Advertisement
Published: January 12th 2008
The Abbott fam
My mother, her parents, and my brother and I.Happy New Years everybody!!!
Hope you all had happy holidays, safe travels, and excellent new years celebrating! I had a splendid journey down to Tennessee to see alot of the family! The foothills of the Smokey Mountains was lovely as usual, and I thoroughly enjoyed the q.t. with the fam! Then I shot across North Carolina to visit my old stomping grounds on the Outer Banks and my friends there. I got to see Ali and Ryan's new baby girl, Chloe when she was only a week old, she's beautiful! Plus go kayaking with Brain and Jon, and iceskating with Monica, Brain, Alicia and her new hubby! Hahaha, congrats! My knee is STILL sore from taking an overconfident turn and busting my ass!
Then an exhausting trip up the coast and a long series of flights to Florence, Italy! Just in time to bring in the new year right!!! Italy is amazing. I've never visited such history and culture. The feeling you get walking through piazzas with 500 year old sculptures, museums with the same aged paintings and frescos, olive groves and vineyards in the country that have been tended for hundreds of years, waking up, looking out the
At Dad and Debs!
Dad, Deb, John, Steven, Charlene, and myself window and a castle on the next hill fills your view.... a culture of people who get offended by people overplanning, overworking, over-following the rules, as opposed to pushing those restricting ways of life on its people.... I can't rave about Italy enough! And then as if I wasn't overwhelmed enough by Florence, a day in Rome was breathtaking! Seeing the Coliseum and walking under arches and around ruins from the Roman Empire and before! Crazy!
Surprisingly, I was actually ready to come home though! I might complain about the cold weather, but I do love my family up in New York and enjoy all the friendly people that I meet!
This trip was really good for me, I didn't use the phone or email at all (sorry mom and dad!), and spent alot of time in the country walking around or sitting by the fire or in town enjoying that particularly grand Florence feeling, or visiting with Ben's wonderful friends (most of them artists) and many of them Americans that went to Italy and never left! This trip rekindled a search involving my mind and soul, and allowed me to take a step back from my life
Currituck Iceskating
Monica, Alecia, and me and look at it from the outside, because I feel as though I left my life at the airport and took a vacation from myself. There are some changes to be made always, but I'm feeling refreshed and positive.
I hope all of you are well and love you all so much!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0415s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
sarah
non-member comment
beautiful places, beautiful faces..shannon, you're a beautiful woman! glad you're still searching, growing, and loving this life to the fullest. AND I can't wait to talk to you soon, now that you're back home safely. love, sarah