I am ready to go home. I know that is not something you are supposed to say when you are in a beautiful foreign country like Italy, but it's how I feel. I have been here for 80 days and I am simply ready to spend time with my family and have a room that is really mine and be in my own bed with my new pillows that I got for Christmas, and cook in my own kitchen, and simply be home. The thing about home is that it is were everything is familiar and you come to know what to expect, especially from those who you are closest to. After nearly three months here I still don't know what to expect each day from Mike or Cristina, or Ale or the baby. Their moods, reactions, assumptions, and feelings are still in many ways a mystery to me and it's tiring trying to read them all the time.
There are so many thing that are different here but one of the main ones is the hospitality. Both of my parents, but especially my mom, have taught me a great lesson in this area. They always have an open door to the house. And what's even better is that they LOVE it when people stop by. They love meeting my friends and putting names with faces. My mom would take in anyone. Once I called to ask if I could invite a girl home for Christmas who had no place to go. Before I even asked my mom suggested that I bring her home with me. She then went on to say that if needed she would personally call this girl to invite her, and that she would do some shopping to make sure that the girl had presents under the tree to celebrate. This melted my heart and although it did not come as a surprise, amazed me how generous and open hearted my parents are. Mike and Cristina are great people but they just do not have the same mindset. They plan on having me take the bus from Bergamo to Milan to the airport, instead of taking me themselves. This would be unheard of in my family. It saddens me somewhat to think that they don't want to take me to the airport to see me off but I keep telling myself that this is a different culture and that not everyone sees things the same way but it is difficult.
My experience has been great but now I am ready to be home. As Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz says, "there's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's not place like home."
Love from Liberty,
Peggy
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
My New Time Waster
Oh my gosh! I have to tell you about me new time waster. I have discovered Pinterest! It's like reading a blog that gets updated every few seconds and instead of having to read through long paragraphs it is just pictures! And one of the best parts about it is that it automatically gives credit to the original website so if I really want to read more I can just follow the link. I have already found so many great ideas that I can't wait to try. But maybe I am getting ahead of my self. Let me explain.
Pinterest is a website that allows you to catalog ideas, kind of like a creative scrapbook. Instead of ripping out the recipe in a magazine you can "pin it" to a "board" and come back to it later. It's kind of like being able to look at all your bookmarks at the same time. I also love that you can look through other people's boards and repin to your own. Because people are constantly updating it is easy to spend a lot of time on the site just looking at pretty things.
The only downfall I have seen so far is that you have to be "invited" to join, and there is currently a waiting list. And so while I have not been accepted yet I have been doing lots of looking at other's boards and can't wait to start working on my own!
Love from Liberty,
Peggy
Pinterest is a website that allows you to catalog ideas, kind of like a creative scrapbook. Instead of ripping out the recipe in a magazine you can "pin it" to a "board" and come back to it later. It's kind of like being able to look at all your bookmarks at the same time. I also love that you can look through other people's boards and repin to your own. Because people are constantly updating it is easy to spend a lot of time on the site just looking at pretty things.
The only downfall I have seen so far is that you have to be "invited" to join, and there is currently a waiting list. And so while I have not been accepted yet I have been doing lots of looking at other's boards and can't wait to start working on my own!
Love from Liberty,
Peggy
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Insert Creative Title Here
Before I begin this post can I just confess that I hate trying to think of clever post titles. On the other hand I also hate boring and obvious blog titles so you see the problem. Today I am just not able to think of a creative title so sorry about that. I also apologize for my long absence. I don't even have the excuse that nothing has happened because lots has happened. Today I am really tired so this will be a short post but I hope it will make you smile.
Recently I went to a bus tour of Europe. It was an amazing experience a you can look forward to more stories about this experience soon. One of the funniest things that happened was on my way back from London to Milan. In Holland I bought a pair of traditional Dutch clogs (you know the wooden shoes?). They were so fun I couldn't resist. The down side of this is that they are pretty heavy and take up a lot of space. I flew on a very cheap airline and because of this they only allow one piece of hand luggage. This means that your purse or laptop has to fit in the hand luggage, or in my case my wooden shoes. Well I simply did not have room for anything else in my hand luggage and was at the maximum weight limit as well. So to "cheat the system" so to speak, I wore my regular shoes all the way to the gate carrying my clogs. Then at the gate I switched my shoes and wore my clogs onto the plane. This was surely a site to see as I had never before walked in the wooden shoes and to make it even better you had to actually walk outside to the plane and climb the stairs onto the airplane. And when I landed I had to carefully make my way down the stairs in these shoes and to the baggage claim before I could switch back to my regular shoes. I got many stares and weird looks but I got the clogs back and did not have to pay and extra fee so in all I feel it was a successful plan.
On another note, in exactly two weeks from today I will be home! The time has gone by so fast I can't believe that it is almost over. I have so much more I want to share from the trip but it will have to wait until later because I desperately need a nap.
Love from Liberty,
Peggy
Recently I went to a bus tour of Europe. It was an amazing experience a you can look forward to more stories about this experience soon. One of the funniest things that happened was on my way back from London to Milan. In Holland I bought a pair of traditional Dutch clogs (you know the wooden shoes?). They were so fun I couldn't resist. The down side of this is that they are pretty heavy and take up a lot of space. I flew on a very cheap airline and because of this they only allow one piece of hand luggage. This means that your purse or laptop has to fit in the hand luggage, or in my case my wooden shoes. Well I simply did not have room for anything else in my hand luggage and was at the maximum weight limit as well. So to "cheat the system" so to speak, I wore my regular shoes all the way to the gate carrying my clogs. Then at the gate I switched my shoes and wore my clogs onto the plane. This was surely a site to see as I had never before walked in the wooden shoes and to make it even better you had to actually walk outside to the plane and climb the stairs onto the airplane. And when I landed I had to carefully make my way down the stairs in these shoes and to the baggage claim before I could switch back to my regular shoes. I got many stares and weird looks but I got the clogs back and did not have to pay and extra fee so in all I feel it was a successful plan.
On another note, in exactly two weeks from today I will be home! The time has gone by so fast I can't believe that it is almost over. I have so much more I want to share from the trip but it will have to wait until later because I desperately need a nap.
Love from Liberty,
Peggy
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