I have never been to Italy.
I’ve read about it in travel magazines, dreamed about it while watching Fellini films, “Enchanted April” and “Stealing Beauty”, and absorbed a bit of it through my Italian friends' cooking and la dolce vita. I’ve dreamed of visiting the country long before “Eat, Pray, Love” was ever published, and longed for all things Italian: shoes, wine, men, pizza, art, vineyards, trains, Venice, waterways, canals, Popes, saints, laughter, and gelato.
view from the window just before landing in Rome
So, when MB invited me to join her in a expatriate writers class being held in Rome, I knew it was the perfect time to put my life in the American Southwest on hold for a couple of weeks and head to Italy.
MB flew in from Crete, and I from the U.S., and we met at Rome’s Leonardo di Vinci airport. After hopping on the train, and schlepping our luggage 17 blocks through the cobblestone streets of Rome’s historical district,