Everyone who knows me, knows I am a sucker for milestones. Years and ages that end in zero or five. And any event that happened a-number-that-ends-with-a-zero-or-a-five years ago. This is quite strange given my resistance to traditional anythings, but I do like a good milestone measured by arbitrary and often ridiculous criteria. Or maybe I just have an obsession with easy counting. Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I’m in the Cinque Terre right now (that’s five towns…5!) saying arrivederci to not only an old year, but an old decade. Last night I ordered a nasty ass blue drink with way too many liquors in it called “Adios Motherf@&%er” and it was as crappy as 2019 has been for so many people I care about. I do have to say, I quite enjoyed the annoyed waitress screaming my order to the even more annoyed barmaid who had to make the freakin’ thing. It cost 6 euro, but they only charged me 5 (five!) after I apologized in my best bad Italian for ordering it. I also did my annual 12 grapes, 12 wishes in 12 seconds at 12 midnight thing (Ireland time though) that I learned in Spain 10! years ago.
So, here we all go again. New year, new decade, new list of purposeful shit you want to do or should do or used to do but stopped doing or never did or can’t remember if you did or haven’t done in years or someone else did and now you want to do. And all the countless Mondays, birthdays, next months, arbor and groundhog days, when we promise ourselves we are actually going to do all these wonderful, soul-satisfying, life-changing things…and even if we do some, maybe for a day or a week or a month, January 1st is always looming as a very effective fallback for all our daily, weekly, monthly and arbor day-ly failures to launch. I don’t know about you, but I am super thankful for today. Every year.
And on this holiest of all bullshit days, I’m going to start doing something again that brings me great happiness and joy that I stopped doing around two years ago. I am doing it right now, but I probably won’t do it tomorrow or the next day. But there is a good chance I’ll do it again this weekend and maybe all through next week when I’m on vacation. Hope you’re all doing at least one of the things you promised yourself you would do this year. I am just so happy there are two zeros in this sucka!
I spent the last day of 2019 bopping around Monterosso and the first day of 2020 exploring Vernazza. Wanted to visit all five towns during my week in Italy and will write more about them all in a proper travel blog post this weekend, but thought I’d share some photos now of this absolutely breathtaking place. Have to travel to Milan and work tomorrow, so already taking a break from my old newfound travel blogging. But that’s okay, groundhog day is just around the corner.
You are amazing with a camera!!!! All these shots look like a postcard or shots you would see in national geographic ! You are going tk have to teach me one of these days .
Mi sobrina preciosa, you are way too kind. I think it would be hard to take a bad picture here, but I would love to show you some ways to compose picture and how to try to look at and capture subjects from your own unique, creative perspective. Let’s plan an outing when the weather is nicer! I’m going to look for that tree shot I can’t wait to share with you before I hit the hay— long, long travel and work day, I’m beat! (But never too tired for trees xoxoxo)
Tricia!!!
Mi querida amiga!!! Thank you for sharing your beautiful sentiments and gorgeous pictures! I will see you soon ! ❤️
Marilyn! Amica bellissima!! Thank you so much for reading, I’m going to try and write quite a bit next week, already finishing up a post with more pictures of Manarola, but might fall asleep, there are so many hills in Lisbon too! xoxo
Hi Trisha. Your Mom sent me this link. Great reading. Have actually been to Cinque Terre. In fact while driving the area and not paying attention Uncle Nick almost drove off the mountain. It seems that there was really no warning when the town and road ended.
Sorry worked interfered with your fun, but know you will make the best of it.
Enjoy and Happy Healthy New Year. Looking forward to the rest of your trip notes.
Love Aunt Georgia
Buon anno novo Aunt Georgia (and Uncle Nicky!) Oh no! I hear the roads in Cinque Terre are still really hard to drive on, that’s why everyone takes the train! I only saw parking lots, wasn’t on one road, not even once. Bet they haven’t changed much. Do you have pictures? Would love to see them. What village did you stay in? Did you go to all 5 villages? Tell me more! I’m actually in Portugal now on vacation and had a bunch of days off when I was in Italy over Christmas so was able to enjoy lots of free time. Even when I work, I have a huge chunk in the beginning of each day to play, which is why I love working from Europe soooo much. I’m writing another post on Italy now and then will move on to Portugal. Thank you so much for reading (and commenting!) Can’t wait to hear more about your trip here!
Love, Tricia
(glad to hear Uncle Nicky is doing well!)