The Grass is Always Greener

I usually like to write about pretty things but I just want to share this experience I had in Paris. A good lesson for all of us...

As we were sitting at dinner one night in Paris we had an interesting experience that I think is such a great example of people always thinking others have it better than them.

We were having dinner at Chez Andre (totally recommend this restaurant). It is a casual, very tiny restaurant where in typical French style the tables are right next to each other. When I say right next to each other, I mean they had to pull the table out for me to sit down. There is not even room to scoot around it. This took a while to get used to and the first few nights, my husband and I spoke in Italian to maintain some sort of private conversation but by this night we were used to someone else sitting right at our elbow.


Anyway, this night we happened to sit next to another American couple about our age and we happened to be discussing our summer plans. Our conversation went like this:

Matt: So, do you want to go to the States in July after we get back from Germany?

Lauren: I guess, but then when do we do Normandy?

Matt: Let's move Normandy to November or so.

Lauren: Okay, then what are we going to do in August?

Matt: Let's spend August in Austria or we could do that lake near Slovenia

Lauren: Oh, I've heard the place in Slovenia is nice for kids

and so on and so on


So as we continued to talk we realized they were listening. They stopped their own conversation and their eyes got bigger andd bigger and we realized that to them we sounded like some independently wealthy Americans who just jet-set all year. We are soooo far from that. They just didn't have the full story and that is why the grass always seems greener.


The actual truth is that we live in Italy for work and these trips are easy. Like living in Dallas and spending the weekend in Austin. No big deal.

And get this... we HAVE to spend August away because we have no air conditioning and it is 90 degrees in our house. It is so hot that no one will even come visit us after June. How's that grass looking now?