Europe Diary - Post #11 by Kathy

It’s 6:30AM, and I’ve just awoken after 10 hours of glorious sleep in an abbey just outside of the walled city and castle of Carcassonne, France. We made our way through the masses in the medieval city yesterday on French Labor Day – think the Renaissance Festival on a holiday with every extended family member, including dogs, out enjoying a beautiful, blue-skied, sunny day after the preceding days of rain. It was crowded, but just a few steps away, and we were back in our abbey with virtually no one else here. At 8:30PM we closed the wood shutters of our quiet room, no pictures on the walls, no curtains on the windows, and no distractions to speak of, and we just power-slept. It was so nice after several nights of staying up late with the Italians. It felt wonderful!

Our abbey “family room” (haha) has one room with a set of bunk beds and an adjoining room with a double bed, a shower, a sink, and a toilet. With breakfast and parking, and prior to the inflated summer rates, it is 100 Euros per night. That has been pretty much the budget at every place we’ve stayed: 100 Euros per night (or 25 Euros per person) allotted for lodging. Some nights cost more: for example, Paris is a splurge night for lodging so we could be in my favorite Left Bank, Montparnasse district. The Cinque Terre was 160 Euros per night, but it included two separate bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a full kitchen that allowed us to save on meals. Then there are nights that are costing less than 100 Euros: for example, a four-bed cabin on two different overnight ferries only added 70 Euros to the cost so it saves us some money there. However, the average is still 100 Euros per night, and it can be done with some advance planning and reservations.

I’m not going to tell you that it is cheap to take a family of four to Europe for a month, but it is doable for less than what you probably think. We go to the grocery store in nearly every town that we stay in, and that saves money, and it is also fun for us. Rolls, cheese, and cold cuts are things that are cheap in Europe. We travel with tea bags, coffee, sugar cubes, and non-refrigerable creamers. We drink tap water. Despite this budget, we have had memorable meals out: in the Cinque Terre eating at a trattoria overlooking the Mediterranean feasting on mussels, lobster, fresh pasta, pesto, and local wine for 69 Euros total for four people. We had Rijstaffel in Amsterdam with something like 30 different Indonesian dishes brought to our table. We ate schnitzel and spaetzle in Germany and crepes and cassoulet in France. We try to eat out once per place we go to, and we all try to order something different so we can sample more things. The Fruehlingsfest in Stuttgart was cost effective because we were grazing from food stands in a moveable feast. Actually, I’m starting to feel like the whole trip is a moveable feast, and Thank God for all the walking and stair climbing that we’re doing.

I just want to vent a little bit. After all, what is a blog if you’re not venting about somethingJ For all the people who say, “I could never afford a trip to Europe,” I say, “Why not?” I drive a Kia. My family lives in an 1100 square foot home. In AJ. My husband cuts my hair. My hair color costs $8 per box. I have never had a manicure. I gave up my gym membership. I don’t have any tattoos. My work scrubs come from Walmart. They cost $7.96 each. I shop at Savers. For my stay-at-home mom friends, I say, “I’ve been there. I’ve done that.” I stayed home full-time for the first seven years of my mommyhood. It sucked. We never had enough money. I used WIC coupons at the grocery store. We stayed home a lot because it was cheaper than trying to go somewhere. I missed meeting new people and having adult conversations. Mostly, I missed money. I went back to school with the sole intent of finding a job that I could do on my husband’s days off so we could eliminate any need for daycare expenses. My daughter was 6 months and my son was 2 years old when I went back to school. Initially, my classes were at night, and I would meet Mike in the school parking lot and nurse the baby before going in to class. A lot of my friends from nursing school are having babies now, and I just want to remind them that all of that fun baby and toddler stuff, yeah, that’s what I was doing WHILE we were in classes and clinicals together. And did I mention that all of our family was out of state? Then, for the last seven years, I have worked on my husband’s days off. Two people working 12 hour days, on opposite days. Not a husband coming home at 5:00 and having the evening together. This past year I worked on 4^th of July, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, MLK Day, Presidents’ Day, and Easter. What were you doing on those days? Were you with your family? I wasn’t. But life is about choices. And I am now sorting through photos of our Europe trip that isn’t even half over yet, and I’m thinking about all the choices that people make in their lives. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything, and I hope that you feel the same way about your life. More importantly, I hope that we can all respect our unique choices and grow in our understanding of our differences.