Reading the World Book

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. 

– St. Augustine

We arrived home late last night (early this morning, actually) from our week long trip to Madrid, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal. I must say this every time I get back from a trip to a new place, but my head is swirling! It is filled with new foods and experiences and sights and ideas. In the first moments home, the first blog post after I return, it is almost overwhelming to figure out where to start with images and writing. 2111 images captured. 3 major art museums, 4 additional art exhibits, so many historic and cultural sights, countless hours wandering. I sometimes feel like I've been cramming for a final with all of this travel. Reading as many pages in St. Augustine's world book as I can before we move home in July.

Today I'm starting with the beginning of the trip, because it's the best place to start while all of my images download to the computer. A little taste of tapas, a glimpse of the wonderful bar food from Madrid. Doesn't it look yummy? Well, maybe not for breakfast (if you are reading this in the morning) but I can assure you that it was very yummy! Add a glass of Sangria, and you just might have a little piece of heaven right here on earth.

So, with that I'm back. A few more places visited, a few more flavors sampled, a few more pages of the world book read. It will be fun to sort out my swirling experiences in the next couple of weeks, and see what I find.

Everyday Life with History

We just returned yesterday from our week-long road trip through Croatia and Slovenia. What a crazy trip - we travelled so much - visiting Split, Dubrovnik, Korcula, Plitvic National Park in Croatia and Bled, Postojna and Slocjam in Slovenia. We saw lots of wonderful and amazing places, and arrived home tired from the travel. Lesson learned - don't travel quite so much in one trip. Downtime is needed.

Today's image has a different message than that though, this is one of living with history. You see, in Split, Croatia most of the old city was built up inside of Roman emperor Diocletian's palace. The palace walls were once the city walls and the medieval old city is a wonderful little place where Roman ruins are just part of the life around them. I love this image for what it tells you of this place. Look at the building - grass is sprouting from the roof and the stone is all cracked. You can just glimpse an arch of the Roman palace gate in the background and see the ruined wall beside it. But look closer, there is something in the attic window. Look closer, at the brand new shutters. Someone lives here. Someone lives in this house that looks like it could fall down tomorrow. Someone lives with this history, as part of their every day.

One Year in Italy

What's in this jar? Gelato spoons. 220 gelato spoons to be exact. Approximately one year of gelato consumption for a family of three, not counting the occasional cone we ate or spoon we accidentally threw away. This is a visual representation of our first year here, but there is so much more that has filled this year than can fit this jar.

One year ago today, I stumbled off the plane bleary eyed with two suitcases and a disoriented cat in tow to begin this adventure. I was a few days ahead of Patrick and Brandon, to get into the apartment and get things a little bit set up for when they arrived, while Patrick was finishing up with the movers and getting our house in Corvallis ready for rental.

I had no idea what I was in for.

In this year, I have learned:

- There is nothing like moving to another country, with a different culture and language, to humble you. You go from being a confident, independent, contributing member of society to a person who literally doesn't know how to pay the bills or find an item in the grocery store. Everything is different, and you have no frame of reference. No experience to pull from. No language skills to work through new situations. You have to learn to laugh at your ignorance, accept where you are, because otherwise you will have a nervous breakdown.

- To throw out assumptions of "how things are done" because you will encounter, over and over again, that they are done differently here. It opens your eyes to how much we really do assume or take for granted by growing up in one culture. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense to you, you have to accept it and move on because doing it differently doesn't mean doing it "wrong." You will never be able to change the culture you are in to fit your own comfort zone.

- There will be things you love and things you hate about living here. You have to try it all and then revel in the things you love while accepting the things you hate. I have discovered I love the Italian pizza, real parmesan cheese freshly grated, visiting new places, creative store window displays, art exhibits, hanging out in the piazza of a city to feel the energy, to name just a few things. I have learned to accept the convoluted, confusing beaurocracy you run into, stores closed on Sundays, the passionate responses you get from Italians that quickly blow over, cigarette smoking everywhere, the non-standardization of electrical outlets and plugs.

- Travel is expansive. Travel changes your horizons. Travel gives you an insight into new places and people. Travel is nothing like living in the place you visit. Nothing.

- Many of the things we fill our lives with are not needed. I'm talking about things and activities and people altogether with this statement. By completely changing your environment, you can start to see the essential pieces of your life that are important and which you can easily live without. For example, we lived for two months without our household goods shipment, buying only the essential things we needed. We have a whole lot more in storage in Corvallis, too. But in those two months, there wasn't much of all of that "stuff" we couldn't live without. (Except maybe a wine bottle opener. That was at the top of the list of items we bought right away.)

So many ideas are popping into my head to share that I know I can't share them all today. It's like they each need their own little essay, maybe I should write them all down and put it in a book someday with some of my photographs.

I think I can sum up the learning from this first year in Italy with one word: Acceptance. Of who I am, of where I am, of the people around me, of the situations I find myself in, of ideas other than mine, of my own ideas. I can't think of a better thing for me to learn at this time of my life.

I can only wonder, with a smile on my face, what the next year will bring.

Footnote:
I've mentioned previously that I'm participating the the Creative Every Day 2010 challenge through CreativeEveryDay.com. I've written a guest blog post that will be posted there today. If you have time, stop by there and read it and answer the questions I've posed. I'd love to see your answers!