a good club to be in. Others will just have to put up with us!!

So, the Old Continent isn't so bad at all!
It's always so nice to read or hear the reactions of Americans on Europe. What we take for granted, comes as a big surprise* to you. And it's quite flattering to notice that you're almost so incredibly positive and enthousiastic.
* A while ago, a fellow American of yours posted on another travel forum a selfmade »A Practical Guide of our first family trip to Europe in summer 2014, tips, tricks, links and lessons learned«. It was very instructive, not only for the people that guide was meant for, but also for us, Europeans. I still remember his mentioning that »streets in Rome are not oriented in a straight north south or east west directions and change names often«. »What else did you expect?« was my first reaction. But then I realised he came from a part of the world where cities and towns are planned, which would make it disorientating for me.
Come back! You've only started scratching a tiny part of the surface. There is so much more.

Should have been: »almost always«.

Thank you for the invite! You don't need to twist my arm!! =] Now, if there was only a way to transport ourselves to Europe with out a plane!!

There is a way to get to Europe other than by plane! Cunard has scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings and some are dead cheap.

I'll bite. How much are those dead cheap Atlantic crossings?

From QM2 website, Oct. 29 crossing NY to Southampton, inside cabin, $658 Cdn per person, 2 in a cabin. Note, that is Canadian dollars.

Chriss, now that you've drunk the Kool-Ade, you're officially one of us! I love Diane's post. We also have changed our life after travelling. The way we eat, cook, drink, shop ... We actually lived in Poland for three years during martial law and rationing, and loved every minute of it. You learn how to enjoy the finer but simpler parts of life. Welcome aboard.

Thanks Jane! Yes, now I have to pull myself out of the post trip doldrums and start figuring out how to work some "Europe" into my life. One of our tour members said,after experiencing a coffee service in Paris,"My life at home is now intolerable !"

Norma - is that a repositioning cruise? Those are alway very cheap - the trick is to find a reasonably priced one-way ticket home :-)