April Lindner

So here I am at last, on the first day of the SJU study abroad program to Rome.  And this is the view from my sixth floor balcony, looking down on Viale di Trastevere.   And here's a somewhat blurry shot of my view looking across the way: The traffic's still buzzing--trams and Vespas and Fiats, oh my!--but there's a cool breeze up here, and a sense of being invisible and yet a part of it all. Tomorrow I meet up with my class for the first time, for an orientation and a quick introduction to what the class will bring, and later for our first group meal.  But before the day gets rolling, you can bet I'll be having my morning coffee on this balcony!

So now I'm going to backtrack a bit to day one of this summer's big adventure.  Ιn advance of my upcoming study tour in Rome, Andre and I flew into Nice, France, to stay with some dear friends who live part of every year in a village in Provence.  Defying our jet lag, we hiked up to the highest panoramic point of glorious Nice: From there we heard some kind of concert happening on the beach, so we hurried back down to see what we were missing.  Turns out, it was a multi-artist event being filmed for French t.v., hosted by the radio station France Bleu, and open to anyone who cared to stumble in. To my happy surprise, guess who came out on the stage?   If you can't make her out, it's Conchita Wurst, the gorgeous yet fully bearded winner of the 2014 Eurovision competiton--which I watched in real time via the internet, because when I'm not in Europe I'm pretty much wishing I were in Europe.  And though I was rooting for Greece's fantastic Kosa Mostra to win, if

Due to technical difficulties and a whole lot of intense sightseeing, my good intention of posting a daily blog has gone unfulfilled...until now.  A friend helped me solve the technical difficulties.  And now that my husband Andre has departed for home, I'm having a fairly quiet layover in Verona before the study tour begins.  So I will be catching up and sending lots of dispatches from the road. For now, though, I'm staying in an AirBnB in a quiet and somewhat industrial section of Verona, but I'm about to wander off into the charming historical center.  Just waiting for my phone to charge so I can take my usual thousand pictures. I arrived yesterday, and have been laying rather low, recharging my own personal battery.  Last night at about sunset, the heat was broken by a surprise rainstorm--quiet fun to watch from the veranda of "my" apartment.  Ah, the smell of rain in Italy!

Come July, I will be teaching a travel writing course in Rome.  This afternoon I take off for a pre-study tour vacation, and by this time tomorrow I will be touching down in Nice, France. Right now, though, I've got the airport jitters.  I always get them; they're part of the travel experience for me.  They are partially born of my fear of flying and partially of my conviction (sometimes true!) that I must have forgotten to pack some really important item that I can't live without.   They're also spun out of my worries that the guys I've left back home holding down the fort will forget to feed the guinea pig or let the dogs out or turn the stove burners off. But, as always, my travel jitters are mostly from excitement--so I've learned to embrace them. It wouldn't be a true adventure if it didn't start with that feeling of the earth spinning so quickly under my feet that I have to work to keep from flying off into space.