What goes up, must come down

After a CRAZY, busy 2 weeks traveling in Europe, we have returned, safe and sound. However, after forcibly altering our internal clocks to skip 9 hours of our lives, we are now painfully yanking those hours back to where they belong. While the trip was completely worth it, jet lag sucks. The first day back I was fine, but in the last day or two I've definitely been getting sleepy at seemingly random times.

So, to wrap up an excellent trip, here are some of the things we did and did not miss :-)

Fantastic things that we miss already:
-the food! (though there was junky food to be had, by and large we ate quite well)
-the sub-100 degree temperatures
-cool nights
-eating somewhere new every night
-lovely hotel owners-people who didn't guess that we were American (one French vendor thought we looked French!!)
-simple, cheap trains to get you to where you wanted to be, instead of flying everywhere-a walking culture, where sidewalks are often more full than streets
-Alps
-street food (crepes, calzones, falafel, etc.)
-"secret" tiny, friendly, towns in the Swiss Alps :-)
-not being on a schedule
-simple airline security (no shoe removal necessary!)
-meals that literally only involve bread, cheese, wine and fruit
-greenery!
-water!
-meals that consist solely of dessert-cow bells-stumbling upon seemingly random parades of tall puppet-like items (we dubbed this la plaza de las personas grandes)
Things we were happy to come home to: -our own dogs (lots of dogs in Europe, but not ours!)
-the same bed every night
-cooking
-free toilets (this should be a fundamental human right, people!)
-all the water we want at restaurants for FREE
-consistent internet connections
-understanding what people are saying (the French grandma serving continental breakfast scared me!)-using more than 5 sets of clothes
-dryness (as opposed to humidity)
-driving
-air conditioning (not an assumption in many places in Europe)
-spending a WHOLE lot less money!

[Steve/Darla/Ben, if I missed anything, please add it via the comments section.]

One of my goals during the trip was to learn 5 new words a day in the local language, so here is a sampling:

London:
peckish=hungry
jug of water=pitcher (I knew the meaning, it's just now how we use the word "jug" to refer to something on the table)
peg=clothespin
armill=bracelet
trolley=cart (a la grocery cart)

Paris:
soldes=sale
gratuite=free
tour=tower
vous ete ici=you are here
ou est Steve=where is Steve (he tended to wander off)

Gimmelwald, Switzerland:
bach=river or creek
bio=organic
suppe=soup
see=lake
feure=fire

Venice:
saldi=sale
ingresso=entrance
casino=small house
d'ove il Steve=where is Steve
panna montata=whipped cream (rhymes with Hannah Montana, and is super fun to say with an Italian accent)

Barcelona (Catalonian Spanish):
benvenguts=welcome
rebaixes=sale
donde esta Steve=where is Steve
sortida=exit
gofres=waffles

(By the way, we honestly didn't do that much actual shopping, it's just that the word "sale" was on every single store window we passed.)

Having completed our European Sampler Platter (which was definitely what it felt like), I would say that 3 nights was about an ideal amount of time for us to get a good feel for a place. When we were only in a place 2 nights, it definitely felt like we were barely running through the place. However, now, we can all say where we might want to spend more time, and/or see next time. Personally, I'd love to go back and spend a week in Paris, and I'd like to spend more time in Italy (though I think I've seen most of what I want to see in Venice). I loved the food and the sights in Paris, and would love to see more of the surrounding area. If I went back for any length of time, I'd probably take a cooking class there. In Italy, I LOVED the language! I'd love to learn it. It sounds so cool :-) And now, good bye, in all 5 languages we took a dip in:

Cheers!
Bon voyage!
Auf wiedersehen!
Arrivaderci!
Adios!