LesliAyala
LesliAyala
LesliAyala
My significant journey to Italy should be prefaced with the following: my parents had traveled quite a bit in Europe and my Mom always encouraged me to "just get a passport!" with hopes I'm sure that I would actually go somewhere safe/adventurous. I knew/heard of adventurous peers who had traveled to Europe, and I did not have the foggiest idea that I would ever do the same, which was due to either a lack of concrete plans or an ambiguous yet significant dream that I had in college in which a gypsy told me "your only fate will be when you travel the seas" (fate is a strong word and as we understand, cannot be controlled). With the "just get a passport" item ever lingering on my to-do list, I prompted into action by an invitation from my family friend Reed to travel with him to an upcoming planned trip to Italy. The invitation came as Reed and I were initiating a deeper friendship and relationship to be based on eating right, exercise, future planning, affection, and intellectualism (the 40s, hmmm, probably statistically normal). Reed's family had rented an apartment in Florence, Italy, and we spent a familial, friendly, intellectual, and cuisine-filled two weeks walking the streets of Florence, Fiesole, Siena, and San Gimignano, from April 3-April 26, 2008.