Walk more drive less.

The past twelve days I've been lucky enough to spend touring Europe. I'm hoping this won't be a once in a lifetime trip, but because it's not every year you get to go to Europe I've tried to be mindful of the differences between home and the European lifestyle.  Below is a collection of thoughts and things that I've noticed just in my short time here.

Walk,walk, walk. That seems to be the common theme from place to place. In most of our major stops we tried to stay in, or close to, the attractions that we were hoping to see. Even then we would find ourselves walking between 1-2 miles one way to reach our destination. We think parking is bad in old town it's nothing compared to parking in the majority of places we visited.  Most Europeans don't even own a car just a scooter. Public transportation and walking I would say are the common forms of transportation in most European cities.

Perhaps it's because we live in such a health concise state, but I was pretty surprised by the amount of Europeans who smoke.  Obviously the destinations that we visited were mostly occupied by tourists.  However, I think the majority of the people smoking were locals either running the shops or tours.  Perhaps the tourists were driving them to smoke!  I'm thankful that we live where few people smoke.

Perhaps it was a factor of our location, but I also did not see very many health clubs.  At a few of the destinations we were able to get out for a jog and do some body weight workouts. Generally, this is more than you actually want to do on vacation anyway ;) I was just surprised that in and around city center there were not any real health club options.

Traveling to new destinations is such a  good reminder of how wonderful it is to live where we live. So many great things to see and do as well as a plethora of blessings. Even though we are blessed I will definitely leave here being more mindful of the times I drive and doing my part to drive less and walk more!

Ciao,
Josh