La Dolce Vita

Sunday June 10, 2012

Feast of Corpus Christi

Right now I'm in the air, heading toward Detroit with my daughter Courtney on one side and my mother Lynne on the other, and my sister Gail and her husband Charlie several rows behind on a Delta Itinerary that will take us to Rome.  We're celebrating Courtney's graduation from Apex High School with a three week romp around Italy that is to take us to an apartment in Rome for six nights, then to a flat in Florence for another six nights, and then on to Assisi where we will stay in a convent guest house and rent a car for another five days as we explore the small towns of Umbria and Tuscany.

Although we are all related, we each come with different itineraries in mind which we hope will enrich the experiences of all.  Courtney has been studying European History in school and is eager to see ancient Roman ruins and experience modern Roman culture.  My mother is looking forward to seeing the small towns scattered throughout Tuscany, my sister and her husband enjoy photography, architecture, and wonderful meals, and I am interested in visiting the many Catholic Churches to attend mass, see relics, enjoy the art, and to be wowed by the architecture that lifts the mind and heart to God.

But first we had to overcome the many hurdles that sprang up just before we were to depart.  Only two months ago Gail and Charlie were given notice (after six years of renting) that they had to move out of their home in Minneapolis and find somewhere new to live by the end of June.  Talk about stress!   They hired a realtor and canvassed the tight housing market, found a house they wanted to buy, got the papers in order, arranged for inspections  and movers and closed on it just a few days ago.  They will move their furniture in when they get home from Italy...with only five days to spare before their landlord puts them out on the curb. Then my mother somehow fell into a table at home only three weeks ago, nearly knocking out her teeth and badly bruising her knee...so much so that she wound up in the Emergency Room and then had a cast and crutches and a walker and now is sporting a folding cane as she hurried to heal in time for our long anticipated trip ...  At our house we've been finishing up the school year with exams and concerts and yearbooks and goodbye's, preparing for Connor's Confirmation, and Courtney's Graduation...and replacing washers and dryers and doing all of the last minute things that seem to arise when there is little time to handle it...

So after a few scares this morning of misplaced passports and packing and repacking of luggage in front of airline personnel who had trouble counting the number of allowed checked bags, we are all happily ensconsed in our airplane seats reading books, doing Sudoku puzzles, and typing this note to you. A few of you asked me to resume writing my travel blog when you heard about the trip, so this is my first entry.  I hope I'll have plenty of wonderful things to report as the dreams that were born last August of a trip to Italy slowly take shape and become reality.

La dolce vita awaits!!

Love, Ronda

- Posted from my iPad