Thoughts from the breakfast table...

View from the breakfast table.

As I sit here at the breakfast table, looking out the window at sun reflecting on the hills that run on the far (East) side of the Po River, I am beginning to reflect on the fact that our time in Italy is winding down. Just another week and a half or so and we head home. We have already begun the rounds of planning those "one last get-together" meetings with friends here. The first of which happened last night over aperitivo with my work colleague Tom. It was a nice evening, just Gretchen, myself and Tom. Since we had pretty much exhausted the "work experience" topic in the form of an interview for the Training Centre's blog (look for it to turn up here over the next few days: http://itcilo.wordpress.com), it was nice to just talk about life, travel, friends, and experiences in general over a few drinks. Tom is off to Namibia over the weekend, so today in the office will be the last I see of him before we leave.

These days of reflection and resolution have also been a good occasion to think back on the places we've gone, the people we've met and the things we've learned about ourselves and others. It felt like just yesterday that Gretchen's friend Julie visited us, but that was now nearly 10 weeks ago! It was a strange time as Gretchen and Hailey were quite ill with some sort of flu, so Julie, me and the boys headed out and about for some site-seeing. A few of the highlights of those were Superga, Milan, the National Automobile Museum and of course Julie helping us to kick off our gelato-tasting fest in good fashion! (much of that visit was covered here: http://anamericanfamilyinitaly.blogspot.it/2013/03/crowds-shroud-and-things-that-make.html).

Griffin has just waddled down the stairs into the room for our morning visit before I head out to the office, so I'll sign off for now. I'm going to try to force myself over the next week or so to capture more diligently some more of my own thoughts and reflections on our experience here and, (because my family has asked), more about some of the specifics of the places to which we have traveled and things we have done.

Ciao for now!