And So This DOES Come to an End!

November 25, 2010

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I have said this blog was over, and I really thought that I was through writing about my trip to Italy and Spain. And I really meant it! But then I would think about some more things I wanted to add. But this WILL be my final post-for this blog at least! I am clearly back from Rome and Sardinia and Spain....
I returned home four weeks ago yesterday. On November 5th, I had foot surgery on my left foot (at least I can drive!), so my “re-entry” was slowed a bit. There was three months of mail to go through, although I had paid most of my bills on line while I was away. I needed to (quickly) get out my winter clothing and put away the clothes I had lived in for three months. (I am still delighted that I had a minimalist wardrobe for the smallest “wheelie” suitcase in a four piece set! Its weight hovered around 33 pounds to stay within the Ryanair requirements. My one carry-on weighed roughly fifteen pounds, although it was only weighed for one flight of the six Ryanair flights.)
Writing my blog helped me to remember most of what I had seen and done while I was away, as well as sharing my travels with friends and family. (I did forget to include the sad turtles I saw-one was on Sardinia trying to climb up onto the sidewalk, and the other was in Aquilas crossing the street on the way to the Cope beach. I used a Google template, although I was late to learn that I could see how many people where following my escapades, as well as where they lived. I still don’t know who in Korea was reading it, but the statistics information was really interesting. I loved everyone’s comments and emails giving me feedback! It is too bad the Comment section is not too user-friendly, however!
I’ve heard back from some of the friends which I made along the way, so that has been great! I love to think that we might meet up again and share travel stories and a glass of wine! Francesca’s later Couch Surfing friends are benefitting from the Sardinia travel book which I left with her, as I lightened my load. Gloria’s husband has suffered from major heart attacks and surgeries on Tenerife, but his recovery sounds most promising. He will be home in early December. Kathy, our next door neighbor in Aguilas, is back home in Glouceseter, England, which she says is COLD, but their return to Aguilas is scheduled.
Before I had left in August, I had talked with someone in the Newton Adult Ed program. So shortly after I returned home, I lead a two hour session at the Newton Adult Education program on Vacation Home Exchanges. Thirteen people signed up for it, although only eight people actually came. One of the first woman who came to the class said, "I've been so looking forward to this class ever since I read about it in the catalogue! I've always wanted to do this, but I wanted more information!" That was a great start, and I was delighted. So I've been contacting other cities and towns in the area who have similar programs to see if they might like to add this to their program. At this point, it looks like six other communities are interested! However, I was cautioned that some of them do not get a good response for adult programs....In any event, I've decided to blog about what I've learned about Vacation Home Exchanges...at http://AtoZofVacationHomeExchanges.blogspot.com! It will not be limited to home exchanges, I am sure I will digress and talk about other travel topics, but I especially want to share my vacation home exchange experiences. I hope you will check out that blog also. Thank you very much for following my wonderful trip with me!

Last post on Wednesday

Ending a blog is not easy...there always is just one more thing to say! AND it does mean that my wonderful trip is REALLY OVER! So my last post will be on Wednesday, as that will mark my fourth week at home! For all my countdowns before I left, I've not counted much now that I'm home! (But I am looking to future trips!) Ten days after I returned, I had foot surgery on my left foot. Everything has gone well, and I'll be driving with a boot until December 16th!
Thanks for coming back...see you on Wednesday!

PS.My notes from the train as I left Venice

I had forgotten to add these notes which I made on my Blackberry on the six hour train trip from Venice to Rome the day befiore I left....


So I watch Italy fly by f 6 person comprt. Many tunnels block the view. Makes my ears pop a bit. Andy&Megan, Ping, Marco. Really wonderful to have made this jy. Firenze, Bologna, Padua, Maestre, Arezzo at 5:12, Did I ever hear of Arezzo before? Rigutino. Camucia. We don't even slow down as we pass Castilon. We stop at Terontola. That is ter-on-tola. Panicale.
Chiusi-Chianciano Terme.(Conductor called out Chiusi ChiaTerm) Hope I can find place nr Termini for big plate of pasta but may just head to the airport.
Very flat here. Evergree tree farms. Fields brown & raked & quiet unil nxt year. Lovely cloud formatns advertise sunny days ahead. People walkg home f work. Lvs on trees show foliage colors of reds & yellows& rust. Another conductor checks my ticket . Flat fields fly by.
laundry dryg on balconies filled w chairs&plants&misc things to make living easier.
Sun has come out to say goodbye!
Countryside, rivers, rushg streams
Hills, acres or hectares of vineyards
Waitg for harvest! Parallel to highways. Church steeples. I'm hanging on to remember it all-miss nothing! On top of the trees.another long tunnel. Ugly power wires! Subaru Forester in a field looks abandoned, but too new to have been.
Man w cart walks by callg out misc food items for sale. Can only make out cappicino f mumble. Vendors at the ballpark are far more articulate. His enunciation lvs MUCH to be desired!plus sm box of candy was €2.50!

Now it is time to reflect. Look forward; look back! 70 is just a number. "I thought you said she was 70!"
Every big trip is the trip of a lifetime!
Takg pix need to go to camera shop to see why it doesn't do what I think it should! So I'm defly nearly home thinkg that way!
Gamey fellow travellers crowded into this compartmt now! Most of them are sleepg.
SPECTACULAR SUN! After2 gray days of rain le sol e bellesimo!
The electronic traveller w head phone, Blackberries, ubiquitous mobile phone.
On the other hand I truly can not get on the plane soon enough tomorrow!
I've got my Kindle out & have read some of Crime & Punishmt but also Ca Rezzonico book which is only major tourist purchase I made. So if Kindle loses power I can read my tourist book.
I've abt another 90 minutes on the train and luckily it is till light. I DO want to make this last! Interstg to watch wires dip as we pass them. Are they electrical wires? Man ridg a white horse. And I'm sittg backwards. Tough now to keep my eyes open. Towerr w 7-8 levels to climb alongside tracks for? "I'm king of the castle?"
FAST train way over on another set of tracks.
Now a bit over an hour to Roma!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

October 29, 2010

Tuesday morning-"going away day"-in Venice I woke up to an overcast day with forecast of 20% chance of rain. I walked around the corner to a bakery for some pastries for breakfast. The whole area was alive with street vendors of fish and fruit and vegetables and ladies with their shopping bags buying dinner for the night. It was fun to see!
I left Joan and Blake and her great niece Lacey about noon to tour Venice, and I walked over to the train station for my 1:07 train to Rome. It had been a lovely visit with Joan, and wonderful to see Blake again; she has just settled into her own apartment in Castlenaudry, which is near Carcassone. Joan and I had stayed with Blake when we went on the barge trip in Holland four years agon. Staying with Joan for the last leg of my trip was perfect, as she and I had planned our trips for two years!
My seat on the train was in a six person compartment. I LOVE trains! When I arrived, Megan and Andy from Portland, Oregon, were already there. He’s starting a graduate program in January, so he can teach middle school. They’ve another month before they head home; they had already seen much of Europe! Then Ping from southern China got on; she had been studying architecture in London for a year. They were all headed to Florence for a few days. Lastly Marco, who had just taken his exams for a doctorate in biomedical engineering, got on, and he also was going to Rome, where he lives. His English was quite good-although he didn’t think so. It was an interesting conversation to learn where the travelers had gone and were going! When they left, four native Italians got on, and then there was little conversation, unless one of them was on their cellphone!
The trip was really quite scenic...the picture happened to get the reflections of Andy, Megan, and sleeping Marco against the Italian countryside flying by.
Once I got to the Termini train station, I opted to go directly over to the airport. I was going to stay with Rita, the couch surfer I’d had lunch with near the Vatican, but that didn’t materialize. I had emailed the Hotel Milo where Shona had stayed, but I didn’t make a reservation, and I didn’t want to walk over there in the dark…it was the train station area, after all! With my history of all nighters to write term papers or study for exams in college, I was fine with “camping out” at the airport to be able to check in at 8AM. I sat near a couple and asked if they spoke English, and they did! They live in Kitchener, Ontario, and they were surprised to know that I had heard of it! They were very pleasant, retired Spanish teachers who love to travel; they said they were happy for the company to pass the time!? (The Canadians are so polite!) They left at 6:30, so I sat with them until they went to check in. (And it was good to be able to leave my suitcase on the free trolley with them rather than drag into the ladies' room!) Then I struck up a conversation with a couple from Renton, WA. They had spent a week with his brother in southern Italy; they were flying to Amsterdam followed by a ten hour flight back to Seattle. He said he was a life-long Celtics fan; he thought they were the best basketball team...harking back to the '50's and '60's. I could only nod my head, since I've never followed professional basketball. I did acknowledge that I am a "fair weather" Red Sox fan!
There were at least 100 people in the small area where I was in Terminal 3, and they all looked to be travelers with bags. However, there seemed to be a lot of people who were sleeping there that were probably homeless; they had no bags and were sleeping up on ledges and stretched out on chairs. Some of them had umbrellas they rigged up to keep the bright lights off them. (I had noticed one of the men of this group earlier picking cigarettes out of the trash.) Many were gone by 5ish.
Workers were repairing the elevators that night, so there was a lot of banging as well as welding going on throughout the night! Fast food restaurants started to open at 5:30, but one had been open all night, which was where I had bought my "dinner" of two slices of pizza and beer. I was actually pretty surprised-and disappointed-to learn that fast food restaurants were the only options, but then this was outside the check-in area. And yes, this included a McDonald’s!
I was able to check in about 7:30, and home was getting closer! We were late taking off, so we arrived in Boston 45 minutes late. Because of my very limited amount of sleep the night before, I did sleep on the plane. Melissa picked me up, and I'm not sure who was happier to see whom?!
And so now, I am home...doing what it takes to re-enter the world I left on August 4th. Getting back on the east coast clock, laundry, restocking the larder, going through three months' accumulation of mail, picking up my winter clothes at the cleaner, catching up with friends and family and real estate.... Luckily I arrived home in wonderfully warm weather, but the forecast of colder weather reinforces that I am indeed no longer in Spain....Looking out my living room window at the turning leaves of rusts and reds and browns, I TRY to think about all that I have learned and seen and done on my 2010 trips...it is really a wonderful kaleidescope of memories and experiences. So I will savor it all over and over until it is time to plan the next trip!

Visiting Ca Rezzonico on a Rainy day in Venice

October 25, 2010
When I knew I was coming to Venice, I decided I especially wanted to see Ca Rezzonico, because Robert Browning had lived there in his later years. (The English major is alive and living!) So this was our destination this morning! We were decked out in water-proof boots to protect us against aqua alta or high water, caused by full moon and barometric pressure. There is a closet full of boots here, and fortunately there was a pair of size 44 to fit me! We walked over there, and the rain started shortly after we started out. It took us about 45 minutes, as it was not a “straight” line there, but, then little is in Venice!

Ca Rezzonico is also called Mueso del Settecento Veneziano or museum of the 18th century. Originally owned by the wealthy Rezzonico family in the 1700’s, it is a grand old palazzo filled with ornate furniture and paintings and works of arts by many famous artists.
We could not take pictures inside, but could take some looking outside and the courtyard. One of my favorite things was an amazing and very detailed chandelier made of Murano glass! (It is pictured on the website.) We each got an audioguide, and learned a lot about the period. NEVER was there a word about the Brownings living here! Rick Steves had said it would take about 90 minutes, and that was how long it took us!

Afterwards we tried to find a jazz club, but by the time we found it-it was closed, and we were really starving. The website had said it opened for lunch. So we stopped at a small osteria on our way for tasty salad and gorgonzola piazza! It WAS faster to get home, and we hurried to stay as dry as possible! My really POOR umbrella bought in Verona for €5 wasn’t too good by the end of Verona, but now about four ribs are broken!
Joan’s friend Blake and her grandniece are arriving shortly from France, so I will see them tonight for dinner, and perhaps we’ll get to Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the morning, before I catch the 1:00PM train to Rome, in preparation for my 10AM flight on Wednesday.

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And on to Venice!!!

October 24, 2010
It was an easy, uneventful flight from Alicante to Rome yesterday, but I was a bit surprised when the Ryanair jet I stepped off was the only plane on the tarmac! I had forgotten that there were two airports in Venice. Luckily there was a bus to Venice everyone piled onto! I took the vaporetto to Guglie, where Joan met me.
One of the biggest perks of travelling solo is the interesting people you meet along the way. On my way to the Alicante airport I had a very nice chat with a young man from Holland who had been in Alicante for three nights. Then on the airplane to Venice, I took a window seat so I could see-or try to-see Venice as we flew in. The couple sitting next to me was from Alicante. Unfortunately they didn’t speak much English-better than my Spanish, of course! And Spanish-English my dictionary was in my suitcase! But we limped along to communicate. I told them about home exchanges, and they invited me to their house, if I return to Spain! (They don’t know my mantra, “Don’t invite me, I will come!”) They have three grown sons, and she told me all about them.
Today Joan and I took the train to Verona, an hour away. The weather was predicted to be 20% rain, but we had barely arrived, and it started to rain. For €8 we bought a Verona Pass, and we visited the Torre dei Lamberti, Teatro Romano (wonderful), Arena (3rd largest Roman arena), Chiesa di S. Anastasia, and the Duomo.
On our way into the city, we passed about 50 Lamborghinis, which appeared to be ready for a parade of some sort. As we walked to the Duomo, we heard singing, and we ducked into the door it was coming from. It was a church service in progress, and all parishioners were black. We stayed long enough to hear some speaking in English, so they were African, in all likelihood.
We took the train back earlier than we’d planned, as we were wet enough to call it a day-delightful as it had been!