I finally got my ticket ($249 roundtrip San FranciscoFrankfurt with a very special special!), and I’ll once again be spending Christmastime with wonderful friends in Germany.
Of course, I can be a little cranky, and moan about the icky cold I’ll be facing, the insane hassles of peak-time holiday air travel (in coach, no less), and so on. But aside from getting to spend time with great people, I’ll also come back, once again, with a suitcase full of chocolate goodies.
Disadvantage: This makes me (literally) fat every year.
Advantage: This makes my friends fat, too, but they love me anyway.
And on a slightly deeper level, my twice-yearly trips to Europe remind me how much I miss about Europe (universally decent public transit, awesomely long and lingering meals…) and also how appreciative I am for the silly little niceties of America (like drinking fountains, non-smoking clubs, and so on).
Ah, if only there were a way to make an AdamCountry, taking the best of all the places I’ve visited and rolling it all up into one place that’s warm but still with snow at Christmas, with delicious but non-fattening food, with people who are kind but also helpfully blunt when you have spinach in your teeth, and so on.
Yes, Christmastime is a time for dreaming, no matter what your faith, I think. 🙂
What do you think?