August is here, and it’s been off to a ridiculously rainy start. I still stand by what I wrote last year when I complimented the hard-working, kind and generous Italians who have earned their respective vacanze (vacations). There’s nothing wrong with checking out of life for a few weeks to recharge and just, in a word, live.
Last September, I wrote about the end of my first Italian summer, a learning experience on many fronts from which I set two personal goals for the following August:
- Do whatever I can so as not to pass August 2014 in Rome, or any major Italian city for that matter. I have no problem working in August, but I would just prefer to do so from a WiFi-equipped beach, lake or country house.
- I’m determined to return from my summer 2014 vacanza with tanned legs.
So, in case you’re wondering where I stand:
- I had intended to spend the first 11 days of August in Ireland followed by the third week of August in Elba, but since work-related matters got a little busy exceptionally fast, I opted to postpone my trip to the fall. And I’m not complaining! Work is a good problem to have and I’m grateful for it, so I made a conscious choice to take advantage of the down time to catch up on (and hopefully get ahead of!) my work. The rest of the month? I’m hoping to brush up my Italian (it’s a never ending journey!) and just take some little trips here and there…perhaps Venice, Tuscany, Friuli and Abruzzo, or maybe one of the lakes. But work comes first, so who knows? We’ll see. I’ll still be spending the week of the 17th on Elba Island. I know it’s not the entire month, but a week on the seaside is a good compromise if I do say so myself.
- My tanned legs, or le mie gambe abbronzate, have been in the works since May. My regular marathon training runs in the usually sunny (though not this past week!) Parco Sempione have helped–I run in shorts. The God-honest truth is that I just don’t have the pigment in my skin that will allow my legs to take on the same golden brown color as others, but even if I go from pale as death to just slightly pale, I’ll take that over my natural pasty, Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost white any ol’ day.
Buon estate a voi!
