Living in Europe

Living in Europe sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, I have found our life in Europe so far to be…..almost exactly like our life in the US. We go to school and work, meet up at the end of the day and watch TV, cuddle, eat popcorn and read books. The kids are back to their bedtime routines and think of our new house as “home”. I find our house to be..smaller, different.. but surprisingly homey and cozy. The main difference is our location - the quaint British town we live in and that we can take a train to London for the weekend, or Scotland. We could be in Wales in just over an hour by car. We could go to France for a few days on a summer vacation with minimal travel time. We have talked about wanting to go to Rome while we are here. The sights we see walking or driving around are different - you can’t go more than 50 feet without stumbling upon a beautiful old church or castle. We ate dinner out last night as a family, but at a Tavern across the street from our house, instead of a Longhorn Steakhouse. There are many other differences, true enough. Especially the food. This morning I made porridge for breakfast. I feel like I am in a fairy tale and should be saying: this porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, this porridge is just right. When I go to leave the house later, I will be getting in the car on the right side and driving on the left side, and you only have to talk to someone to remember you are the one that sounds different here. It is true, there are a lot of things that are different and a lot of things I miss –things I never expected to miss, like Ziplock bags. (Really, would it be that hard for England to import some good old American products that work much better than the ones they have?) But life is the same, because I have my wonderful husband and our two all American children with me, our routines are the same, the things we like to do together are the same –and wherever we are together is exactly where we should be.