It's difficult sometimes to answer those common questions. How do you boil down a month of experiences into a succinct response? Not that I mind the questions, it is fun to talk about the trip with people. I just don't have great answers without going into hours of conversation! Here is my attempt at brevity.
Things I miss about Europe (in no particular order, and certainly not exhaustive):
- Food!!! Trying new foods is always fun, especially when they ended up being yummy most of the time. Random food experiences like a milk vending machine that spit out fresh milk, or being talked into buying dried figs at the market (which were really good). Trying the local cuisine like burek, kremna, squid ink risotto, cevapcici, pasticho . . . mmmm, my stomach is grumbling.
- Walking, walking, walking. I love being outside and moving. One of my favorite things to do anywhere is just walk around and notice things and take pictures. We must have walked 6-8 miles most days (much more on some). Even though I'm decently active in normal life, I sit much more at home than on vacation.
- Wine for lunch. No further explanation needed!
- Back to the food arena; I loved all the daily markets. Fresh produce and meats and cheeses all set up every day in the city centers. Both beautiful and practical.
- Hearing other languages all the time. Sure it can be a little frustrating to not understand what is going on sometimes (I had my moments), but listening to people speak in different dialects is super fun too! Trying to repeat the sounds and enjoying the cadence of foreign speech.
- History! The US has nothin' on Europe in this department. Walking past ruins from 70 AD, reading about history in the museums, hearing about more recent history from locals.
- On a somewhat related note, art! Beautiful buildings and paintings and statues everywhere. Turn a corner and there appears an amazing mosaic or fresco just sitting there. Little architectural details that just aren't common around here.
- Meeting people from all over the place. I'm not a social butterfly or anything, but I do like to meet people who have such different life experiences. In Mostar, Sarajevo, and Dubrovnik we heard from locals about what life was like in the war. In Split we met a Canadian couple living in Switzerland. Everywhere we met people traveling from all over the world.
- Hot baths! The hostels were great, but certainly didn't have bathtubs and didn't always have very hot water. Ahhh.
- Washing machine and clean clothes! I don't think I got too stinky, but it is much nicer to have mechanically washed clothes than hand-washed-in-the-sink and dried by hanging off the end of the bed. (We did have proper laundering twice during the trip, which was great).
- My own bed and pillow.
- Good cold water. Most of the trip had pretty good water (a couple of places it tasted icky), but Portland has some of the best water straight from the tap that I have ever had.
- Not needing a map to go out to dinner. Exploring is very fun, but sometimes it is nice to come home to the familiar roads.
- Sitting alone in my condo. People are fun, and it is great to get out there. But I'm an introvert. Didn't realize until I got back how much I missed my silent alone time.
- Friends! Missed you all.
So, there you have it. In short, it was a good trip. Too many good things to pick a favorite. Glad to be back.
