It was a trip that changed our lives.
We had been talking about going to France and Italy for about fifteen years. You know, those years when you are young and struggling to pay the bills, working a second or third job, changing the diapers or spending every Saturday at a soccer game, pizza party, or fixing up the house.
It gave us a goal, something to dream about.
We just thought ahead. In 2009 our daughter should be out of the University, our son should be out of high school, and it should be our twenty-fifth anniversary.
Check, check, check.
So we just bit the bullet and did it.
The economy wasn’t great, house prices crashed, I had no raise for a couple years (and would continue without one for five more years…) BUT this had been our dream, and I did have steady employment and picked up a couple other jobs as well.
We just stockpiled the money that year.
Every time we cut our living expenses a little, we did it with a shrug and said, “Soon we will be drinking wine in Europe…”
We learned a lot that first trip.
We bought and read a Rick Steves’ France guide, and took a lot of his advice. We practiced and picked up a vocabulary of over a hundred fifty words in French.
We learned that the flight over is the biggest expense, so it made sense to stay as long as possible to dilute the cost. A thousand dollar ticket for two weeks is $71 a day, but for a month it drops to $33 a day. Did you know that, if you stop for a Starbuck’s coffee every day on your way to work, just one coffee a day, that is the price of one ticket over to Europe? And that once you are in Europe you can drink really great coffee?
We learned that France and Italy was just too much to do in one trip, so we had to choose one country to see really well, rather than just jumping all around like crazy people. This was supposed to be relaxing and fun.
We learned that sometimes the best meal is a simple picnic; baguette sandwiches in the park, a bottle of red wine, and the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. And the more money you can save in little ways, the longer you can stay. The longer you stay, the more experiences you can have.
Most of all, we learned that we really loved being there, the lifestyle, the history, sights, beaches, and food…
So we got hooked. Hooked on the sounds of the bells and language and call to prayer, hooked on the relaxed lifestyle and late dinners. Hooked on the quiet towns and floodlit cities, and the great food and wine. Hooked on just sitting in a café.
Each year we try to see new things, maybe mix in a little of the older things we loved if we have a chance. Here at home we live a really simple lifestyle, and have simplified it even more: we just don’t buy things (our home is furnished with cast-off items), we try to eat and drink well, stay healthy, enjoy the day-to-day feel of the sun on our faces and the time we can spend with friends, and we work work work towards the next trip.
Here is what we did in France, that first one-month trip, in 14 blog posts.