While we've been in Rome, I like to think that I've been steadily leveling up my Italian speaking skills. When we touched down in Ciampino airport a few days ago, my Italian skills were basically non-existent - I have properly studied Italian in the past, but not since, well, kindergarten. Needless to say, in the intervening 19 years, I've gotten a little bit rusty.
If there's one thing about us humans I will always find
fascinating, it's our ability to justify the most bizarre things we do.
Case in point, on our first full day in Rome, Tash and I watched at
least a hundred people, if not more, line up to throw coins into a
fountain that wasn't there.
We started the day with a map marked with every site we
wanted to see, and we set out on part one of our self-guided
Roman Holiday walking tour - retracing the steps of Audrey Hepburn and
Gregory Peck in one of Tash's favourite movies - which, I admit, I only
watched for the first time 2 nights before.
Selfie at the Colosseum - taken by hand, with scaffolding in the background. Both of those will make sense in a moment.
I first laid eyes on you in Melbourne. Tash and I had just moved interstate. We were young, broke, adrift in a world that was bigger than anything we had encountered up until that point, but we were independent.
We were free.
And although we didn't have much money to spare, we decided to celebrate our newfound freedom by treating ourselves. We knew that a factory outlet was all we could afford, so we headed out.
If you decide to travel to Ireland (and you should - seriously, this
country is gorgeous), you're almost certainly going to pass through
Dublin. While you may be tempted to skip through the capital city in a
rush to get to the picturesque rolling hills and ruined castles, I'd
urge you to reconsider.
Dublin is a great city, and well worth taking a few days to explore
- no other major city in Ireland is so accommodating to travellers, with
great historical sites and a plethora of shops and bars and
restaurants.
And as ever, I will be your sensible, responsible, mature tour guide!
With the coming of the New Year, in amongst the fireworks, alcohol and (if you are anything like me) massive sugar highs, there comes a sweet euphoric moment where everything feels shiny and new. Mountains can be scaled, rivers forded, and all our daily problems suddenly seem amazingly achievable.
It's like, I'm told, the feeling of jumping off a bridge. Around half way down all the life consuming problems that brought you to the edge of the bridge in the first place, all now seem insignificant and completely fixable....bar the fact that you had just jumped off a bridge.
The intense high of a year renewed, a fresh start, feels like it will last forever. But like all things, there are swings and roundabouts and before too long all those resolutions you promised yourself on January 1st, start to look more and more like mountains again.
