Friend of Julie: Kings and Queens

My European vacation offered me the opportunity to confirm that I own this program. I had opportunities with each meal to decide how I want to live my life. I chose to live life in balance and to follow the program as Julie taught me.

Tea with my friends; I declined the chocolates.

In the photo above, the sisters (Andrea took the photo) and I enjoyed the one day it was warm enough to sit out front of Andrea's house (in France). We enjoyed a pot of hot tea; I declined on the chocolates. I was amazed how they eat chocolate every day and still keep in good shape. I also realized it's not my fate to indulge this way; daily sweets led to my obesity. As they enjoyed these afternoon treats, I pushed away thoughts of indulging; "tap it away" Julie would say.

I arrived in Amsterdam on a Sunday morning and 24 hours later Helena and I were on a flight to the south of France. After a week at her sister's, we returned to Helena's home where I enjoyed three full days in Delft before I headed to Rome. We spent one day partying with all of Delft, as Queen Beatrice abdicated the throne.

While in Delft, I continued to enjoy life like a local, as we did in France. We went out for coffee in Delft a few times and the day before I left Holland, we went to my favorite place Café Vlietzicht.

Café Vlietzicht

Café Vlietzicht has a variety of places to sit, including an anchored boat, which is where I love to sit. It was so cold that we needed our to keep our jackets on as we listened to the call of birds across the water, watched ducks and sailboats sail by, and enjoyed our coffee.

Scene sitting at Café Vlietzicht

By this time in my vacation, I was used to giving the cookies they placed on the plate next to the coffee to Helena, as I had done this the whole time while we were visiting her sister in France. This was the "cultural experience" her brother-in-law felt sad that I was "missing" out on - going to wonderful café's and not have the special treats. I didn't feel sad at all, as I've had enough sweets to last me a lifetime.

I have a couple more posts about my vacation that I'll finish and then move on, but I wanted to share photos and talk about my food choices and lessons learned along the way. I hope to help you to think about how you'll handle your vacations.

Two years ago, after a couple months of following Julie, I was going to southern California for vacation and I was nervous about how I would handle my vacation and stay one program, so I went for a refresh. I didn't go for a refresh because I was off program and needed help, but because I wanted reinforcement to stay on program during my vacation. It was wonderful to take this European trip confident that I would stay on program and returning more confident than ever that I own this program. I made choices I feel good about, as I applied what I learned from Julie.

It's been two weeks since I've been home and I feel great, but I've slacked off on my walking. After all that walking, walking, walking that I did in Rome, I've gone in the opposite direction. I can blame this on the fact that I bought a Smart TV a few days after I returned, but there's no good reason for me not to walk daily. I'll write more about walking in Rome in my next post and about how I got back into walking again. Mind you-this is an affirmation, as I type this has not happened yet!

Meanwhile, here are some more photos I took while celebrating Queens Day in Delft. We watched the actual ceremonies on TV at Helena's, and went into Delft to join in the festivities and then again for dinner. It was wonderful to partake in a part of history that I would have missed entirely had been at home.