On the Way to Church

Driving to church yesterday, we came upon these two contraptions. I've noticed a lot of horse drawn buggies of late. These seemed to be actual modes of transportation rather than farmers on their way to fields. It calls to mind a conversation that's come up several times with various friends, which goes something like this: We do not live in America anymore. Revolutionary concept, I know. You'd think the 6 hour flight+1 hour layover+7 hour flight to get here would have been our first clue. What I really mean is that back in the U.S., we think Western Europe countries are just like us. Moving to Italy would basically just mean eating lots of pasta, wandering cobblestone alleys, and checking out lots of Roman ruins. Yes, yes, and yes. But daily life still goes on, and it's beyond different!

And so...I've made a list of "daily life" sorts of things and plan to post an entry on at least one of these topics each week. Of course, I'm going to break that commitment right away as I'll be out of town all next week. My closest friend here is moving back to the U.S., but before she goes, she wants to see Venice and Florence. I invited myself along on her trip, we booked a flight to Venice and a room at a GORGEOUS hotel (hope it's as pretty in person!), and plan to spend a few days there, then train to Florence for a few days, then visit one of the Tuscan hilltowns before returning to Napoli for her flight home. I do not want to lug a laptop around as we'll be doing a lot of walking with our luggage; however, I do plan to attempt some brief updates using my iPhone. I'm pretty slow at tap, tap, tapping on the screen, though, so we'll just have to see how that goes.

I will, however, start off my series this week.