Travel

It's finally March!Ten days till I depart for Italy's golden shores. I can't even believe I bought my ticket all the way back at the end of October. I have been patient, I tell you. Patient!

My aunt, uncle and cousin just returned from Florence where they visited my cousin Sara. She's studying abroad through the same program I did, and living in the piazza with the central market. I keep forgetting to tell her that there's an international food shop in that piazza that sells the Syrian bread our grandparents always had in the house. We got it from a store called Homsy's in Massachusetts, but it closed, and I had never seen it sold anywhere else till then. Pita bread is what people usually think of as Middle Eastern bread, but that's thick and I find it gross. Syrian bread is large, thin loaves, probably a foot in diameter, and they have the most delicious bready taste! I used to love the ones that were a little blackened from the oven on the bottom. I had a very particular method of eating them, too--I'd nibble around the edge until I could separate the two sides, then I'd eat the top first and finish with the bottom. Oh, memories. Damn, I can't wait to get back there and buy some of that bread. A euro a bag!

Speaking of euros, oh, how dismal is the exchange rate in Europe right now. Geez, I thought it was bad last time! Fifteen hundred dollars yields about 975 euros. That's ridiculous. I was reading a travel magazine yesterday that recommended places where the dollar is still strong, but it was mostly places I either a) don't want to go, like South America and Switzerland, or b) can't go, in practical terms, like the Middle East. Just my luck of all the Middle Eastern countries, Egypt would be the most expensive (one of the many reasons I keep pushing Turkey as our next journey to Sean, but he stubbornly insists that he must complete his ancient world triad by visiting the land of the pharaohs).

Speaking of Sean, he's going on a trip too! He bought a ticket for Ireland in April. He's going to explore the southern and southwestern portions of Ireland. So far the rough itinerary we've figured out is that he'll fly into Limerick and spend a night there, then stop in Tipperary on his way to spending a night in Cahir, followed by two nights in Kilkenny, a night in Cork, a night in Killarney, a night in Adare (which claims to be Ireland's most adorable village) and then another night in Limerick before he flies home. I have to admit that I have never had any desire to visit Ireland, and a couple of nights spent looking at guidebooks to this country really hasn't altered that in any way. So, as I've told Sean, I'm glad he can get this trip out of his system and not pester me to go later. Of course, he responded by asking if I'd ever want to go to Scotland, because he has the idea one should visit all the lands of one's heritage. Um, just as I'm not really going to be undertaking a trip to Damascus anytime soon, I really don't feel the night to brush up on my Scots-Irish background either. Sean promised to lift a glass for Mrs. D (nee Hennessey) while he's in Cork, which is apparently where her father's family was from (I remember this only because she, like so many other Irish people, liked to put little stickers on their cars with the arms of the county they were from; I remember thinking County Cork was a silly name). I'm sure she'd be thrilled he's going if she were still here. She even tried to suggest to me when I was a freshman that I should add an Irish Studies minor. I remember looking at her, completely blank, and saying "Why?" Yeah, I'm surprised the black lightning from on high hasn't fried me yet for all the Irish-mockery I've been directing at Sean these past few days. All in fun, Mom, all in fun. Erin go bragh....or something.