Location, location, location....

There is one novelty thing I never seem to get used to while living here in the continental Europe:
all the other countries are so damn near. 

I've always lived in quite excluded/logistically challenged countries and it always took some effort (read: blood, sweat and tears) to travel from/back to.

When I was a kid back in the days when travelling was still considered as quite a luxury (80s and early 90s), my parents would pack us 3 kids & camping gear and we'd either take the ferry to Germany or we'd drive through Sweden to reach the continental Europe.

While all the others retrieved to their cottages for the holidays, we'd spend our summers on the road. Driving all over the (Western) Europe by car, sleeping at the camping sites. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, UK....You name it. I literally grew up in the backseat of our family car watching the blurry, ever changing landscape through the window. We were like travellers, restless, always needing to be on the move. It was the time before navigators, Tom-Toms and such. It was just us, the car and the Michelin map of Europe. We only knew the day we'd have to go back home but everything before that was organic. We went where the wind blew us (as long as there was a camping site nearby).

When we started growing up, my parents ditched the tents and we began staying at Guest Houses, B&Bs and hostels. As we grew even more (both horizontally and vertically) the next logical step was staying at hotels. When we reached that point, though, it was simply cheaper to start flying to places. Road trips became a thing of the past. We discovered the convenience of air travelling. And solo travelling (which I began at the tender age of 15).

Flying was never that cheap and it always still took some time to reach the destination, however. It was still "somewhere there" far far away. Continental Europe back then was what China is today.

And things never really changed when I left Finland. When I lived in UK, it was a damn island. And Australia was far from...Well... Absolutely everything.

Where am I going with this? What does this all have to do with Switzerland?

Now knowing my history a little, try to imagine my feelings when my husband tells me that he's off to France for training. The training takes 3 days in total.

My heart automatically sank, of course. France... The country of baguette, red wine and garlic. Au revoir mon amour, send me a postcard...

It's only when my husband continues "so, it's closer to home than the office I go every day so I'll be home for dinner earlier than usual" I realise....

Effin' hell....

Everything is so.....damn.....CLOSE.