We’re really into the meat of our trip now (or if the trip is a chausson aux pommes, we’re into the gooey pastry filling). It’s nice to take a step back from the daily routine – home and work truly feel lightyears away – and we’ve seen some incredible stuff. I’ve been thinking about food, too.

France and Italy were a little bit of a revelation. One of the things that I’m realizing is that stereotypes and ideas about other cultures tend to stick around, outliving the things that created them in the first place. Without going too deeply into it (this isn’t a food and drink blog, after all), this article about France’s coffee situation is a really interesting read, particularly for anyone who’s been to France and wondered, why on earth is this coffee so terrible? On the bright side, we found the most amazing little locally-sourced foods store in Lyon, de l’autre côté de la rue.

Italy was interesting this time too. We really only made it to Venice, which is a beautiful unicorn of a city – I’d been once before, but Chris had never been. But Venice is expensive and there’s some shockingly bad food to be had. On the flipside, there’s also some incredible food – but it makes me realize that I’m spoiled by having a place like Delancey in my neighborhood at home. Once upon a time, you had to go to Italy to get pizza like that. Now, I can sit down eating pizza in a beautiful square in Venice and say, this is almost on par with Delancey. The modern world is weird. Still, I think I left Italy this time much more interested in Italy and the Italian language, which is a bit of a surprise (I’ve never cared much about Italy one way or another). I’m looking forward to going back and seeing different parts of the country someday.

I am so grateful to be on a trip like this; to see so much is a privilege in the first place. But I am also incredibly grateful to have a trip like this open my eyes to new things and ideas, which I suppose is part of why people travel in the first place.