Contemplating leaving the sand-pit and moving to Europe! Photos Karen Montagu So I am on holiday. Lounging around Europe. Poor me. Eating and drinking my body weigh in good fresh food and walking everywhere. Food grown locally and consumed as such. Living in the Middle East (ME) where a great deal is imported and cars dictate your transport you would not understand the feeling of joy when you travel abroad. Just another year and we will go back home we say. But yet here we are nine years later. So what keeps us here? The people are friendly, the work opportunities are amazing, and its a great mixing pot of culture but the definite bonus of this expat life is that we love to travel and our entire goal was to use this opportunity as a jumping off point to Europe. Thankfully we have used this to our advantage and every summer we disappear for up to a month escaping the furnace of the ME to beautiful cooler and greener surrounds of Europe.
Over the years we have lapped up the beautiful countries of Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France and of course Legoland (a very important principality in world relations)! So it's an easy six-hour flight for us hence why we make the most of it now as once we move home to Australia it's going to be nearly impossible to make these regular trips as a family of five. Not to mention the long haul flying time. Yuk. This trip we can't decide what we love the most - Spain's San Sebastián, the Pryranesse region of France or Lake Como, Italy. To say we fell in love with Lake Como is an understatement. So beautiful. So easy to walk around and with the lake and backdrop of the mountains its perfect. So we are now busy searching for houses for sale in Lake Como (dream on). So whats really to stop us jumping in like others and buying in Europe? Well besides the fact we can barely order coffee, wine or beer in bad French or Italian, makes one question how can you purchase a property and deal with banks and agents?? But the dream of living in Europe - how amazing would that be (in reality it maybe one of cold climates, high taxes and language barriers but heh). So we continue to plan and dream our annual vacation and enjoy the benefits of being so close while it lasts. I wonder if we will ever see and experience it all. I also wonder if we will be those people that went overseas for work for two years and end up still here 20 years later. I am sure this year will be our last and then we will head home.... well maybe after we have visited Bulgaria, Slovenia, Greece et al. For more ramblings about my journeys of the world, check out my Transit and Tales blog where I talk all things travel.
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