Tuesday November 10

Home sweet home. It was wonderful to put on my flannels, sleep in my own bed, and have a nice hot bath.

Leaving Paris was oh so French. On our way out for coffee before heading out to the airport we passed our Metro station only to discover that it was closed...you guessed it, a strike. It made leaving the city a bit more complicated, but we managed. The Air France flight was excellent. Excellent service, good food, and personal TV's. You can tell that I don't get out much.

We took the Go bus to Richmond Hill, and then the Viva up to Aurora. We were looking at it from a completely different perspective, that of a non-english speaking tourist. Let me tell you it would be tough . We complained occasionally in Europe but it would be a heck of a lot tougher for someone coming here. This is one of the areas where Toronto falls down as an international city, one of many unfortunately.

The cost of living has gone up since we left. We see it in the food prices, the cost of transportation and even in the price of a cheap movie. We have come back to the stresses of Canadian living. We see it in the faces of the people in the community, the rage of the drivers on our streets and the headlines in the newspaper. By tomorrow we won't even notice these things we will be so aclimatised, but for today the differences are glaring.

At the end of the day however, we are happy to be home amongst family and friends, as much as we loved the European countries that we visited, particularly Spain. And so the adventure continues. I will up-date you periodically.