WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Hi Friends...

I realize that it's been a little while since updating on life so I'm gonna do it now. I have just finished a great 12 days travelling in Italy with a great friend...Julia (You can see her in the pictures from my last post!). Yesterday morning we parted ways in Rome, and Julia went home to Canada while I took a long (did I mention it was REALLY long!) train ride up to Salzburg, Austria. I have to admit that i did get nice layover in Venice (to eat my last cup of authentic gelato and buy a few souvenirs while enjoying the beautiful city!).

Since I last posted, while in the Cinque Terra, Julia and I went down to Florence, then Naples and finally Rome. Each a very different city. Florence is historic, but Rome is even older and therefore totally different look and architecture everywhere. Naples is also really old, but the culture there is much different than a sophisticated city like Florence. In a lot of ways Naples reminded me of Addis Ababa where i had just lived. For example, people drive with their horns (instead of signalling to change lanes, or just waiting your turn to move through the intersetion, both populations believe it's better to just lay on the horn and hope people respond!); the city is quite dirty (though the cars don't spit out clouds of black smoke in Naples like they do in Addis) [it also didn't help that the garbage men\women of Naples were having a strike while we were there so there was no garbage pickup]; the city is quite poor and I met a lot of people begging on the streets of both Naples and Addis. Anyways, those are just a few similarities. It was interesting that I felt so at home in that setting though, and my friend was always commenting on how different it was from any other city she had ever been to. I think my standards for cleanliness and general upkeep have been lowered and I am much more tolerant to these kinds of things after living in Ethiopia.

Now I am in lush and beautiful Austria for a final few days in Europe. It is so lovely to be staying in a green, green country after so many months with hardly any grass or plants and the cleanliness is of utmost importance here in Austria. It's very refreshing (and quite different). I fly home to Canada on Monday and then will be home for about 10 days before leaving for my next adventure to work at Manitoba Pioneer Camp again (like last summer).

I'll keep you all posted as to how my summer adventures unfold...no doubt to have some good stories!

Talk to you soon.