I promised myself I would blog about my trip to Italy during the entire month that I was gone and I never got the chance until the evening before I leave, and once again time is short because off to dinner I go in a hour. There just never seems enough time to get things done here, and it doesn’t matter at all. There is no stress, you just get used to doing less in the day. I wouldn’t change a thing because it’s not procrastination, it’s the way it is here. You just can’t jam as much in a day here as you can in the states. The reason is simple. Between the hours of 1:30 and 4:00 most people are not working. Though that is slowly changing, like most of Italy is….
The 30 days went by quickly. I travelled from up in the very accessible towns in the north to remote villages of Calabria in the deep south. I took the train once roundtrip Parma-Milano. It was relaxing, easy and cheap. But getting around Italy they way I needed to required a car. I put 2765 miles on the car… This time I rented a GPS. I programmed a male voice to speak to me in Italian. More than once it would say “tornate in dietro quando potete” (turn around and go back when you can) but without it I would have been hassling with MapQuest like I have in the past and would have made even more mistakes! From now on I will always have a GPS when travelling in Italy…
Most people looked at this trip as if it were a vacation. I am really wondering if my vacation days in Italy are over. I come here to work now. Sure there is plenty of pleasure. Its ALWAYS a pleasure for me to be in this wonderful country. However there is plenty of work, not mention the driving I have to do.
I see Italy differently than most Americans, except probably those that live here. It’s another home for me. Wrought with her tribulations and splendid in her achievements, there is no place I’d rather be. Many of my Italian friends see it differently and wish they could leave to a place where bureaucracy and taxes are less strangling on the economy and financial freedom. I remind them that leaving Italy means leaving an incredible culture that exists nowhere else in the world, and that in no time they would be looking to hook up RAI (Italian TV) on a satellite or to purchase MADE IN ITALY products in stores.
I posted a pictorial history on my Face Book fan page www.facebook.com/oliveoiloftheworld . Tell me what you think of the food that you see or the countryside that I visited. In the meantime I think I’ll relax back with a cup of coffee….




