The Trade off: European Lifestyle
0
0
So while living in Europe and being all domestic and stuff, I’d have to say there are some definite positive trade offs.
There are moments when I must enjoy being in Europe to the fullest.
First of all there is the convenience of traveling. It takes about three hours to drive to Paris and about the same to Amsterdam. In the same time back in Canada, I could get from Edmonton to Calgary. Whoo hoo! Not.
If you take the high-speed train, You can get to Paris and or London in about 1 hour and 20 minutes. In Canada, I would have to drive one hour and a half to get to…….Red Deer (yes a city is named after an animal). I think that Canada should invest in high speed trains. Especially between Edmonton and Calgary for all the business people and it would also open up the road for the Semi-trucks and family vacationers with their motorhomes and trailers.
So far, being in Brussels for about ten months, I’ve been to Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Bucharest.
I have also been to a number of cities in Belgium:
Ghent (which I love)
Brugge (is beautiful)
Oostende (the North Sea)
Antwerp (city with a “shopping avenue”)
Dinant (Notre Dam Church in the “River City”)
Tournai (historical city near French border)
Sint-Nikolaas (went to a Beer Festival and a great restaurant in Belgium)
De Haan (the North Sea without the high rises along the beach)
Leuven (where Stella Artois comes from)
Liege (where the delicious Liege waffles were invented)
I still want to see Ieper (where Flander’s Fields is).
In The Netherlands, I’ve also been to:
Utrecht (Lights at Night walk and double-level canal)
Rotterdam (new buildings and huge port)
Vlissingen (the North Sea with jelly fish and seaweed)
Breda (where they serve a shot with your morning coffee)
Tilburg (where there is a University and a pub decorated with religious symbols and paraphernalia).
In Germany, I’ve only been to Aachen, which had a very beautiful church and the city was very clean. I want to visit Koln, Berlin, Nuremburg, Frankfurt and Munich.
In France, I’ve also been to:
Versailles (I visited Marie Antoinette’s estate
Reims (the champagne region)
Lille (where I saw a huge motorcyclists’ gathering)
and about 50 small towns or villages, which I will not write all the names of.
I still hope to visit Nice, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and Brittany.
Being in Europe, especially Brussels, it’s easy to travel with the European Union’s laws (ex. no border control on the highways etc., EU citizens don’t need visas to enter other countries) and the low-cost airines! You can fly from Brussels to Dublin for about 20 euros! (~$35 Canadian).
It also makes the lunchtime conversations more interesting:
“So where did you go this weekend?”
“Oh we flew to Berlin, it was very nice. You should go there if you get a chance.”
Europeans know more geographic, cultural differences between their neighboring countries and others, and they have so much more to talk about.
The traveling is definitely a bonus.
Read about other positive trade-offs to living in Europe:
