Another adventure in the planning… that’s what my life is all about. There are always new places to be discovered, new cities to be explored and new friends to make. This time, it’s Spain and Italy that I have chosen to discover. Spain, for the first time, with a return to Italy where, five years ago, I vowed to return. The story begins…
One day in the spring of 2015 I was contemplating my upcoming 65th birthday. Well, upcoming in 2016 but a girl’s gotta plan things in advance, right? I knew I wanted to return to Italy and remembered the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun. The film follows a recently divorced writer who buys a villa in Tuscany and hopes her life will be changed forever. I didn’t need to change my life forever and didn’t want to buy a villa, but I wanted to spend a year there and experience the culture and people. Then, I got into the real world! Not likely I could go for a year but perhaps a month and then perhaps another month somewhere else. I had a plan and now to figure out how to make it come to fruition.
First, I would need to find someone to come with me and while getting my hair cut by my dear friend Joey, I mentioned the trip to her. She nodded and said it sounded like fun but didn’t expound so I didn’t pursue it. A couple of days later, she called and asked if I had found anyone to go with me and if not, she would be delighted to go. Step one accomplished. We decided on a month in Spain and one in Italy with Valencia and Florence as our home ports.
So began a year of planning, googling, reading, making decisions, booking flights, tours, and hotels. Everything is now in order but no trip comes without its frustrations and anxieties. We had our flights and hotels booked when just 3 days ago, our flight home from Florence was cancelled and we had to make all kinds of alternate flights, arriving a day early and not getting to spend a night in Paris as we had wanted. I had to re-book my flight from Vancouver to Edmonton also but it’s all part of the adventure, right?
I have been asked by many of my friends to post pictures and keep them up to date on our trip so I decided to do this blog as an easy way to write to everyone. I’m not savvy on this stuff so with the help of my son, Jason, this is my attempt. I hope you will follow me and perhaps experience some of what we will experience over the next two months. See you when I get home.
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