Avions, treno en auto

After all this time in Europe, I still get so excited about country hopping. Last week, we drove to Belgium to take a plane to Italy where we spent 4 amazing days with a childhood friend who's there with her family for a year. On Sunday, we flew back over four countries - Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium - and drove back to France. And on Monday morning, I got on a train coming from Southern France, got off in Brussels, changed tracks and got on a train to Rotterdam.

And although I'm tired and totally stuffed from eating pizza, pasta, rijstaffel and the most amazing apple pie in the world, I am happy.

During our time in Italy, words kept coming to me in Dutch when I wanted to speak Italian (which I don't  do but I speak some Spanish); now that I'm in the Netherlands, I keep looking for words in Italian (which I still don't speak). Language is a funny thing. My kids were a little thrown by the 4 days of being very American with an American family in Italy. Max tried to speak French to everyone outside the house, but Suzanne seems to understand that people speak different languages in different countries.

But neither of them quite grasps geography yet. Suzanne asked if we were Belgium as we stepped off he plane in Pisa. And Max asked if we were in New York.

And now, here I am in a hotel room in Rotterdam where I've spent the past two days with a project partially funded by Europe.

So tomorrow, I head back home to France with a couple slices of apple pie in my bag and an extra kilo or two on my bones.