Day 47 - McKinney, Texas

All good things must come to an end, and so it is with the summer of 2024 Maggie & Martha Odyssey. We flew from London this morning and got home in the early afternoon.

First stop is the Admiral’s Club International First Class lounge. Oh how we have missed American Airlines and to gain access to the swanky part of the lounge, it may be hard to leave.

In this final blog, we’ll sign off with the things we will miss (or not) from the trip.

Maggie:

Will not miss:

The many, many unhappy children (and a few adults) along the way.

Athens - too hot, too crowded.

NCL Viva food - and I’m not a foodie, but it was almost universally bad.

The Roman, Ottoman and every other empire we learned about.

European air conditioning, or really the incredible lack of air blowing in our hotel rooms.

Coke Zero - I drank it but it is definitely not Diet Coke.

People who don’t use headphones or ear buds and instead make us listen to their whatever: conversations or videos.

This is on us - we should’ve put a little effort into learning some basics of the languages we encountered. We knew the key things: Thank you, toilet, wine, etc. but we should have tried harder.

Will miss:

Watching the Olympics in English on Peacock - in real time and cheering on team USA in person - Martha what do you think of Torino in 2026???

Walking-everywhere and the availability of public transportation, with tap and pay.

Ten countries, twenty cities, fourteen different hotels/VRBOs.

Making friends everywhere we went.

Swimming in the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas.

Traveling with our friends.

Lyon - so cool.

Serbia - who knew?

Taormina, Capri, Nice and every city’s old town

All the cathedrals and basilicas and learning the difference between the two.

We didn’t miss a train, bus, or plane this trip. Nor did we really have run to catch one.

All the local wines and beers

Google translate - type it in and show it to the person you’re trying to talk to, take a pic and figure out what it says.

That the Thompsons travel - loved seeing PJ, Dianna, Sienna, Trevor, and Gavin in Barcelona and Rachel in Paris.

Martha: of course we approached this section differently. Maggie has a list and I went for the one thing that stands out in my mind.

I will not miss toilettes that don’t have locks. I can deal with the unisex bathrooms. I don’t mind if there is a seat and/or lid or not. I even handled (barely) the hole in the ground in Turkey with the footprints on either side. But at least let me lock the door while I figure out what weird experience is in store. And, I don’t care what language you speak, if there is no toilet paper, you need to tell the next person in line. This was universal.

I will miss easy and ready access to free, drinkable water when you are roaming around outside. In almost every country we visited, there were multiple outdoor, very large water fountains. Don’t picture refrigerated fountains like in school buildings. These were sculptures and works of art and provided filtered water that was usually pretty cold. Occasionally, there was a homeless person taking a bath; but you can’t be mad about that. And, in Europe, there is a big emphasis on metal reusable bottles. I ended up with four of them. Even the plastic bottles have lids that are attached to reduce waste. It was eye opening at how far advanced in recycling and conservation they are than us.

We have tried really hard not to resort to fast food from the US. There is an abundance of Mickey D’s, KFC, Burger King, Five Guys, Popeyes, and Subways. And for the most part we were successful. But as Maggie has mentioned numerous times, we are not foodies. That doesn’t mean that I have not had my share of local versions of pizza, nachos, and pasta bolognese - I mean how can you mess up spaghetti with meat sauce - until one place served me Chef Boyardee straight out of the can. So, on my list of what am I looking forward to, I would do unspeakable things for an authentic Philly Cheesesteak. I mean the kind you have to eat standing up and adopt the cheesesteak stance. Those who know….know.

Both of us:

We really enjoyed keeping the blog with Maggie writing and Martha editing. If you liked it as well, we’ll send a link in January for our next Odyssey.