We went to Europe 5 weeks after 9/11--thought giving up or postponing an opportunity to travel to be the greatest risk. All was fine, of course, -- a great time to be there with no lines for museums and tourist sites.

As for acting like an American--We would never pretend to be anything other than what we are. But we travel with the expectations that things will not be just like at home--if they were, why go?-- and that if we treat people as we would like to treated, they will do the same--and they usually do. We always try to learn and use basic polite phrases in the language of the places we visit and to dress appropriately. So far, we've been asked at various times and places if we were Dutch, German, British, and Canadian and have had people speaking fluent French ask us directions in Paris!! So I guess we must be pretty generic folks.

This summer we'll be going to the Seattle area and Olympic Penninsula visiting our son and his family. In the fall we're going to France for 19 days.

Angie-Kansas