Calling all Travelers

Once I was at church and a woman asked if my husband could teach a class entitled "How to get your husband to let you go to Europe every year."

His response:  Every once in a while your wife will express her dissatisfaction at life and as a man you can't help but feel like it is all your fault. So I like to be proactive and prevent these little discussions by encouraging her to go to Europe. (I am sure this is misquoted so he can correct it in the comments section  if he cares.)

I did go to Europe every year for about 6 years in a row--I took three groups of high schools students, I went with my mother and cousin the year my mom died, and the year after she died I went with a friend.  After I was no longer a teacher with the "free" trips  (though I didn't pay money for the trips I paid for it in many, many other ways, more on that later) we moved down to SB and Steve and went together on our first true vacation for 10 days in which he presented and we did a geeky self-guided religious history tour together.

So as it has been a couple of years and my youngest is almost a year and a half, it must be time for me to go to Europe again.

Since I travel a lot of work already it is with some trepidation that I begin planning it.  I have some guilt over leaving my family and I would love to take some of the kids--but alas we cannot afford it so I have to go alone.

By alone, of course, I mean with you.

So anyone who is interested in coming along for the ride, I am going to go to Europe.

I am thinking of going May 9-17th or so and I want to go to Barcelona, southern France, and hopefully N. Italy.

I love Paris of course and would be open if you would prefer to do the Paris-Barcelona trip with a visita in Southern France, but sometimes I think it would just be more relaxing to stay where the produce and lavande is most plentiful and skip the city life.

So who can go on this trip?  Anyone.  Anyone who agrees to the following rules:

1)  Flexibility--if we plan to go to Giverny and then we decide to spend an extra day at the Louvre instead of driving, then ok.  I am not a packed itinerary kind of girl so you gotta know that.

2)  Hunger pains--when we get hungry, we eat.  We don't wander around aimlessly searching for the Holy Grail of restaurants.  If we do want to find the perfect place, then we plan ahead so we are not wandering the streets with low blood sugar.  If the only place open is a bar with some nasty day-old tortillas or stale bread, then we eat there and we do it with a smile.

3)  Getting lost--is part of the fun!  So when we are lost, there is no reason to get upset or angry at the person who is navigating, we just roll with it baby.  Besides, if we are flexible, we won't be running late anywhere.

4)  Parler la langue--you have to at least TRY to speak the language wherever we are.  When we order in a restaurant, even if you are butchering the native tongue, you gotta give it a whirl.  You can bring your little teeny larousse if you need support, or maybe your phone has an app for that, but you gotta at least give the impression you are trying.  No ugly american, k?  Along those same lines, no getting embarrassed if I try to chat up the taxi driver about immigration.

5)  Cheapness--we will try to do everything on the lower end but I am not staying in a hotel with a Turkish loo.  So just like with the restaurants, we are not going to search for the Holy Grail of cheap hotels.  Nothing fancy schmancy, but no seedy bed bugs and we are not walking all day and night to find the exact right place.

6) All for one--but not one for all.  If someone wants to go shopping all day (not something I want to do), they can break off in a separate team.  We don't have to all do the same thing at the same time, it is okay to be unique.

7)  Sewing wild oats--is something you gotta do on your own time.  If we are in a group and you want to hit on the waiter, fine, but don't invite him back to the hotel room.  I got other stuff to do.

8)  Missing home--it is okay to miss your family but no crying or stressing out that your husband has lost the kids.  It happens to me all the time and we are just fine.

9) You gotta be a woman.  Sorry, no men allowed unless you come with your spouse and want to pay for your own hotel rooms, etc.

Any questions?