We are home and becoming settled into real life again. Aside from some really early wake-ups (downstairs with coffee by 5am), the adjustment hasn’t been too bad. I love how you forget any bumps and bruises associated with traveling once you get home to reminisce. It all just becomes fuzzy and perfect when you are far away again and in your own kitchen, looking at the same walls you always have.

We made so many good memories on this trip.

I observed a family dining near us during breakfast one day, a college-aged kid and presumably his parents. For a second, I thought won’t that be nice. As I wiped spilled yogurt off my toddler’s face and hurriedly downed my food so we could exit before he got restless, they talked and relaxed and sipped coffee leisurely while planning the day over maps and guidebooks. No doubt there will be things that are easier when I am at that point in my life.

But seeing new places through little eyes has its own charm, too.

The trip was refreshing and such a fitting way to begin a year that holds many changes for us. I love being reminded there is so much beauty in the world, countless different people, and a million different things I have yet to see and discover. A sense of possibility is a lovely thing, such a necessary thing for me.

I’m happy to be home, too. It feels good to settle in to your house when you’ve been away. Groceries have been replenished; laundry is almost done.  Old routines are emerging, and they feel really good. There’s a comfort in what we know.

Pieces of where I’ve been stick with me though. Going some place new always inspires me to take home a little piece of something different and stir it in with my life at home. You know how it is. A week at the beach reminds you that a Tuesday night margarita is a good idea. Trips to NYC leave you energized and humming show tunes in the kitchen. A week in Belgium has you lingering longer in the beer aisle. Seattle always leaves me dusting off the espresso machine when I return. My study abroad in England gave me a permanent preference for milk in my tea.  Paris reminds me that dessert is a necessary thing.  That art is everywhere.  That I really like scarves.  That this song can cheer me up in an instant.  And that life is best sprinkled with good food and conversation.

I love the idea that I’ll change and evolve again and again as the years go by and I visit new places and meet new people.  But I also vow to find a little of this inspiration without paying for a plane ticket.  It’s everywhere really – good films, new music, conversations with friends or strangers, books.  I don’t have to travel far to find it if I’m looking.