A Day to Savor Life

762 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

Since I'm a travel addict, most of the dreams on my list are about seeing the world. I love being on the road, each day a new adventure as I take in the sights, sounds, tastes, and experiences of being someplace I've never been. On my last trip, I realized that this need to travel has more to do with the person I become rather than the places I visit.

When I travel, life becomes about the moment. I wake each morning feeling as if my day is a present about to be unwrapped and I get excited to find out what will be revealed: a new friend, food I've never tried, or something that takes my breath away. Even getting lost and missed trains are adventures. When I'm home, life becomes about tasks that need to be done, and sometimes I'm so overwhelmed I forget how to experience life from my travel perspective.

You don't have to get on a plane to have an adventure. Your backyard or just a few miles down the road can hold excitement and presents yet to be unwrapped. It's the attitude by which you approach the world and your day that will create what happens.

Most people plan their outings. Today we will go to wine country, visit these vineyards, eat at this restaurant, and then be home by this time. Or they head to the ocean, making their way directly to the hotel and then to the activities they've read about in books or have done in the past.

I challenge you to make a day this month a surprise adventure. Wake-up and with each step you take be present in the moment. Go to a new cafe or sit outside to eat your breakfast, but make certain what you eat is something you've never tried. Stop and savor the taste as if you were on a leisurely vacation. Then go for a walk or into a part of town you've always liked. A gourmet food shop is a great place to visit because it holds many treasures of things you've never tried. If you enjoy reading, go to a park with the best cup of coffee in town and a little dessert and spend time reading, drinking, looking at the scenery and people taking time to notice the little details of life.

Another way to have a great adventure is to pack an overnight bag and get in your car. Point the automobile in a direction and see where it takes you. Once again, take in your surroundings. You have no place you need to be, so you don't have to focus on when you'll arrive. If something looks interesting stop and enjoy the moment. When you fall in love with a place, find a hotel and stay.

The point of this exercise is to relish how decadent and exciting life can be. It's all about the experience not the completion of a goal. Too many times, life is about rushing from one place to another without stopping to enjoy living. So take the time and give yourself the gift of a day where all you do is savor life.

My Italian Lover

783 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

A touch, a brush of lips against mine as hands move up my neck and through my hair - waves of sensations shivering throughout my body. The feel of new love, the excitement of chemicals that make the world seem brighter, the nerve endings open so that every experience is not one of thought but of surrender to pleasure. This is how Italy makes me feel -  as if I'm under the spell of a lover.

A soft breeze brings the smell of spring flowers, as I sit in the park in Orvieto. I roll a bite of chocolate, orange gelato around my tongue, taking the time to taste the sweetness and bitterness. Beyond the medieval walls I can see the Tuscan valley below. Before I realize it's happening, tears drip from my eyelashes - I'm leaving in two days and my heart is breaking, knowing that I will be away from the place I love deeply.

What is it about this country that changes me so drastically? In any other place I'm a type A personality: I rush, I push, determined to experience all that I can from life. In Italy, I find myself closing my eyes to taste a great wine. I eat slowly for fear I will miss the delicious pleasure the food brings. I stroll, watching the world and noticing the small details. Everything becomes about experiencing the moment, and it is here in this place that I feel that I've really learned how to live.

A Tiny Village In Tuscany

787 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

Green rolling hills spread in every direction. Yellow flowers decorated waves of grass as the sunlight created light and shadows along the fields. Groves of olive trees, their silvery leaves shimmering, met rows of vines. I looked out over the vast landscape to the castle on top of the hill. Soriano nel Cimino,  Viterbo Italy, my home for the next ten days.

Unlike when I spent a week in Florence, where tourists marched through the city daily, and locals spoke english, now I'm in a small village untouched by time itself. Each day after exploring the region, the bus drops me  at the bottom of the hill and I begin the long climb up ancient stone stairs, past stucco and stone buildings with bright-colored laundry hanging from the clothesline.

In the square people stare at me. There are no calls of, "Ciao, Bella". Instead, this is a place where everyone has grown up together. Small shops with flowers, shoes, and clothing along with cars that move up and down the cobblestone streets are the only sign that I'm not in the 17th century. People call to one another, each person knowing the other in the town. Teenagers sit in the piazza that overlooks the Tuscan valley, bored of their small village and dreaming of someday leaving. Yet, there is a real community here of family. There isn't one tourist shop with t-shirts or calendars. The only hotel is the one I'm staying in and it's only been in the village for eight years. It has eighteen rooms decorated with the original frescoes.

I pass the square and climb another hill. Here I stop for vegetables in the produce shop, cheese from the butcher, and pasta at the place where the old woman smiles at me and says, "Bella" each time I come in.

Back at the hotel I walk the wide stone steps to the lounge where I look out across the village to the castle high on the hill. Once an Etruscan fort, (the original Tuscan people) the Romans turned it into a prison and now it stands empty. At night it is illuminated for all to see.

The closest town of Viterbo is a half hour drive. Another medieval town, but one that has modernized its outskirts. Here people can go to the cinema and shop in malls. Large supermarkets are available. Other small towns in the surrounding area have large gardens such as Villa Lente in Bagnaia. At one time, the popes ran from persecution in Rome and designed this area with duomos and gardens.

But here in Soriano, there is a simpler life - one that Rome has left untouched. It is a place of long walks and time sitting in the square. Men smoke and drink coffee while they retell stories. And everywhere I look is a view of the Tuscan valley below.

My brain has shut down. I have no desire to do anything but eat and take in the scenery - to walk the streets at night in the quiet. At the hotel, I've met wonderful people who have become friends for the week as we've explored the region. Most of all, I've gotten into my Italy mode - a time where I taste life more deeply and slowly.

Hiking in Heels in the Highlands

874 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

The sun came out in Scotland and I drove north to an area called Fort William, the hiking and skiing capital of the country. The drive was breathtaking as I passed bays surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Castles dotted the landscape completing the idyllic picture.

I was told that I should take the gondola to the top of Ben Ness, the tallest mountain in Scotland to take in the spectacular views. When I arrived in town I went to the tourist office to buy tickets for the gondola, but as I looked at the map I saw a hike to a waterfall. I went to the information booth and asked how to get to the footpath. The woman took one look at my pretty winter coat and my dress boots, and told me that this was a treacherous hike with many slippery parts. I thanked her for the warning and the directions.

Once again, driving in Scotland proved to be misleading. The drive was supposed to take fifteen minutes, and forty-five later I arrived after much turning around and asking for further directions. I think I have used my reverse gear more this week than I do in a year back home.

On the drive I met one of the locals - a highland cow. These guys are so cute you want to hug them like a teddy bear. This one tried to come right up to me when I took his picture, but his horns kept me back.

It was sunny and bright as I began my walk with my winter coat on, my camera on my shoulder, an umbrella and poncho in my pocket and my pretty pashmina around my neck. The walk was easy, but I was warm in the coat. I hung my beautiful coat on a birch tree and continued. The path became rockier and wetter, and I crossed over streams until I came to the snow. By this time, my boots, which were more like socks on top of two-inch rubber heels, were filled with enough water that I felt like I walked in puddles as my socks squished in the wetness.

As hikers, in Gortex and hiking boots, passed me on the narrow path they looked at me with question at my attire. I had to laugh at myself and what I must have looked like to them. I politely told them that it was my coat hanging on the branch further down and to please not remove it thinking it was forgotten.

As I returned to my car, I was happy to find my coat where I had left it. My feet and jeans were soaked, but it was well worth it for the hike into the wilderness. I picked up my jacket just as the rain began. I opened up my fancy umbrella (it actually has lace on the ends) and continued towards the car. Hail began to fall in large pellets. A group of hikers in winter, weather clothing walked towards me. I must have been a sight to them because I heard them say, "The stupid French. They can't even dress casual for hiking."

Bates Motel and A Nursing Home

795 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

I set out from Edinburgh without a plan or a hotel for the next three nights. I was told it would be easy to find B&B's and guesthouses. My plan was to go through Stirling, see the castle, and then head to Aberfoyle to hike in Queen's National Park.

Stirling is a lovely little city, but as with most of Scotland, the city has tiny roads that one car can barely fit down never mind two. With a few wrong turns, I found my way to the castle, saw all of the tour buses and decided to turn around. I was done with being around the mobs (I can't imagine what traveling in Europe would be like during the summer months).

As I got away from the city, beautiful, green pastures covered in a light dusting of snow spread as far as I could see. Within thirty minutes I was deep into the Queen's National forest where tall pines and mountains surrounded me. The snow and wind had picked up. I figured I could still hike - I'm from New England I can handle bad weather. I put my poncho over my fancy coat, put on an extra pair of socks and headed to the forest. The rangers stopped me before I hit the end of the car park. They wouldn't allow me access because they were worried that a tree branch would fall on my head and kill me. I guess people freak out about weather all over the world no matter how small the storm. It really wasn't that bad.

There was nothing to do in Aberfoyle, and the locals suggested I move on towards Loch Lomond. Along the road I saw the most beautiful manor and turned around to check it out. Entering it's beautiful lobby I thought, I've found home for the night. I could curl up with a book next to the fire in the library and stare out at the pastures and hills. I could take some much needed rest. When I asked about staying the woman was more than happy to show me a lovely, little room with a view. Then she said, "You do realize we won't have any other guests tonight? You'll hear quite a bit of moving around, but you'll be alone. I mean there'll be someone on duty in the house and all, but you might not see them." I wasn't sure what she meant by this, but then it dawned on me how old the house was. She never said it was haunted, but I suddenly had visions of a psychopath walking the halls at night and stabbing me in the shower. I decided to move on.

Hours later I was still driving through tiny towns, getting lost, turning around, maneuvering roundabouts till I found myself by this beautiful, small castle around Loch Lomond. I thought, this is my chance to make my dream come true of staying in a castle. I rang the bell and a gentleman opened the door and I walked into a foyer with a sweeping staircase and stained glassed. Just stunning. I asked for a room for the night and the man looked at me with question. I asked again wondering how he could misunderstand my needs.

"This is a nursing home," he answered. "I think you're a bit young for a room." That's when I noticed the distinct smell of a hospital and the fact that he was wearing scrubs for a shirt. DUH!

I moved on, since they wouldn't let me stay, and found my way to a little town called Luss. Nothing was open in town except a small B&B without an inn keeper present. I walked through the quaint town and out to the lake, had a cup of hot chocolate at the local pub and looked up hotels on the internet. My only option was to keep driving around the Loch up to the Highlands and to a little fishing village called Oban.

All in all I drove over six hours that day with only short breaks. The scenery was stunning even in the snow and rain. I found a lovely hotel overlooking the bay with a jacuzzi bath and booked it for three nights. I think I'm better day-tripping from one place. In one day I almost booked a haunted manor and a nursing home. Can you imagine what I would find if I searched for two more days.

Impressionism and a Whirlwind Tour

801 Days to Complete 101 Dreams Come True

"Art is an abstraction; take it from nature while dreaming in front of it." Paul Guaguin

I love the Impressionists. As Robert put it, on my first night in Paris, "Most art is religious or stern portraits of royalty. Most paintings were created to show sacrifice or power. The Impressionist are colorful, bright pictures that make you feel alive."

What he says is true. Impressionism brings the softness of every day life to a place in your heart. With swishes of paint it reflects the light and color of the world. Instead of demanding you see the hard lines of reality, it blurs the landscapes into something serene and almost touchable, as if the world is in a constant state of peace.

To walk the halls of art lined with Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Van Gogh has once again left me in awe of my life. I'm so blessed.

It's wild to watch the other travelers rush through the museum. They stop at each painting for a brief moment and then move on. It's hard for me to understand how they can do this since I find it almost painful to look away knowing that I won't see these masterpieces again for many years.

I've noticed the rushing is true of many tourists, not just with art, but also with the great scenery of the world. I remember sitting at the Grand Canyon and watching people walk up to the edge, take dozen of photos, and then say, "Let's get some ice cream." I wonder if our fast-paced regular life has left humans with the inability to really experience the greatness this world has to offer. I think it's been forgotten how to stop and take in the present moment and in that the memory of how to really live is lost.

Paris is full of tour buses. The tour leaders sit up front pointing out the important buildings and monuments while half the passengers are fast asleep from exhaustion. This is the way most travelers see the world - whirlwind tours set to tight time schedules that leave little space for the unexpected. I want to yell at them to get off the bus and out from the hordes that follow leaders holding up closed umbrellas. Get out and experience the city you're in. Realize you're blessed to be standing in front of true magnificence and take more than a second to soak it in.

Okay enough of my rant for the day.

After the museum I walked to Notre Dame and began to stroll along the Seine to take in the setting sun and the way the light hits the buildings casting a golden hue across the facades. Within moments I was joined by a man named David. He spoke french and I forced the wheels of my memory to move as I listened. Actually, my french began to return a few nights before when an annoying man followed me to my hotel insisting I give him my phone number. Suddenly, my bitch came on 'en francais'. To my surprise he clearly understood what I said and ran away. So when David approached I could actually ask him in french to speak slower so I could understand. He did slow but I learned that David didn't take life at a relaxed pace.

Within moments he had my hand and was racing me through the streets of Paris showing me Hotel de Ville, the best chocolate shop in Paris, and the Royal Palace. He grabbed my camera, snapping pictures of me and then handed it to a woman to take a picture of the two of us. He danced me in the streets, hugged me to him, all the while kissing my cheek as I ducked and swerved my head so as not to be kissed on the lips. His enthusiasm was contagious as he had me laughing while he tried to enrich my knowledge of the french language and pretended we were going to go for a swim in the Seine.

He insisted we take the boat ride along the Seine, but I was tired and hungry by this time and ready to call it a night. I bid him adieu with a kiss on the cheek and made my way across the Seine to home.