Three Weeks In Europe: What I Learned When My Team Didn’t Need Me

Allea Grummert (00:12)

Hey there, welcome to Happy Subscribers, a podcast that explores how bloggers and content creators can create more purposeful relationships with your audience through email marketing. I’m Ali Grimert, email marketing strategist, copywriter, email platform expert, and founder of the Done For You Email Marketing Agency, Duet. I started as a personal finance blogger in 2016 and have since helped hundreds of bloggers and creators like you maximize your email marketing for more impact, more traffic, and a better connection with your subscribers.

Be prepared for some advanced email talk as well as tactical tips to help get your valuable content into the hands of your audience faster and easier. I’m excited you’re here, so let’s do it. We can create a deeper, more meaningful connection with the community you love and serve through email.

What is up everyone? I’m back. I don’t know if you missed me or if you were on vacation too, but I was gone for three weeks in July. Of course, you might not have known that if you missed the one episode where I explained that, but of course we’ve had episodes coming out while I was gone. I’m all good good on pre-planning, all that kind of stuff. But I am back from a really incredible three-week trip to Europe. I went to Italy, France, and Spain. And today I want to give you a recap.

Just some things that I thought of while I was there, since I’ve been back. And also the very last thing I’m gonna share with you is what I did in each city. And so if you’re a travel friend and you wanna know those things, you get them. so stay tuned to the end for that. So I sat here this morning with my pen and my paper and my black coffee and my favorite green coffee mug I just got in Nebraska over May. if you’re if you

If you could only watch it, I would show you this mug. It’s beautiful. It’s green. It has golden rod on it. I’m just, I’m easy to please now that I’m nearing 40. Just put a slap a state flower on there and my Nebraska pride comes out. So I’m sitting here writing out just some thoughts. And the first one being that, yo, I I can trust my team. And I know a lot of people have a lot of baggage when it comes to training and managing a team. But it’s something that I’ve been working at for like

a long time now, like six years or so. And especially the idea of outsourcing to more than just like a project manager and a VA. Like I have that and then some. I’ve probably got a core team of seven or eight people that are doing things for me at any time. I mean that number probably g definitely goes up when you include copywriters and whatnot too. So and but I gotta say it’s hilarious because I mean I knew I was gonna check in, like especially with my coaching clients. I told my check in twice a week.

I probably checked in six times and there was nothing for me to do. Nothing at all. And so I am laughing because I think Kat on my team, I think she hid some things for me. She’s like, Alan doesn’t need to know about that. Doesn’t doesn’t need to be bothered. And not like she’s hiding, hiding. Just as an no, I’m just gonna clear out her inbox. The things that matter, I’ll assign to her in Asana to deal with when she gets back. I would open my Asana and nothing was due until after July twenty-seventh. And I was like, What a freaking dream is this? And

Not only that, but Kat had was having sales conversations with clients because or potential clients, because I had trained her on some of that before I left. And she closed the sale without me. Y’all, I’m like sitting here thinking, like, what? That’s usually me. I have to be on a call with people, which is something that I knew I was giving up when I decided to travel for three weeks in the summer. And knowing I would need a week when I got back. So like a whole month of just not being on calls. And so I just feel very, very cared and

cared for by my team. And that’s just one example. There’s Laura and Carrie Ann and Marcy and Sydney. And gosh, Leanne and Courtney and my gosh, Chrissy and Abby and who Tina. Like so many I just have the most amazing team. So that’s the first thing that I just got to really enjoy that. Along with that too is just that I’m allowed to rest.

And as someone who hasn’t taken my last proper vacation since May of 2019, I really needed this reminder. Like I bought the tickets for this trip, just really on faith back in January. I was like, you’re gonna do it. Even if you have to go solo, you’re gonna do it. And I’m so glad that I did. kind of a side caveat to that, too, is that like I’m single, I’m unmarried, I don’t have children, I don’t have a person that I’m committed to that I’m sharing these experiences with. And I know that that would hold a lot of people back.

Doing a trip like this. Like, no, I want to do that, like with someone I love. It’s like, y’all, I’m 37 and I love myself. And like, I am so glad I did it. I got to see things and taste things and meet people that I otherwise wouldn’t have. And so I’m really, really grateful that I decided to do it. So that’s there’s rest in the fact that, like, you know, it’s worth it. It’s worth being able to go and do these things. But also, I got sick part way through. So we were partway through we’d finished Italy.

And then was going to Nice and I got sick. I had a cold coming on. And I just had to spend the whole day just chilling. no, we have to just chill in Nice, which is what I did. And here’s just a shout out for France having pharmacies every two blocks. I just walked in and these two women, like the pharmacists there, or don’t even know if they’re pharmacists, but they work there and they’re so helpful. I basically just pointed to on my screen to what I was looking for.

And she found it here, here. And I was like, tissues. Cause y’all, they don’t keep tissues in their houses. They don’t keep Kleenexes. And I was like, tissue. And she found me a pack of tissues. And it was just, it was so kind. I went I was able to be kind to myself. I left the house to find food a couple of times while my friends were off, literally on a boat somewhere. I was like, you guys go do that. I just need to rest. And I was able to give myself that. And that’s something that I’ve had to learn a lot in my twenties, especially.

It probably took until I was in my thirties that like you don’t want to wait until you’re full blown sick to rest. I know this probably is not earth shattering for a lot of people, but for somebody who’s just generally so productive and ambitious and high achieving, it’s really hard for me to sit still. So just allowing myself to do that was really, really good. I had a book. I f I read and finished a book while I was there. can I even remember what it is right now? No, absolutely not. but I did do that. So those are the first couple of

things on my list. Let me see what else do I have. it was really a good idea. I was gone for three weeks and I had three different sets of friends come and stay at my apartment to house sit and most importantly to hang out with Tilly and keep her company and to keep her from being so mad at me when I got back. so she wasn’t annoyed when I got back because she’d had plenty of social time, but she was definitely missed me. She definitely missed me.

But there were times last fall when I would get home from a trip and she, there was one trip in particular. I was gone for a week. And I traveled 14 times last year. So this was this is the end of November. So it’s Thanksgiving. I went to a friend’s house. I come back and this kid, I don’t cats don’t bark, but she was essentially barking at me for three straight days. She was so upset. So I’m really, really glad that I wrote up kind of my own Airbnb experience of like.

Getting to know the place, getting to know my cat, getting to know the area so that my friends could feel like they really knew what they were doing. None of these friends, one of them had been to my place. She moved out of town and then came back just for this trip. And the other two had never been here. So I had to give them really good instructions. and while we talk about that, I didn’t write this down. That’s actually, if you’ve been listening here long enough or listen to me in a on a presentation, I often talk about how your welcome sequence is like.

the Airbnb folder when you go to stay in a new city and they’re like, here’s what you need to get it acclimated. Like, here’s what the grocery store is, here’s what the coffee shop is, here’s how you can like make yourself feel at home. Here’s where the coffee is. Y’all, I got to do that. And so I have like this three page document where I just got to write out like Title’s quirks. Like, yeah, sometimes she throws up, but it’s not a big deal. If anything, send me a photo. Like it’s so down to the nitty gritty, all the way to like Trader Joe’s is really close by.

Or here are some walking trails that I highly recommend. And so it felt really loving for me to give them as much instruction as possible. And did any of them message me while I was back? Just one. One friend was like, I really can’t find the litter for Tilly. And I was like, I’ll walk you through it. And yeah, so like I got to do that for them. So they felt really comfortable staying in my space and didn’t feel like they couldn’t, you know, drink all the spindrift in the world that I have in the fridge. Like, please enjoy, please do that. Please do laundry while you’re here. All of these things.

So super fun. another thing, my last study that I went to was Barcelona. And I met a couple while we were touring the Sagrada Familia and I was in the English speaking group and there were so many of us. There were like 20 of us and we have our little headphones in where there’s this older couple. And you should just know that I get I either adopt someone or I get adopted very easily while while traveling or just in life. And this couple

Has a son, probably my age or a little bit younger, but they like kind of buddied up with me. I bind up with them. They’re from this French speaking part of my gosh, Canada. But it’s called Quebec, Quebec City, right? Or Montreal. So sorry if you’re a Canadian listener, I should know that. but it was really, really fun getting to hang out with them and we went up in the tower and all this, and it was so cute because they were like, we just need one more person. And like I easily could have gone up in the tower into the elevator and been that last person. But I looked at them.

And I was like, but you guys are my friends. And so I’m like, we are a group of three now. I’m not leaving you. And so we got to hang out with them. And then afterwards we got lunch. And this is the part I want to tell you about because it felt so weird to be in this city, to have this experience and to sit across from these wonderful people and be like, what do you do for work? Like as soon as it came out of my mouth, I was like, I don’t actually care. And I didn’t mean it as like I don’t care about them, but it was like we

We all had to like leave our travel vacation bodies and brains and think about our world back home. And it was like, it’s not that I don’t care. It’s just like to me, that is not the most important part of you. And it’s not the most important part of me. And we have these really fulfilling careers, perhaps, like Chantel is like part of, she’s like the head of the school boards.

It’s like a government position. Her husband drives a big rig and he showed me a photo. But the way it really took us out of our space was like, weird. I’m not going to ask that question to anybody else the whole rest of the trip because we are more than our work, even if it is really, really meaningful for us. So take that how you want. I hope that you know that as well, that your value and like contribution to society, while it is really helpful economically and to keep your family happy and fed and housed and all that.

It is not your whole whole being. There are so many other things. Like I spent hours with these people before I knew those things. And that is encouraging to me. And I hope it’s encouraging to you as well. So I have one thing that really made me think about work. Moving on to the next point. You couldn’t tell, but I flipped my piece of paper over. one thing that really made me think about work in particular was how much work it is to travel. Like there are

I sh was able to post and publish these beautiful ph photos of these places that I’ve been and things I got to see, like the coast, you know, the Riviera French Riviera and the Coliseum and all these things. But y’all, the photos don’t show the whole picture. And if you’ve ever traveled abroad or traveled like to a large city and did the travel thing, you’re like, I’m here to see all the things. you probably understand what I’m saying. And if you’ve traveled abroad

Or somewhere warm in the months of July or August, you really know what I mean. Y’all, there was sweat dripping down my body for just constantly. Like, and you’re just like, I’m just very aware that there’s there’s sweat dripping down the the side of my leg, or like my hands are clammy. Like there’s just there’s so much ick that happens on the trip. And you don’t see that in the photos.

And I’m not saying don’t go because you’re gonna be sweaty. I’m saying maybe don’t go in July. But like maybe save it for October. But I say that because there’s so many beautiful things that I got to see. And I had to go through some ick to see it. But also it makes me think about the work that we do for our clients because there’s so many decisions that go into our client projects. The clients don’t even

realize they don’t realize they’re going to get asked this question down the road. We’re not asking them all up front. We like to pace things out and just ask as things become necessary for the phase of the project. But there’s so much there. And it’s actually really funny whenever I have people on a discovery call with me, so potential clients, and they’re like, what about this? What about this? What about this? And they’re asking these questions. And and I’m just like, yes, yes to all of it. And we will ask you when it’s appropriate. Like, don’t worry. It’s already part of our process. We will ask you those things as they come up. And they go,

like, Allie and her team have already thought about it. Like, yes, me and my team have already thought about it and it’s baked in. But it just made me think of like, you know, not everything that looks really pretty either comes easily or happens just like out of happenstance. There’s a lot on the back end. There’s a lot of logistics planning a trip. There’s a lot of discomfort that can happen, actually getting to the place you need to go. Y’all, I wrote down a few things. Yes, the sweat, I’m sweating.

Constantly. Like my friend Morgan and I were like, I think I’ve sweat through my clothes 13 times today. Like we just shower often and then like go to dinner and then do it all again the next day. There’s that, but also like waiting twenty minutes for a train. It doesn’t feel good. You’re like, but I’m on vacation. What is this? What is this downtime? And this like less than ideal location. I don’t really want to be standing in the sun waiting for a train for 20 minutes when it’s this hot out. Right. And like you get a little grumpy.

You could get a little grumpy, but the view was really nice. So I’m like reminding myself, I’m like, y’all, that is the Mediterranean Sea. Like to y’all being myself. Allie, y’all’s inside of you need to just chill. don’t freak out as much. And there was also another place that when we got out of a train, we had to walk we had to walk like seven minutes to this stairwell and then what would it be? Like another six or seven minutes, just straight up steps.

And we’re like, okay, we are built to do hard things. We can do hard things. and we did it. And we got this beautiful pesto, delicious pesto, and calamari and a beer, and it was so, so good. And we did reward ourselves with gelato for the walk down and back to the train because it was a lot. So I say all that because while things in Europe or wherever you might be traveling are really beautiful, they’re still really unfamiliar.

So, like I don’t ever expect my clients to know the ins and outs of email marketing. I spend all day there. I I live in that city and I have the expectation and then the muscle memory for getting up those steps six minutes straight, just straight up in the heat. Like, and that’s where I’m really happy that we get to provide that ease for our clients because we’ve already done all the thinking and planning for them. So a lot of times clients will ask us, like, how much of your client work do we need? Like, how how much of my time do you need?

And honestly, it’s not that much, especially for as much as we’re accomplishing. And that’s a gift that I love to offer to our clients as being the expert on the area, you know, the the things that we’re doing. And also giving them the piece of like, you just get to see the pretty parts, really. Like, yeah, we need you to copy edit something or answer a few questions. But our hope is that you don’t have to feel like you’re pulling teeth to get it done or that you’re waiting forever in the sun at a bus stop, things like that. So

With that, okay, I think we’re ready to talk about my trip. All right. I’m so excited. So I went for three weeks. I think it ended up being 20 days total with travel days. And here, I’m just gonna I’m just gonna rattle off my favorite things. Okay. So I went to Rome first. Rome was incredible. We did, I did the touristy things, and I was only there for two and a half days. So I do want to go back and not be quite as touristy. That would be really great and just meander.

A little bit more. but it was because it was huge. It was huge. And then we’re like, do we take the fifteen minute walk to get the bus that’ll get us there? Or do we just walk 35 minutes? And we’re like, we’ll just walk 35 minutes. I got over 21,000 steps that day. It was wild. We went to the Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica, we went to some park that had a view of the whole city. We went to the Spanish steps. We went to the Trippy Fountain and we took the metro home and then I passed out. So my favorites, however, was doing a food tour. I did the a food tour of the Jewish ghetto.

And so that was really cool because I got history and food right away. And I was at with a group of Americans. They were a mom and two daughters and me and our tour guide Francesca. It was phenomenal. And then the morning that I left, my friend and I did Vespa tour rides at 7 a.m. And it was so cool. This is like still one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. It’s getting to zip around on Vespas, not just through Rome, but to parts of Rome that tourists don’t go to. So like

A gigantic fountain, just like the trebu fountain. There was literally no one there. And then from that fountain, you had an entire view of the city. We went to an orange garden grove. We went to this like we just we got to go to these vistas, if you will, and also got a little bit of history and culture as our guides drove us to the city. It was really, really awesome. So we did that for an hour and a half and I got a sweet video of me riding this best button around, just like you see it coming into view. It’s just the Coliseum.

you know, natural, natural things. I also got to see the Sistine Chapel. And that was kind of just surreal. You’re like, this picture that I’ve always seen is just one of many on this this beautiful building. And then my friend Morgan and I also climbed the coppola, the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. I will say I miss Italian cafes so much. So much. So you walk in, usually you’re standing. You’re just drinking a

cup of espresso, little shot of espresso, and you have your croissant and you eat them and then you pay and you leave. And I honestly I love the efficiency. At first I was like, this is so heartless. Like Francesca, the toy guide, was telling us about how she’s like, Yeah, my friends and I will meet for coffee, but it takes like five to ten minutes. And I was like, where I’m from, we’ll talk for two hours. so, but I really do miss it now. All right, then I moved to Florence, much smaller city, much easier to get around. Everything is like twelve minutes tops to get to.

And I loved the wide open plaza and just the city itself. I was like, I could walk around this forever and ever. Just pop into little towns. I definitely could see myself going back. I got a beautiful piece of artwork from an older gentleman named what is it? Dowdy. His name is Dowdy. And he wrapped up my artwork. He was a street vendor. It was beautiful paint work and it’s of the Duomo.

And so he wrapped it up. He cut up a cardboard box to, you know, put it, line it on both sides and then wrapped it in this paper. And I was like, I’m not opening this till I get back to Nashville. And so really excited to get that onto my walls. It’s gorgeous. while we were there, we also did a Tuscan wine tour. So we got to get out of town and see the countryside. And we had a wonderful tour guide and met some really nice people who were also there as well. And the wine was great, but I really do love getting to see the countryside of different of different places.

Then I don’t know if you follow me on Instagram, we had a a video go viral and it’s from a rooftop bar that was in Florence. I had just teased this American couple next to me, this this newly white couple. They’ve been traveling for like two weeks and they were like, whatever, we don’t we’re not in our little bubble, we’re fine-making friends. But this guy, Steve, ordered a some sort of drink, but they literally rolled out a cauldron and scooped it up for him. And I was like, my gosh, how embarrassing, Steve. We’re gonna make it all about you. then they literally brought me this drink that was smoking.

And there’s like all this like fanfare of like, you ready for me to take off the lid? And all the smoke came out. And I just I had to laugh because I had to eat my words. I was like, make it all about you, Allie. But there’s a video for that that my assistant Tina published and posted. I do want to say, one of even my good girlfriends here in Nashville were like, Yeah, but you worked, you were busy posting on Instagram. And I was like, You should know that I was not. I was recording content and sharing it to a shared Google folder like album with

my marketing assistant and let her post everything. So everything you saw, like she and I talked a little bit about certain trends that she could use from the content before I left on my trip. But it was all all Tina. And I gotta give her props for that. Especially this video that had like 26,000 views last time I looked. So if you wanna follow me on Instagram, it’s at allegrammer dot com A L L E A G R U E R T. So not helpful if I say it that fast. I know.

Then we went to La Spezia, which is still in Italy, and it’s like a port city that’s close to the Cinquatera, which stands for Fa it means five lands. And it’s these five different coastal towns. And there’s a train that goes between all of them, and you can just hop on and off. And my favorite part is that it’s a national park. I just absolutely love that it’s being preserved and like we’re paying the national park in order to use the train. It was really, really cool. And every city, every each of the towns was really different. But a couple of things that were my favorite is the colors.

Colors of these buildings. It’s like a sherbet pie, just like slices of. I don’t nobody makes sherbet pie. It’s not a thing I made it up. But there’s like almost like these sherbet y colors on the buildings, and it’s just so delightful to see. And in one of the cities, the one where we hiked up so far to get to it, that’s where I saw two cats. I saw one in one of the towns, another one in that town. And there’s a white cat who has missing an ear, and her name is Nona.

Which they had to have renamed her because she couldn’t have always been a grandma. But she was twenty-two years old in seven months when we were there. So she deserved the title of Nona. Then we moved to Nice for six days. And I will say the best part about that is that I learned about beach clubs. You can like rent a sunbed, and it comes with like a cushion and a towel and a little umbrella, and you can order iced coffee or whatever, and they bring it to you, and it’s really not that expensive, especially like we just did it three days over the week. And I

Loved it. So I had my Kindle. I read my book. And it was so, so nice. And then the last evening that I was there, Jenny and I, she was the friend who was still with me at the time. We walked 30 minutes along the coast to our snorkel event. We’d signed up for a group class for snorkeling. And not only that, so we’re snorkeling off of the coast of France. So fine. It’s just normal talk. it’s not.

But we also had what they call sea scooters. So it’s like a little motorized handheld thing that you hold under the water. It floats if it needs to, but you hold it under the water, push a button, and you can just Mario Kart your way around the top of the water and just see all the wonderful, beautiful things under sea under the sea. And I saw this fish that was silver on just like pure silver. I was like, You are gorgeous. And like blues and yellows. And our tour guide, our snorkel guide or whatever, he even went down and grabbed

A mollusk and like put it on our hands. And it like got to the point that it stayed on my hand. If I tipped it over, it would have stayed. It was just so stinking cool. And absolutely love the beauty of it all. And really, really grateful I got to see that. Last city was Barcelona. And I was there solo for the rest of my trip. And I had two really big highlights. We’ll go with those. One is the Sagrada Familia, which has 10 more years until it’s completely done.

I just need you to look it up. Anthony Gowdy is now my like architect crush. Like it’s wonky and it’s weird and it’s so freaking cool because every old church I’ve ever walked into in Europe is like dark and cold and like straight lines. And Gowdy, when you walk in, all of these gigantic pillars are like tree trunks. And at the top they kind of like turn into these like branches. And it’s really, really cool. But not only that, but he uses so much natural light.

Like they have like these little lights at the very, very top of the room that could never be enough to light the whole place. But they have this he has these beautiful stained glass windows. So go look at that. It’s incredible. In ten years it’ll be finished. It has been under construction for one hundred and forty years. That’s why it’s a big deal that it’s almost done. And yeah, I got to go up into one of the towers with my Canadian couple friend and see it from a pie and see Barcelona from a pie. And that was on on my first full day there.

And then the other big thing is that I got to go to Montserrat, which is a mountain range, if you will, small mountain range, outside of Barcelona, like an hour outside. And it’s called Montserrat, which kind of sounds like serrated. The mountain itself is wickedly cool. You’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know how to tell you. but we were supposed to climb, we were supposed to hike, but it was too hot and too dry in the national park, turn it down, shut it down for the day. So we got to take a cable car to the top and take it all in. There’s a monastery up there.

But I would just say I was between the Sagrada familia and that, I was just walking around like in awe of like how does this even exist? So those were two major highlights. And then out of the whole trip, because everyone has asked, Barcelona has the best food. Like, not just Barcelona, probably just Spain. But man, I could live for some tapas. Like if you have a lightly breaded croquette with cheese and some ham, just just put me there. Come back and check on me later. That’s all I need. That’s all I need. and then

I would say Barcelona is also the place that I would go back to. By that point in my travels, I was kind of done doing all the big touristy things. And so there’s definitely stuff I could go back and do there. Some more. All right. That’s my wrap up on my three-week trip to Italy, France, and Spain. Thank you for listening along. Thank you for being part of the duet community. If you’re a client listening to this, thank you for being patient with, you know, with our team and for, I don’t know.

being part of our world and we love to be able to serve you. And I n love knowing that I could check my computer six times over three weeks and my team had it taken care of. So I hope you felt cared for as well. as well as I felt cared for by my team. And if you’re new here, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. if you want to follow me on Instagram, I can include the link in the show notes. And yeah.

I hope to be publishing photos with this podcast so you can get an idea of everything that I got to see and do. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll talk soon.

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