If you’re just finding us… Elle and I left on Oct 6th for South Florida. Then made our way up the East coast to Maryland (“The Eastern Shore“) Spent a few days with Elle’s parents then off to New York to catch a flight to Milan Italy. Elle has also written about this here.
It’s been an interesting journey. Dealing with simple things like money –oh, so your American Express card is no good in Italy. Apparently its not everywhere I want to be. And rental cars, though we were clever enough to rent from an Italian carrier we missed the bit on having an international drivers license. So no car from them :(. The next best clever rate was twice as much. Still less than half of any of the rates you’ll find online, but still.
So with money and transportation we began our exploration. The first thing I notice is the flow of traffic. I notice this in any city and since it’s kind of the first thing you do. Oh, wait! Actually it was the FOOD. There was a butcher and a bakery in a grocery store INSIDE the airport. REAL food. Thought out, given attention. Pride.
Then it was the traffic. The way cars move together. They way they are close. The way there are sometimes no lines and people make up three lanes. Then merge into one without even thinking about it. We just flow together. And, the roundabouts actually work here.
We have been in Italia for 4 days and yesterday I began to feel some sadness. As I explore missing my children and the feeling I realize I’m touching a bit of feeling disconnected. Everywhere we have gone we speak little Italian and so we hadn’t connected with people as much as I like to.
Until last night, we stayed with a young Italian named Davide. He was an incredible host: funny, well spoken and gracious. Great reflection. We connected and ended up staying up way past my bedtime. At 2:AM we finished this silly-one-letter-at-a-time poem game. Does this game have a name? Davide if you are reading, “Thanks 100”!
Okay more later. We are off to Zurich!