Our final full day in Rome was packed with plans.  We hit the buffet then cabbed to the Vatican, where we met our tour guide Rahul.  He was full of four hours of historical and cultural information lightly seasoned with cheesy jokes.  One thing that I wrote down later was his description of the panel in the Sistine Chapel ceiling in which God creates Adam.  The characters besides Adam in the panel (God, Eve, etc.) are held in a structure that has been interpreted to be, among other things I’m sure, a brain, uterus, or heart.  Why did that stand out to me?  A year later, I can only guess.  But since I’ve known myself awhile, I’d have to say that it reminded me of the different ways people approach God: head vs heart; or the different ways people approach creativity: scientifically (brain), intuitively/feelings-based (heart), laboriously (uterus).  Only Michelangelo knows for sure.

After checking out the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica (which included a worship room and time to kneel and pray), we headed to the Spanish steps and ate lunch nearby at an outdoor cafe.  Then we shopped for a little while (I picked up a fake Gucci and an apron printed with David’s anatomy for my sister’s birthday–only the best) and headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for dinner.

We thought it would be a short night: the Spaniards that A. had met in Positano at the club had not gotten in touch; and P.’s friend-of-a-friend who was supposed to meet up with us texted her that me might not make it.  So we walked to the Pantheon and picked a spot outside for dinner, resigned to an uneventful evening.  But during our meal, A. and P. both heard from their boys, and we made the group decision to stay up all night and make the most of our last few hours in Rome.  Let’s hear it for healthy choices!

P.’s friend arrived with another dude who had a motorcycle, and I immediately got excited (about the bike, not the dude).  We headed over to Trastevere with our new Italian friends to meet the Spaniards.  So international.  We managed to grab a shot of tequila before our first bar stop closed, then headed to an outdoor bar just outside the city (a spot near the Pyramid).  I managed to talk myself into a motorcycle ride through Rome, which was just as exciting as my Siena adventure.  Except for the dismount, which I attempted before receiving instructions on how to do it properly.  So I showed up at the bar with a nice tailpipe-burn on my calf.  (It took over a month to heal and left a heart-shaped scar.  I think it ROCKS.)  Once we got drinks and settled in at the bar, people started pairing off and having kissy fun.  P. and I were the last girls to leave and arrived by taxi at our hotel just as the sun was rising.  We busted in on the other girls in our rooms and were greeted with a litany of tales, one involving hallway urination that was forced to occur after someone had difficulty putting the key in the lock.  Not a euphemism.  (BUT some “serious rock star sh*t,” as P. put it.  She then asked if any of us remembered the name of the guy she made out with.)

We threw all our stuff in our suitcases and headed to the airport, where I felt sure we would be detained for public intoxication after P. almost passed out on her suitcase in the security line.  Not that the rest of us were acting unruly…But we made it to the plane, and after an hour an a half of waiting onboard without air-conditioning, we finally headed home.  Ready and not ready; mostly not.  But full of stories to be recounted in blogs later.

Well, Hotel Nazionale won the breakfast competition of the trip.  Their buffet filled an entire room and included the exciting additions of eggs and fruit in addition to the usual carb options.  After stuffing ourselves, we headed out to get our culture on.

As in Florence, our hotel in Rome was within walking distance of most of the landmarks we planned to visit.  Our first stop was Palatine Hill.  I think some emperors lived there.  We waited over an hour in line for tickets. The sun was brutal and the site was underwhelming.  We kept running into signs for Augustus’ house, which seemed to be pointing in every possible direction.  We snapped some pictures and headed to lunch nearby, then went to the Colosseum.  I spent some time looking at and taking pictures of the cross there that stands as a memorial for Christian martyrdom.  To think of how much time and effort I have spent resisting various forms of sacrifice, clinging to the same notion of “It’s mine!” that I had as a three-year-old…and I was standing on ground where blood was shed by believers who would sooner lose their lives than claim them apart from Christ.

Dinner was a couple of blocks from our hotel, near the Pantheon.  We sat outside and were served by a waiter named Marco who was blessed in the looks department.  We may have been starving for male attention at this point, so our reaction to him may have been melodramatic.  (“I’ve never felt like this before,” P. said.)  After dinner, we walked by the Pantheon, beautifully illuminated in the moonlight.  Then we walked to the area called Campo del Fiore (the Roman version of the bar district–a bunch of them surrounding a piazza) and hit a few bars.  The Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam’s were our favorite.  Their titles, decor, and clientele left us feeling like they could be any bar in the U.S., which–like the Hard Rock the night before–was oddly comforting.  We even played beer pong with some guys from Connecticut.  It was a late night that led to a late wake-up the next day.

We finally all tumbled out of bed around noon, a little worse for the wear.  We left the hotel in search of a nearby lunch, which we found a block away at an Irish (?) pub called the Black Duke.  Lunch was Cokes, cheeseburgers and fries.  When in Rome.  We stopped for gelato on the way back and then hit our beds for what we planned to be a short nap.  THREE HOURS LATER, at 6:30 pm, we woke up.  Not wanting the day to be a total waste, we decided to take a cab over the Tiber River to the Trastevere area.  We found outdoor seating at a restaurant in a piazza and it was there that I was introduced to spaghetti carbonara, a Rome specialty.  We also had prosecco, house red wine, and chicken with lemon.  A concert trio played in the piazza as the sun set.  There was little conversation as we observed the romantic scene is sleepy appreciation.  We decided to walk back to the hotel, crossing the river on the way and pausing on the bridge to admire the stillness of the water at night.  We hung out for a few minutes at the Pantheon, where some guys on guitars were playing “Stairway to Heaven”–kind of a bookend to our Florence night with Simon and Garfunkel.  Our last stop was for gelato, where I got chocolate chip with whipped cream on top.  Because I could.

Present time: the BF and I head to Newport tomorrow for the weekend.  Sailboats, cardigans, mansions…can’t wait!

I checked my email on our last morning in Positano at the internet cafe by the beach and had multiple birthday messages waiting for me, which was much better than waking up to vomiting and diarrhea.  My favorite (shocker) was from the BF (F at the time) giving me grief about my Siena scooter ride.  And informing me that my new nickname was Scooter.  I felt blessed to know that while I was kneeling beside a toilet, friends and family were thinking of me and expressing their love; that there is more going on that just what I can see happening to me.

During our last breakfast on the terrace (which consisted of the non-traditional Italian meal of leftover birthday cake), I noticed a couple sitting at a table a few feet away.  They had finished their breakfast and were lingering over coffee, each reading a book, occasionally talking back and forth.  I looked at them and felt a pang as I hoped for that kind of companionship with someone one day.

Fabio had done such a good job of getting us to Positano that we rehired him for our trip to Rome.  Leaving behind the beauty of Positano was wrenching, but we settled in and watched the boring video that Fabio had thoughtfully provided for the ride.  One part of it that stuck with me in between naps was about how archaeologists had to excavate the ruins of Pompeii by removing the layer of destruction covering the original city, and that this excavation occurred only after years and years of silence after the city’s downfall.  Encouraged by my love for metaphors, I thought about the excavation project going on in my own life and wondered what my Years of Truth in New York would end up uncovering in me.

Fabio delivered us safely to our Hotel Nazionale in Rome a few hours later after getting lost in the city and asking a cop for directions.  We dropped off our stuff and wandered outside for a drink and dinner.  A fact about Rome in August met us at the door of the first bar we walked up to: a sign informing us that the place was closed for vacation.  The vacation that all Italians take for the month of August.  The vacation that Americans need to start duplicating.  After walking around without luck, we all realized that what we really wanted, more than a bottle of wine or a bowl of pasta, was a plate of fries and a beer.  Then we saw it: a sign for the Hard Rock Cafe.  Could we?  Would we dare?  On our first night in Rome, no less?

Yes, we could.  And we did.  Nachos, burgers, and beer.  And a walk back to our hotel, where we fell into happy, fried American sleep.  Cultural appreciation could wait a day.

The morning of my thirty-first birthday I woke up in a bed in Italy after dreaming of intense stomachaches.  Then I realized they were real, and I ran to the bathroom feeling like someone had kicked me in the gut.  I spent the next four hours (until dawn) alternately sitting on and kneeling beside the toilet as everything I had consumed (and then some) in the past twenty-four hours left my body violently.  I finally fell asleep around 6:30 am.  We got up a couple of hours later and I made it through breakfast uneventfully.  In honor of my birthday, the girls brought me a cake and card, and they, along with the other guests on the terrace and Maria (the hotel owner) sang me Happy Birthday.  It was the first time I had heard it in an English-Italian hybrid form.  It was beautiful.

We hit the beach for the day, swimming and sunning and doing nothing.  Lunch for me was watermelon and Coke–didn’t want to risk anything more.  My family called on B’s phone and it was great to hear their voices after a week without contact.

Dinner was another shuttle trip to another cliff-top restaurant with a beautiful full view of the sunset.  The curving ride had not done me any favors, and by the time we sat down I was feeling rough.  Then the food came and I knew I was in for a bad scene.  I hoofed it to the bathroom and barely made it in time before I got sick.  Three trips later, I knew I wouldn’t make it through dinner.  B. took a cab with me back to the hotel–we walked past a restaurant staff full of concerned faces on our way out.  The cab driver was the brother of the chef at the restaurant, and he made a valiant but fruitless effort to speak English to us.  No matter–I was too busy praying that I wouldn’t destroy his car to carry on a conversation with anyone other than God.  When we got back to the hotel, I drank a Gatorade, took a Dramamine, and passed the hell out with the lights on.  The other girls got back and everyone made sure I was breathing well before they went to the disco and celebrated my birthday without me.

I’ve never been that sick away from home.  It sucks to be so intimate with an unfamiliar toilet, and to feel alone in it all even though you’re surrounded by friends.  I tried to think of silver linings as I heaved over the bowl.  Friends who bought me Gatorade and didn’t let me ride back alone in a cab.  Family who would jump on a plane if necessary.  The fact that this illness was temporary, I had been sick before, I had gotten through it, I was healthy on a normal day.  I had started and ended the day in the same position, but the rest of it I spent lying on an Italian beach.  If I could have more to be thankful for than gripe about while lying next to my own puke, I figured life was pretty good.

Cut to us four hours later, struggling to wake up so we wouldn’t miss the day-long boat ride to Capri and back that we had chartered.  Breakfast was rough and difficult to keep down due to a little visitor called HANGOVER.  We made our way, shakily, down the spiral to the beach and our waiting boat.  It had a bathroom below deck and a couple of benches and chairs up top.  Our group, besides us girls, included a couple on their honeymoon.  I hoped I wouldn’t throw up on them.  At the helm was our fearless, maybe insane captain, Stephano.  He plowed us through the waves and I fought back waves of my own nausea.  Just when I thought I would baptize Stephano with the remains of some ten-euro drinks, he pulled to a stop in an area he called the green grotto: calm, emerald-colored water next to a rock formation with caves and tunnels to swim through.  We immediately jumped off the boat and into the cool water.  A few minutes later we boarded again and forged ahead to the island of Capri.

Our hangover meal of pizza, fries, and Coke was served at a restaurant owned by a man from Vermont who had up and moved to Capri years ago.  We got advice from him about what to do on the island.   He described a tram-like ride up to the shopping area.  This image immediately evoked memories of my ride on the Ferris wheel at the Alabama State Fair.  I was about eight and my sister, seven.  She had always been prone to motion sickness but I guess my parents thought the wheel was calm enough for her.  WRONG.  She held it together until we reached the very top, then leaned over the side and puked.  When we got off the ride, we guiltily watched as people behind us wiped her vomit off their clothes.  In other words, I did not take the tram in Capri.  But Vermont told me where I could find beach access, so I was all set.

I split off from the group and stopped first at an internet cafe to check my email for the first time on the trip.  The BF, then just an F, had sent a message asking how the trip was going–my only personal message.  Everyone else must have been too jealous to write.  Understandable.  I headed to the beach, which was really just a pile of rocks and a bunch of locals making out.  Not comfortable.  I couldn’t even get in the water for fear that the Naples-esque crowd would take off with my stuff.  So far, I didn’t see what the big deal was about Capri.  Then again, I was only seeing about half a mile of it.  But this moment on my own was just what I needed.  I leaned against my backpack and felt very independent.

I didn’t feel quite so confident a few minutes later when I couldn’t find the girls at our meeting spot.  But P. eventually came and retrieved me and we climbed back aboard the boat.  Stephano had a beer in hand–not his first, judging from his constant giggles.  But no problem, since he offered us some.  On the way back to Positano, he pointed out landmarks (an island where a famous actor had once lived alone, a Pharaoh’s head-shaped formation in the rocks) and stopped for us to swim in an area of open water where dozens of other boats were parked.  After spending the day with us, and the afternoon with a case of beer, Stephano had grown comfortable enough to give us a nickname: the Pamela Andersons.  (Cue giggles.)  The swim was the perfect ending to our boat day and felt like a European version of all the boats pulled up to the marina at Lake Martin in Alabama, where my grandparents had a house when I was growing up.  Free, fun, and safe.  Like being a kid again, with not a care in the world except what was for dinner.

What was for dinner was Bruno: not a man, but the restaurant next door to the hotel.  We were too tired to manage more, and we went to bed right after.  Before passing out, I wrote about seeing God everywhere around me in the beauty of Positano.  And trusting him for the fulfillment of all things.  Like relationships with friends who send personal emails…

I can’t imagine that there is a person out there who has visited the Amalfi Coast and not considered moving there.  Our first morning in Positano, we had our usual Italian fare on the terrace where we had dinner the night before.  Viewing the sea from a hotel cut into a cliff was a new, and I hoped not one-time, experience for me.  After a few minutes, we were done with the distance between us and the water and we hit the beach.  The only beaches I’ve ever known are on the southern and eastern edges of North and Central America: New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Mexico, Honduras, and last but not least: the Gulf coast.  The Amalfi Coast is, naturally, different from all of these.  We stepped onto dark gray sand in front of sapphire-blue water.  The floor of the sea is covered with smooth gray and black rocks and drops off after a couple of shallow feet.  The water is cool but not cold, and the waves are gentle and low.  The immediate beachfront is filled with row upon row of rentable chairs packed tightly together.  In August, when all the Italians flee the cities for the sea BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW TO LIVE RIGHT, these chairs are filled to capacity.  Surrounding it all are restaurants and shops stacked on top of each other on the cliffs.  Our walk from the hotel was a spiral down the cliff alongside these shops and a beautiful church.

Other noteworthy differences from familiar beaches: topless little girls (I guess Europeans lose their modesty early) and banana hammocks as far as the eye can see.  And many more than the eye wants to see, on people the eye doesn’t want to see them.  But no one seemed to care what they looked like: there was no preening or adjusting, just people letting it all (in some cases, close to literally) hang out.

After a couple of hours in the baking sun, we grabbed a table and some shade at a restaurant a few feet from our chairs and ate prosciutto, mozzarella, and pineapple–and continued our tradition of ending every meal with a limoncello shot.  Okay, so we didn’t start that tradition, but we were happy to carry it on.  A few more hours of sun and we were ready for dinner.

Anyone I know who has been to Positano (and there aren’t nearly enough of you) recommends La Tagliata for dinner.  With good reason.  The restaurant (like many in the area) provides a shuttle service from your hotel to their location near the top of Positano, up miles of steep and curvy incline.  Price is per person and includes endless supplies of the following:  antipasta platters, pasta platters (homemade), meat platters, dessert, vats of wine, and of course limoncello.  The bathroom, should you ever find yourself there, has a window with a breathtaking view of the city and sea below it.

Positano has one big club, a discoteca called Music on the Rocks located right beside the sea.  We were among the first people there that night.  After a few drinks at ten euros each, one of us said, “I don’t know if the guys are getting better looking or I’m getting drunker.”  That basically sums up the kind of night it was.  I met a Brit who thought it was hilarious that I’m from Alabama and made constant references to coon hunting and To Kill a Mockingbird.  Surprisingly, we did not begin dating.  But all girls made it home safe and sound at 4:30 am after a long, winding walk from the beach to the hotel.  This might explain why I didn’t have a devotional entry for the day.  But sometimes just beholding that kind of beauty is a devotion in itself.  (The beauty of the city.  Not the club.  FYI.)

Travel + irony = this day.

We all slept in a little too late this morning, so breakfast in the charming courtyard was rushed.  After loading our luggage and ourselves into two cabs and hauling ass to the bus station, we discovered that the bus we had planned on taking to Rome was sold out.  So we hailed two cabs, which happened to be the exact same ones we had taken to the bus station.  The drivers of the cabs thought this was hilarious.  They dropped us off at the train station and we found out that our route to Positano, which had been Siena to Rome to Naples, was now Siena to Florence to Rome to Naples.  However, that last leg was the same train, getting in to Naples at the same time, as the first route.  So our route was longer and more expensive than the original plan but ended up in the same spot.  There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but we were all too tired to figure it out.

It turns out that Americans traveling in Europe tend to lose track of what day it is.  These travelers are met with a rude awakening when traveling on Saturday after their last train ride was on a Tuesday.  The cars of each train were packed and we had to take turns sitting in aisles and on steps in doorways.  We arrived in Naples tired, irritable, and not fresh.  Thankfully we (Am.) had arranged for a driver to meet us there and take us by van to Positano.  This was a blessing because (a) the van was air-conditioned, and (b) the Naples train station is scary as hell and not very safe.  Walking through, I saw an example of partial nudity from each gender.  But I didn’t get robbed.  Silver linings.

The drive from Naples to Positano was unreal.  Beauty like I’ve never seen.  We drove along cliffs overlooking the sea most of the way and couldn’t take our eyes off the scenery.  It was the perfect antidote to our crappy moods.  Once we arrived at the Hotel California (yes, the real name–and also the hotel featured in Under the Tuscan Sun), we cleaned up and realized we were way too tired to go out to dinner.  But this not being New York, we couldn’t hit up seamlessweb.com to bring us our stomach’s desire.  So we went to a local pizzeria and got takeout.  When in Rome.  We took it back to the hotel and ate on the terrace overlooking the sea.  Heavenly.

One of my spiritual notes from the day is a question to myself based on a reading:  Do I pray to God, or dictate to him?  In other words, am I having a conversation that involves speaking AND listening, or am I just giving him a list of requests based on how I think my life should go?  I’d like to think I’m closer to conversation than dictation now, and I’m pretty sure I am.  But that might be because a lot of things are going well for me.  I have a feeling this one will pop up again throughout life.  When will I finally be convinced that he is smarter than I am?

Oh, Siena.  I had barely heard of you before we met, and I fell in love after knowing you for just a day.  But I’m ahead of myself.

The Siena Rapida bus travels from Rome to Florence in one hour and fifteen minutes.  It’s sort of like taking the Greyhound from Port Authority to New Jersey except beautiful.  Our hotel was really more of a bed and breakfast on a hill outside of town called La Villa Elda.  (The hotel, not the hill.)  After we dropped off our luggage we were met at the hotel by our new best friend and winery-tour-guide-extraordinaire, Marco.  We had secured his private van for our day-long Tuscan wine adventure.  I think we were a pleasant surprise to Marco because A., in her emails to him, had constantly referred to our group as “ladies” which had led Marco to believe we were all around age eighty-five.  When he saw our twenty and thirty-something faces rather than a gaggle of senior citizens, he visibly lit up with joy and relief.

Over the next few hours, Marco drove us up and down the hills of the Tuscan countryside.  He invited us to his house for aperitivos and played booming, powerful opera music that made me feel like my heart would burst with the fullness of the whole experience.  “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot is now on my iPod’s favorites list, though it sounds better as the soundtrack for a ride through Tuscany than for a walk to NYU.   After visiting the Losi Famiglia vineyard (home of a wonderful family that included a butt-pinching granddad) and another bigger vineyard, Casillero del Diablo, Marco took us back to his place: a house on a hill outside of Siena that overlooked miles of countryside.  As the sun set, we met his friends and drank his wine and ate his homemade pesto pasta.  Then the Italians decided to take the Americans on a tour of Siena proper.  We walked around the city, down alleys and past medieval churches, all while Marco and friends provided historical commentary.  FYI–Siena looks like the set for Sweeney Todd, but in a beautiful, non-creepy way.  In fact, I felt transported to another time, almost like I was intruding on someone else’s era.  After the educational portion of the evening, we crashed a contrada party, which basically was an outdoor neighborhood party with a bar and DJ and dozens of people.  One of the Italians I had been talking to offered me a ride on his scooter (not a euphemism).  “When in Rome,” I thought, and said yes.  We put on our helmets and hopped on, and I held on for dear life as he raced around the city.  I could only think about two things: how mad my mom would be if she knew what I was doing,  and how thankful I was that I didn’t really like this guy because I was therefore free to enjoy the wind racing through my hair and the complete unadulterated joy of just being on a bike in Siena, rather than sitting behind a guy and wondering if he liked me back and where this was going.  I knew where I was going: back to La Villa Elda and into my room, where I would tell my girlfriends every detail of my night and they would tell me every detail of theirs.  I mean, yeah, I kissed him…but only because he drove us to the top of a hill beside an ancient monastery overlooking the city, and that scene deserved a kiss.

One of the best nights of my life, up to that point.  I’m talking top five material there.  But today is 8/8/09, and it’s time for another night: a roof in New York, the BF, and kisses that mean something.

La Villa Elda

Every quaint Italian hotel in which we stayed served a free breakfast that we woke up and rolled out of bed to each morning.  Prosciutto, croissants, and cappuccino became essential parts of my morning diet.  This particular day, we hit the breakfast buffet then headed out to the museums.  Everything was within walking distance of our hotel, which made our New York-trained feet happy.  At the Uffizi, we saw da Vinci’s Annunciation, Michelangelo’s Holy Family, and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.  Next was lunch at Trattoria Alfredo (pasta with gorgonzola and a mixed salad).  We walked along the Ponte Vecchio, stopping in a few shops to check out jewelry, then headed to the Duomo cathedral.  Inside, we lit candles and said prayers in this oasis of shadowy stillness where women had to cover their shoulders (I had been warned and brought my NYC $5 street-bought pashmina).  Next was the Accademia, otherwise known as the home of Michelangelo’s David. (B’s quote: “Who made that again?”  Our brains were in a state of cultural overload.)

All that ART and edumacation made us hungry for a mindless activity, so after some illicit cell-phone pictures (not with my incapable phone, naturally) were taken of David’s…anatomy (yes we are five years old), we headed to the San Lorenzo street market and stocked up on the essentials: leather goods and Ciao Bella t-shirts.  And maybe a few postcards of David’s anatomy to send home.  (I loved imagining the look on Dad’s face when he pulled that out of the mailbox…that’s what she said?)

After a shower and change at the hotel, we walked to dinner at the Golden View, on the other side of the Arno River across the Ponte Vecchio.  Unlike most of the restaurants we visited in Italy, this one was sleek and modern.  The downstairs bathroom even boasted two flushers in each toilet, in the form of buttons:  press 1 for number ones, and…well, you get the picture.  Our waiter Alessando got the party started RIGHT by presenting each of us with a glass of Prosecco as soon as we sat down.  The food was amazing–salad with honeyed pears, walnuts, and sheep’s milk cheese was followed by a culinary masterpiece: a combined half pepperoni pizza and half prosciutto and cheese calzone.  All washed down with the house red and white wines, naturalmente.

After dinner we walked back across the Ponte Vecchio and were met by a crowd of people surrounding a guitar-playing duo.  Without speaking, we all hung back and listened as they played “Homeward Bound.”  A sun setting in the background completed what felt like a perfect scene and I watched it all giving silent prayers of thanks for a trip that felt like a long time coming, but totally worth the wait.

We stopped for gelato on the other side of the bridge and ate it while walking “home.”  My journal entry from that night quotes Psalm 32:7–“You surround me with songs of victory.”  Who knew that would include Simon and Garfunkel?

We landed in Rome on a Wednesday morning and took the Eurostar train to Florence.  A short cab ride later we were at our hotel, Il Guelfo Blanco, and taking our first showers in what felt like a year.  I quickly found out that despite phone calls before I left confirming that my ATM card would work in Italy…IT DID NOT.  So I had to keep a running tab with my friends, who provided me cash.  I did not enjoy this crippling of my independence.  BUT!  I did enjoy our first Italian dinner, at the Trattoria Za Za (pronounced by our concierge with quite a bit of flair–I imagined him throwing a hot pink boa over his shoulder as he confirmed our reservations).  My journal documents this first meal: artichoke, salad with prosciutto and pear, caprese salad, fettucine with pesto, pasta with truffle cream, pasta with boar meat (all pastas homemade OF COURSE), steak Florentine, Prosecco, and red wine.  Our waiter chased us as we left the ‘Zsa, carrying a tray with Limoncello shots.  Neon yellow and tasting vaguely of Comet.  On our walk back to the hotel, some soccer/football players complimented our mothers, saying they must be beautiful.  Weird, but a welcome alternative to the typical guy at a New York bar (“You’re hot.  Want to go home?”).  Thus began our fascination with being romanced by Italians, sincerely or otherwise.

My spiritual documentation is even more precious than the other memories.  As I write this, I’m just getting into The Time Traveler’s Wife (preparation for the movie, natch; the BF says it’s one for me and the girls, natch) and feeling a little like Henry while I sit here in 2009 and relive the exact same day last year.  Knowing now what I didn’t know then.  Sharing a moment with the Lord as we both smile at me a year ago, learning and trying and getting some things right and some quite wrong.  I think about how he does this every day–watching me walk and stumble, fly and crash, and loving me the whole time.  This entry is hopeful–I did just land in Italy, after all–and I write about being surrendered to his plan not because I’m out of options but because I really do trust him.  And that peace can only come from a choice like that, one made not out of fear but faith.  I love watching myself get that then.  And I love God’s infinite patience as I think about how I am still working on getting it now.