An incredible trip comes to an end

Early tomorrow morning I board a plane to fly back home, sad to be leaving Joe and this incredible country, but happy to head home again. Some final thoughts. These are some if the ways that Italy has changed since I was here 30 years ago: The lira is gone, you rarely see men greeting one another with a kiss, the women seem to be less domineering and the men less preening, and you don't often hear people speaking in a dialect. Ways that Joe is changing: He talks about being sad about returning in December and wanting to stay longer, today we visited the cathedral in Milan at his suggestion, he has visited 10 cities in Italy and can't wait to see more of Italy and Europe, yesterday he let a non-English speaking Venetian woman give him an Italian-style haircut, and he's proud to have cousins in Italy who now considers to be friends. How have I changed? I've learned that I can speak Italian even with a 30 year layoff and that I love the way it sounds when Italians speak, that travel can be so much more meaningful when you plan well but then reach out to create something unexpected, that my son is even cooler than I thought and that I haven't forgotten how to write! When I read what others have written or when I myself write, I'm always most interested in the questions, "What was it like to be there, in that place, at that time, in that situation? What did it feel like?" I hope, dear blog readers, that these stories of the little things that make up an adventure have given you a little feel for what these two weeks were like.