Alla Prossima

I was having one final chat before my departure with my friend Marco the Napoletano yesterday.  I was saying how difficult leaving Italy is for me and how this has been, in many ways, the four best years of my life.

MTN: Maybe you enjoyed your time here because you knew to have a deadline so you didn't waste time.

Me:  No caro I enjoyed it here because I never thought about the deadline....  it was going to go on forever and I would see everything and do everything...
I tend to forget the things I don't want to know about ....

I knew when I came here four years ago that as well as an arrival there would be a departure but I have never been one to think that far into the future.   It was a given that I choose to ignore and even last week I was trying not to think about it. It is now 1020 on the morning of the 17th my flight leaves at 1410 and the car will be here at 1100.  My bags are packed, the dogs are ready, though Nicky won't leave his kennel - he knows that something is going on - so I guess I must face the fact that this stage is over and the next is beginning.

I will miss so much that I have grown accustomed to here - the food, the arts, the music, the lifestyle but most of all the people.  In the past four years I have been blessed in forming friendships with wonderful people here in Italy and also because of living here people in Greece, England, France, Switzerland and Canada.  People who have given me so much in the way of care and love.  It is them that have made the past four years what they have been.

To all my dear friends, and I won't start naming them because when you do you always forget someone, I thank you for that - baci e abbracchi  alla prossima!  Until next time!