Italy Archives - Nadine Walks

The Best Travel Moments of 2018

December 31, 2018

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, I thought it would be fun to write a little round-up of favorite travel moments from 2018. As regular readers are well aware, I’m still in the thick of posting about my Pennine Way adventure from June/July, and as a result, haven’t mentioned much (if anything!) of other travels.

So this post will give you a little taste of some of the other things I’ve been up to, as well as give me a chance to dive deep back into those memories.

I really loved the travel experiences I had in 2018; for the majority of the year I’m home and working, and my days are very routined. But for a few months in the summer and a few weeks scattered here and there throughout the year, I’m able to plan trips and small adventures, and this year had a good balance. Some new places, a return to some familiar places. Time walking, time writing, time exploring. Time with family and friends, time alone.

In chronological order, here are five travel highlights of my year:

A sunrise wedding in the Buttermilks, CA

In early January (almost a full year ago now!), I traveled with some friends to see two other friends get married in the mountains near Bishop, CA. The couple are both avid rock climbers and they chose to have a sunrise ceremony underneath a boulder in the Buttermilks. I’ve never been to that part of California or ever been in a such a landscape, and it was incredible. Soft golden light and long shadows and sandy paths and massive, smooth boulders and a beautiful wedding.

There were so many other, little parts of this trip that I adored: staying up until 4am with a friend who drove in to hangout for a night/morning, driving past Lake Tahoe and stopping for photos and to marvel at the huge pinecones, taking a call from my mechanic moments after I climbed out of a natural hot spring (my car broke down the morning of my flight out to CA, of course), my friend and I being rather overdressed for the wedding reception (“But the invitation said sequins! And cocktail attire!”), winning about $40 at the slots in Reno and Vegas (the only time I’ve ever played a slot machine; I’ll take it!).

Pilgrimage to Ben Orr’s gravesite, Geauga County, OH

In mid-April, I drove out to Cleveland to visit my sister and to attend the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. It’s the second time I’ve been to an Induction Ceremony and both experiences have been fabulous, and leave me remembering just why I love music. I wasn’t a huge fan of any of the inductees, though The Cars, The Moody Blues and The Dire Straights were all bands whose music I’d connected to at some point in my life.

And without a doubt, The Cars were the highlight of the show. My sister and I listened to some of their music in the days leading up to the show, and I read about the band, hoping to learn a little before we saw them perform. “Ben Orr died sometime in the early 2000’s,” my sister told me. Along with Ric Ocasek, Orr sang vocals on many of the band’s hit songs, including “Drive”, my favorite.

One thing led to another, and on the day following the Induction Ceremony, my sister and I found ourselves driving out to the cemetery where Orr is buried. When we learned that it was only about an hour away from Cleveland, it seemed like a no-brainer. We listened to The Cars’ music on the drive and then stood in the rain in the small cemetery, and studied the mementos and notes left by other fans in front of Orr’s gravesite.

I can’t claim to be a true fan, of either Ben Orr or The Cars, but this is what I love about travel. It gives you the opportunity to experience new things and it opens your mind to possibilities, it lets you make connections and it takes you down roads you might never have known existed at all.

I let the lyrics of “Drive” run through mind, and remembered the times that song played out in my own life, who I was in those moments and who I was in that moment, standing in a cemetery in the rain.

“Thanks for the music, Ben.”

Walking with Jane through the moors of Northern England

There was a lot I loved about the Pennine Way, but I think the best part might have been my decision to buy a copy of Jane Eyre when I stopped in Haworth. I’ve written about that part already, but I should say here that I never regretted the extra weight of that book in my pack. Every night I would read a chapter or two, tucked in my sleep sac, often in a bunk bed in a large and empty room. Sometimes I sipped a mug of tea and I nearly always had a package of ginger biscuits and there was something so satisfying and comforting about reading that book as I walked through the countrysides and moorlands and hills and mountains of the Pennine Way. I was alone for so much of my walk, but I never felt lonely. Jane became, in a way, a companion to me, I could almost imagine myself as one of the characters in a Brontë novel. And if not a character in a novel, then a very real woman walking through landscapes in the footsteps of women who have walked those landscapes long before.

Top Withens, Wuthering Heights, Pennine Way

Cheering for the cyclists in the Tour de France

What an unexpected highlight of my time at my writer’s retreat in southern France! This was the 4th time I’d been to La Muse, and I pretty much knew what to expect. I knew my room and favorite shelves for my food in the kitchen, and I even had learned how to shop for a week’s worth of groceries and where everything was located in the massive Carrefour store. I knew the walking trails and the hills and some of the villagers and most of the village dogs, and I even knew some of the other residents.

I already had my routines, the patterns of my days, and I didn’t think that this visit would bring many- or any- new experiences.

But then one day a few of us ran into the mayor of Labastide, and he told us that one of the stages of the Tour de France would be passing very close to the village.

I did some research; I pulled out my computer and a large map of the area and plotted how we could get there; a few days later the mayor took me and a couple others in his car to scout out our walking path. (This tiny road trip was another highlight; Régis, the mayor, is in his 80’s and barely speaks a word of English. He is kind, regal. Tall, with bright blue eyes and long fingers. He drove us all over the mountains that afternoon, taking us up to the Pic de Nore, the highest point in the Montagne Noire, and then to the lake, where he bought us beers and we sat around a table and drank in the summer sunshine).

On Tour de France day, six of us walked from La Muse to the nearest road of that day’s stage. The trip was about 7km and the weather couldn’t have been better: blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70’s. We brought lots of water and snacks and found a spot on the grass to camp out for the afternoon. We all felt kind of giddy, none of us could believe that we would get to experience part of the Tour de France.

About an hour before the riders cycled past, we got to experience something called ‘the caravan’: dozens of vehicles drove by, many outfitted with characters or people in costumes or colorful banners and signs, and each one had several people tossing out swag. Biscuits and gummy candies and small packets of laundry detergent and shopping bags and hats and magnets and juice boxes. We were thrilled, but then again, the experience was thrilling. There was nothing contained or regulated about the caravan: the vehicles sped past, there were no barriers and sometimes it felt as though there were only inches between the spectators lining the sides of the road and the vans or trucks speeding by. The people with the swag didn’t toss the items gently into the air, but rather, they hurled these things down at the ground as hard as they could. There would be a manic scrambling for these items, children and grandmothers got into the action, everyone fighting for their prize.

Maybe the caravan knows what it’s doing, because by the time the Tour de France cyclists came through, we were cheering and yelling like everyone else, like we’d always done this. The cyclists were gone within minutes- we were standing on a downhill section- but it didn’t matter. We clapped and cheered and walked home with great smiles on our faces.

Heading to the Tour de France, Labastide 2018

An unexpected performance in a chapel on Le Chemin du Puy

After my writer’s retreat I had three free days, and since I was in an area of France not far from where I’d stopped walking the Chemin du Puy the year before, I decided to walk a few more days of the pilgrimage route. I left La Muse on a Tuesday morning, took a train ride to Cahors, and was on the Chemin by noon. If I can ever finish writing about the Pennine Way, I’d love to tell you about my three days on Le Puy; after 20 minutes of walking that first day I thought I might have to quit- my pack might have been 50 pounds (seriously) and I was walking through a heat wave and I was seriously questioning the decision to do this tiny part of a pilgrimage. But, as it is with nearly any Camino, I was so happy I’d gone. I still can’t believe how much life I fit into those three days, and it was incredible that I could drop into the middle of a pilgrimage route, be there for only moments, but still experience some of the magic of the Camino.

One of these moments of magic was on the second day of walking. I’d stopped for a break at a picnic table outside of a small chapel, and was just finishing some plums that I’d bought from a man at the side of the road a few kilometers earlier, when I saw a car drive up. A middle-aged woman jumped out of the car and walked briskly into the chapel. I didn’t give her much thought until a few minutes later, when I heard a clear, bright voice singing Ave Maria.

I walked into the chapel, slowly, and took a seat in one of the pews in the back. The woman was standing in the altar, her arms stretched out, her hands gripping the edges of a large stone slab. She finished Ave Maria and began another song, and when she finished this second one, she stood still for a moment, and then turned around and walked away quickly.

I heard her car door slam shut and an engine start and she was gone before I could even think about what I’d just heard.

It happened so fast, it was almost as if I’d never heard it at all.

A Fox in the Alps

After the Chemin, I spent the last few days of my summer trip in Italy, with a friend I’d met on my first Camino. He was working in Sappada, a small town in the Dolomites, and I spent several wonderful days doing nothing but hiking and writing and eating pasta and drinking a lot of espresso.

One evening we took a walk after dinner; darkness had fallen and the streets were quiet. “There’s a fox here,” my friend said. “Sometimes one of the neighbors comes out to feed it.”

“Hmm,” I replied, a little absentmindedly. I was only half-listening, my attention diverted to the dark, looming mountains surrounding us, the warm lights in the windows of the cottages, the cool evening air.

But then I saw a shadow in the field to my left, and a moment later, a small fox trotted into the street in front of us. My friend and I froze as the fox walked straight towards us, and I swear that he looked into my eyes as he approached. When he was just before us he stopped, and turned his head to the side. It was then that I noticed a woman on the side of the road, holding out a large piece of meat. The fox walked over to her, slowly took the meat in its mouth, and then darted away, back into the black shadows of the field.

I still don’t know how our timing could have been that perfect, and sometimes it feels to me as though we were meant to see the fox. Or, that it had wanted to see us. Maybe it was the mountains, the air, the feeling of a journey at its end, the unrealness of an encounter with a wild creature, a brush with magic.

*****************

These are just a few of the things I got to do, the people I was with, and the places I saw in 2018. I think about the year ahead, how some things are planned but so much isn’t yet. Sitting here now, I can’t begin to imagine the kinds of experiences that 2019 will bring.

I hope you all have had restful, peaceful and joyous ends to this year. And that the coming year will bring new opportunities, new hopes, new dreams, new walks, new relationships, new happiness.

All my best, and I’ll be back with more soon.

Searching for Hans Christian Andersen; at what point does a visit to a country “count”?

January 19, 2015

A few months ago I had a short conversation- in the comments section of one of my blog posts- about what it takes to check a country off your list. I have this scratch-off map of the world, and as I start to do more traveling, I’m wondering which countries I can scratch off, and which ones I need to spend a little more time in.

I think this is probably an interesting conversation on its own, and I’d be very curious to hear opinions on the topic. If you’re spending a 2-hour long layover in an airport in Belgium, does this count? I think a lot of people would say no, and yet, I had a friend who vehemently believed that setting foot in a country- in any way and for any amount of time- “counted”.

And then, how much time is enough time to feel like you’ve gotten to experience a place? Can you experience a place in 24-hours? A few days? A week? A month? A year? All of the above?

It depends, of course. I spent 9-months studying in France, and a month walking through Spain on the Camino de Santiago. In both instances I felt like I was able to experience the culture of these countries, in a much more intimate way than I have on any of my other travels. But then I think about Italy, where I just spent a week, and I feel like I don’t really know the country. I was even able to stay in someone’s home and chat with some locals and see a few places off the beaten path… but to know Italy, to try to understand it, I need more time. I’m still checking it off my list, still scratching it off my map, but there is more I want to experience there.

And what about Iceland and Denmark, the two countries I “visited” on long layovers at the beginning/end of my travels? I’ve been wanting to write about this idea of the long layover and more about my experiences (and I probably will, in a future post), but for now, I just want to consider the idea of whether I have actually visited these countries.

Some have said that you need to have a unique experience in a place to say that you’ve been there. So I think about Iceland, about my two long layovers: busing out to a hotel at 4am and peering out the window to see a light sky. Sleeping a disjointed few hours in a comped room and then meeting up with a few people I’d met the day before for lunch. Wandering through Reykjavik, touring the Hallgrimskirkja and going up its tower to see a panoramic view of the city. Buying a warm bowl of soup from a food truck, drinking strong coffee in a cafe and writing a blog post, walking along the old harbor. On my second stint in Reykjavik I again walked along the water, for a few hours (I was just coming off the Camino, so walking was the only thing I felt like doing); I found another coffee shop and I ate a hot dog and I could get around some parts of the city without my map.

Then I think about Copenhagen, and I’m not so sure I can check this off of my list. I was in Copenhagen for less than 24-hours; I slept in a hostel and I toured an art museum, but does this count? When I was on the train heading back to the airport, I thought: “I’m in Copenhagen, but just barely.”

And yet, traveling gives you these unique moments and experiences that feel like something. They are so much bigger than the moments in my typical days because they are foreign, because I am far from home, because I got myself on a plane and on a train and down a street in a city in a different part of the world. I had a few moments like these in Copenhagen. They were so regular, and yet, they were also strikingly different. I was walking down Stroget, the main shopping street of the city, and so many people walked down the street with me, bundled up in long puffy coats and thick scarves and wooly hats. The street opened onto a small square and a man sat on a chair strumming a guitar. The music drifted down the street and as I listened to his voice and walked past bright window displays, I saw a large, full moon hanging low in the sky, just in front of me. I had to stop walking, I had to stop and stand against a building and consider where I was. The music and the people and the moon and the fact that I was walking through a city in Denmark.

Later, I wandered through Magasin du Nord, a large Danish department store. I ended up eating dinner in the cafeteria area on the 5th floor; it was a good solution for a (shy) solo-traveler on a winter night. I saw a few ladies sharing a small bottle of wine so I bought one for myself, and as I ate my meal and drank my red wine, I laughed a little at myself. Shouldn’t I be having a different kind of experience? I justified my department store meal with the knowledge that Hans Christian Andersen had, at one point in his life, lived in a small room in this very building. So after my meal, and feeling nice and warm from the wine, I set off to find the room. Except I couldn’t. I think I had the wrong building (I had the right department store… somewhere in Copenhagen there is a Magasin du Nord that has a room that Hans Christian Andersen lived in, I am sure of it). I explored every nook and cranny of that store, convinced that the room must be tucked away in some obscure corner, but finally gave up (I had a similar experience on my first visit to Paris, when I spent several hours hunting for Jim Morrison’s grave in the wrong cemetery).

So, is this an experience? Of course it is. I can’t say that I know Copenhagen and I certainly can’t say that I know Denmark, and yet, I’m always going to have these memories. Of a beautiful voice and a busy street and a full moon. Of wandering around, a little fuzzy from my department store cafeteria wine, searching in vain for Hans Christian Andersen’s room.

For now, Iceland and Denmark “count”. But the great part about traveling is that you get a taste for more. If I never make it back to Copenhagen, then at least I have a story about the time I drank wine and wandered around a department store looking for an author’s room. But now I have a reason to return: among all of the other things to see and experience… I need to find that room.

Department Store Dinner, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dinner in a department store

A Date with Venice

January 14, 2015

Within moments of stepping off the train and facing the city of Venice, I knew that I would need to return.

This is going to start to become a problem, at some point: every new place I travel to has me wanting to come back. And then there’s France, which seems to call me back every time. I’m beginning to wonder when I’m going to have the time in my life to do all of the traveling I feel like I need to do.

But back to Venice. My mistake- and it feels like a big one- was that I didn’t bring a good camera. I’ve said it already about this Italy trip: this was not ‘typical traveling’ (if ‘typical traveling’ can even be defined). I knew I would get to see Italy on this trip, but my focus was so far away from the touristy stuff. I did just a bit of research about Florence, and even less for Venice, and figured that I would just learn things on the way.

And that was the benefit of being with an Italian on my trip, I didn’t have to worry about transportation or finding my way around the cities. I had someone to point out the highlights and make sure I saw the “must-see” things for a first-time traveler to Venice and Florence.

But the drawback of traveling this way was that I didn’t prepare like I might have. I debated about bringing a good camera, and really considered lugging around my film camera and a half dozen rolls of black and white film, but I decided against it. I just couldn’t quite get into the spirit of sight-seeing on this trip (at least, not in the days before I left, when I was deciding what to bring).

In the end, of course, my very first thought when I was in Venice was, “I need to come back here with my camera and take some black and white photos.”

Venice, in some ways, was even better than I’d always imagined it to be. It was a place that I always suspected I’d get to, and it held an almost mystic-power in my mind. Maybe because the city is so incredibly unique: a network of canals and dead-ends and no cars and stairs that lead straight into dark water. And when I was there, it felt mystical, especially at night. I loved walking around the streets and ending up in what felt like forgotten corners of the city, far away from the crowds of tourists. It was eerie and spooky and I felt like I stepped back in time.

Even the New Year’s celebration felt other-worldly. Sure, there were masses of people, most who had been drinking, a lot who were acting foolish. There were tourists and people holding out their cameras to take selfies (me included) at every opportunity. There were discarded champagne bottles underfoot, lost gloves littering the square, elbows jabbing into my back.

But it was also magical. A dozen different languages were spoken around me, people ran arm in arm through the streets, many wearing masks covered in gold, covered in feathers. I saw a cat pass by, later a zebra. I was delighted by it, and also spooked. A mask conceals what is really there and it added to the mystery. Whose eyes were staring at me? I can only imagine what Carnavale is like, the annual festival held just before the Lent.

We were sitting in a small bar drinking a café on New Year’s morning (well, a doppio for me), at a table in front of a window that gave us a full view of the canal outside. Every few minutes, a gondola would float past. I know that this is how Venice works: outside that bar’s window was a straight drop to the water. No sidewalk, no street, just water. The building is sitting on a wooden platform held up by wooden planks driven into the ground, all submerged under the water. I understood this before I went, but it was another thing to see. It was pretty incredible- Venice really is a floating city. (I almost floated right along with the city when, in an attempt to take a photo, I slipped a bit on the wet stone of a stair that led into the canal. Otherwise, no close calls with the water).

For me (and I would imagine, countless others), the best thing about this city was to simply wander around the streets and climb over bridges and notice the small details and get a little lost. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a city where I’ve been so inspired to take photographs (well, maybe Paris, but even so, that is saying something).

So I’m not done with Venice, not by a long shot. We have a date (time, to be determined): me, the city, and my camera.

One Year Later

January 12, 2015

This new year kind of crept up on me. I guess being in Italy and attempting to navigate an unclear friendship/relationship didn’t give me much room to do my normal ‘end of one year, beginning of another year’ reflections.

I still haven’t really given it much thought, except to say this: It feels good to be in 2015.

2014 was an up and down year. The words that come to mind when I think about last January are ‘cold’ and ‘quiet’. I started this blog, and wrote about taking a single step towards… something. My serious relationship had just ended, I didn’t know what direction my life would be taking, and I had no idea what to do to move my life in any direction. So I began to dream about the Camino, and of how alluring it would be to simply follow arrows for a long, long time. Move myself in a physical direction, and determine the figurative one along the way.

The first half of 2014 was filled with preparing for the Camino. Did I do anything else? Maybe, but all I can remember is spending hours on my computer, researching gear and reading blogs. Of walking in endless small circles on an indoor track at the Y, and later walking in loops through a park. Multiple trips to REI, Amazon boxes delivered weekly to my doorstep.

And then the summer came around and I was on the Camino, and I was finally moving. It was beyond what I expected, and I’m still processing that walk, still kindling the flame of energy that it gave me, still working on how to continue “walking” the Camino in my every day life.

In the months since returning from the Camino I’ve been a bit restless. I’m home, I’m back into my routines, but I’m anxious to figure out the next steps in my life. That feeling continued straight up until the end of the year, right up until I left for Italy.

Since returning? I’m sure it’s too soon to tell, but it feels good to have just returned from a trip. It feels good to be in a new year. It feels like I’m ready to start moving again.

This year feels like an open book, like I could take it anywhere I want to. Soon I will start to fill in the images of what this year will look like, but right now the pages are blank. The only thing I see are possibilities, but nothing certain. Will this be the year that I finally start to write the book that I’ve been dreaming about writing? Will it be the year that I switch jobs? Will it be the year that I move out of my apartment? Will it be the year that I walk another Camino? Go back to France for another writer’s retreat? Do a US cross-country road trip? Will it be the year that I go on lots of dates? The year that I meet someone to settle down with? The year that I make a dozen new friends? Where will my travels take me this year? Where will I go?

Last year, as 2013 changed to 2014, I was in my best friend’s apartment. I was in a daze, trying as hard as I could to be happy, but struggling. We watched a marathon of Harry Potter movies and as we toasted the New Year with a glass of champagne, I remember thinking, “In 2014, I want to feel alive.”

And as 2014 changed to 2015, I was in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, with a man at my side, a plastic cup of wine in my hand, thousands of people packed in around me, and fireworks exploding overhead.

Alive.

So here we go, another year, an open book. This blog started as a place to write about my Camino, but I think it was really a place to write about my life. So have no fear, the blogging will continue. Thanks for reading and following along, I hope I can continue to share some good stories with you this year.

Broken down and smiling

January 6, 2015

I’m back from Italy, and the return has been quite a welcoming. This morning I dragged myself out of bed after an incredibly deep sleep, loaded my work bags into my car, cleaned the falling snow off the windshield, and then my car wouldn’t start.

I sat in the driver’s seat of the car, turning and turning the key to see if something would catch, watching the snow quickly filling up the windshield again, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Italy at all. Maybe I should have stayed at home and spent more time with my family and friends. Maybe I should have used the money that I spent on the trip to save up for a new car.

Maybe. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Italy was interesting. I’m sure there’s a better word that I could use, but it’s the best I can come up with. I didn’t go to Italy to eat amazing food or to see beautiful towns and cities, or to bask in the glow of famous art and architecture. I got to do all of that, but the reason I went to Italy was to see what the connection with my Camino friend was all about.

I don’t think anything about getting to know this friend was ever going to be simple, and it’s not just that we live in different countries. He’s leaving in a few weeks to travel around the world, so the possibility of building something with him, of having anything concrete, was always very slim.

And knowing this made the decision difficult for me. Why even see what there could be if I was almost certain that there wouldn’t be anything?

But the thing was, I was almost certain that there wouldn’t be anything. Almost. If I’d been totally certain then I wouldn’t have gone. I would have gotten my car checked out before it left me stranded, I would have spent time with my oldest friends, I would have relaxed and had a peaceful vacation.

Instead, I traveled thousands of miles to see if what I felt could have some greater meaning for my future. I think I have my answer- which is no- and maybe it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. But it doesn’t mean, not for a second, that I regret going.

The trip was beautiful, even if it was a bit different than what I expected or hoped for. There was this one moment in particular, when I was feeling down and sad. I was in Florence, standing in line for the Uffizi Gallery. I’d already been in line for an hour, and noticed a screen that said the wait would be an additional 3 hours. I was freezing, I was conflicted about my feelings, and for a moment, I wondered what I was doing there. In that line, in Florence, in Italy.

And then a woman came by and asked if I wanted her ticket, which was a reservation for a timed entry that would let me into the museum immediately. I bypassed the line, walked through the crowded galleries and then suddenly was standing in front of the bust of a Roman Emperor, and I recognized it instantly. I’d studied this bust of Caracalla in my freshman year art history class, and for some reason had been captivated by him. To stand in front of this bust rather than study a photo in a book reminded me of why I travel, of the places I had vowed to visit when I was young. Later I gazed up at the Duomo, I studied Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, and I felt awed.

I had lunch with my friend in a tiny restaurant overlooking the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio. Somehow I had the perfect seat: my view was nothing but river and bridge and beautiful buildings and sea gulls flying by for the bread that the owner of the restaurant was throwing out the window.

Later we watched the sun set, and I leaned against a stone wall and stared out at the buildings of Florence, the city blanketed in a soft pink light.

So this morning, as I was shivering in the cold snow, cranking my engine while a guy with a tow truck banged on my car and lights on my dashboard blinked crazily at me, I didn’t wish that my life could be any different.

I’ll get my car fixed. Eventually I’ll buy a new one. And one day, maybe years and years and years from now, I’ll go back to Italy. I’ll stand in the Piazzale Michaelangelo and look out over the city and remember the last time that I’d been there. The time when I went to Italy to follow a gut feeling and take a risk and to see about the possibilities of my future. I think remembering this time will always make me smile.

Twix and Van Gogh and some thoughts on traveling (and life)

January 4, 2015

I’m eating a Twix bar in my bunk bed in Copenhagen (a top bunk, of course); Twix seems to be my comfort food when I’m in foreign places. I only have a little less than a day in Copenhagen, and by the time I arrived this afternoon, the sun was setting. So I figured out how to get from the airport to the train station to the hostel, stashed my bags on my bed and locked up my valuables, and then set off to see the city while there was still a bit of daylight.

But for all of my planning (though really there wasn’t much), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where to go. My flight had been delayed for an hour in Bologna, so I no longer had time to walk to the art museum I’d wanted to check out. I headed in that direction anyway- what I thought was that direction- only to realize that I couldn’t figure out where I was on my map.

I ended up in a different art museum, 40 minutes before they closed, and didn’t have to pay because entry is free on Sundays. I walked through quickly but paused for a long time in front of a Van Gogh painting, one that he did in the last year of his life while he was in St Remy.

It’s been incredible to think about the last year of my life. In August, after I finished the Camino, I went to St Remy, a small town in Provence, France. I walked the streets that Van Gogh walked, I took in the same views, I looked out the window of his room. And now, today, I’m in Copenhagen, of all places. I found myself in a small art museum that I didn’t know existed, staring at a scene that Van Gogh painted years ago and one that I saw, myself, just months ago.

It makes the world feel a bit smaller. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t traveled that much. Not when I think about the entire world and of all the places I’ve never been to, and may never get to.

But these recent experiences in Europe? They’ve taught me that the world doesn’t have to feel quite so large and so unknown. There are corners that I can discover, moments that I can experience that feel like they should be impossible… but aren’t.

And these thoughts are stemming not just from the Van Gogh painting, but from being in Italy. I’ll write more about the trip in the days to come, and talk about some of the beautiful things I saw, the amazing things I ate. But really, I think what might stand out about this trip is that it didn’t feel so foreign, or strange. Traveling is still a very big experience for me, and I think it always will be. But the more I travel, and the more I expand on the types of experiences I have, the more that this all feels possible, like it can be an active part of my life. Not just a big trip that I take once every 5 or 10 years.

Is this post making sense? I’m tired and confused about where I am. I know I’m in Copenhagen, I know I’m going home tomorrow, I know that it’s now 2015, but it all feels jumbled and crazy and wonderful and strange. But I think that’s what traveling does. It takes us to a time when we’re blogging from a top bunk, wiping bits of carmel from the Twix bar off of the sheets, listening to guys speaking whispered French from somewhere in the room.

Tomorrow, things go back to normal. But it’s a new year, and I’d like to have more experiences like this: like Italy, where (at least some of the time), I felt like I was settled and home. And Copenhagen, which feels random and exciting. And, for that matter, like Spain, where I could learn how to feel comfortable in a foreign place, on my own.

I’m not sure what 2015 is going to hold for me. Not sure at all: I have no plans, only ideas. And that’s sort of an exciting place to be in.

No Nuts in my Pasta; Italy as a Visitor

December 29, 2014

Since returning from the Camino this summer I’ve been struggling to find the same kind of energy that I had while on my walk through Spain. I’ve found it in small moments: a hike in a park with my Camino pack on my back; an inspiring conversation with an old friend; in live, loud music in a crowded amphitheater; when editing an essay and finding the perfect expression.

But these small moments have been a contrast to entire days full of movement and newness, and I’ve missed all of the life I was living on the Camino.

One way to get it back is to travel. I always suspected this, and it’s been confirmed in the tiny ‘trips’ I’ve taken since the Camino. Driving down to Virginia, out to Cleveland. I’ve soaked up the movement and the company of good friends and family, and I wish I could get more of it.

And this week I am getting more of it. Two days ago I sat in my window seat on a plane that was about to fly me to Copenhagen, and along with a tiny shiver of nervousness, I felt great waves of excitement. I texted a friend in the moments before the plane took off: “Unlike my flight to Iceland, this time I’m going to get a meal!” and “I hope there’s free wine!” (for the record, there wasn’t) and “There’s a tiny mirror next to the food tray!”

It was the excitement of travel, of flying off to a new place, of wondering which movie I would choose to watch, of what food would be served in an aluminum tray, of what I would see when I’d land in a new country.

Copenhagen wasn’t even my destination, but as I waited for an hour in the airport before boarding the connecting flight to Bologna, I was so happy that I would have a longer layover on the way home. It was the most beautiful airport I’d ever been in, with so many wonderful examples of Danish design. And it was thrilling to be somewhere new again. The old Camino excitement was back.

I’ve been in Italy for two days now, but spending time with a friend is a completely different kind of travel experience than going off on my own. I’m being driven around in a car, the language is being spoken for me, menu items translated, free coffee from the local cafe because I’m a visitor from America. And right now I’m lying on a couch with a heavy blanket across my legs, Christmas lights blinking on a tiny tree, music playing from small speakers, the peel of a clementine on the coffee table at my side. This could be a scene from my own life, so it feels a bit surreal that I’m in Italy, in someone’s home. I’m not a pilgrim, I’m not quite a tourist… I suppose I’m a visitor. I don’t think I’ve ever had this type of travel experience before.

But so far, I like it. There was a five minute exchange at lunch today of whether the pasta dish I wanted to try had any nuts in it. Our server talked to the chef who reported that he shaves something into the filling of the pasta that may or may not be a nut, but to be on the safe side he didn’t want me to risk my life, so thought I should order something else. The pasta I DID order was incredible, of course, and assuredly nut-free. I don’t have to worry about trying to explain my allergy in Italian, or that something will be lost in translation. I have someone to show me how to weigh vegetables in the grocery store, I have someone to take me to the best places for coffee, to explain how to order a ‘double’ shot of espresso when one doesn’t quite seem to be enough.

There’s a beauty in doing this all on my own, of figuring it out and learning from the mistakes, and I’m sure I’ll have that in my short time in Copenhagen. But for now, I’ll take this fairly stress-free and more intimate style of traveling: of experiencing Italy as a visitor.

Once in a Lifetime

December 27, 2014

So I’m going to Italy, for a week, to visit a friend from the Camino.

This friend came out to visit me in October. We’d only really connected at the end of the Camino- despite starting from St Jean on the same day- and when he asked if he could see me again, he explained, “I want to spend the time with you that we didn’t get to spend together on the Camino.”

It’s been a bit… confusing? odd? difficult?… to try to get to know someone who lives in another country. There are a million reasons why it would be simpler to have left this on the Camino, to have left it at a brief connection.

And maybe this will only be a brief connection: a conversation on the Camino, a visit to the States, a visit to Italy. And then 2015 will come around and it will be on to new things.

But for now, I’m going to Italy. Because even if it’s not simple and even if I can’t see a clear image of where this is going, not going would mean ignoring so many of the lessons I learned on the Camino. It would be passing up a chance to… well… live in the moment. To go with a feeling, to follow my gut which is saying, “Go to Italy!!” So I’m going.

I’ve been to Italy twice before, both times to Rome, when I was 20 and 23. This time I’ll be in the north of the country; I want to spend at least a day in Florence, and I know that I’ll get to see Venice (when I told him that I’d be coming to visit, his first question was: “Would it be okay with you if we spend New Year’s Eve in Venice?” How could the answer to this question ever not be a ‘yes’??).

And as an added bonus, I have a long layover in Copenhagen on my way home (it will be cold and I think I’ll have a total of one hour of sunlight while I’m there, but it’s still a new place!).

I’m shaking my head a bit about all of this, because in some ways I’m not sure how it happened. My life here feels mostly the same as it’s always been- same job, same apartment- and I’ve been feeling like I need something to change. This trip isn’t about changing anything, and yet, when I think about where I was last year at this time, it feels incredible to have this opportunity at all. A year ago, I probably never would have imagined that I could ever get myself to a place where I’d be doing this: flying off to Italy to meet up with a friend I’d met in the summer while walking across Spain.

I think this is going to be a good way to end the year, and a wonderful way to begin 2015. Standing in a crowded square in Venice, a place I’ve always wanted to travel to. Imagining the possibilities of the year ahead. Knowing that I can take myself anywhere.