Road trip

Tags

Connecticut, Europe, postaday2014, road trip

Today my husband needed to tour a few facilities in Connecticut so we went off; as I drove through various parts of Connecticut, listening to my husband on the phone and when he wasn’t on the phone, he was on his computer, he works all of the time, I couldn’t help but think of my friend Tilly from
http://www.thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com fame because our destination was Avon right outside of Manchester. Connecticut does have several cool names for towns and cities; Windsor, Avon, New London, Oxford, Manchester and Greenwich. Can you tell that most of the original setters must have been homesick or at least that is my theory. I mentioned to my husband that seeing the sign for Manchester made me think of Tilly and he said that our Manchester wasn’t as nice as the one in England. I agreed, I have never been to Manchester overseas, but I would bet a lot of cookies that it must be nicer than Connecticut’s version. In defense to Manchester Connecticut, I have a serious bias towards Europe; I have a weakness for all things historic and that’s why I imagine in my head that Manchester, Oxford and Greenwich, all these places that I have never seen, to be such special places, I imagine cobble lined streets, buildings with centuries and centuries of meaning and stories. My weakness, I know.

When I see places in this country, I see a new slate; despite being settled since the 1600’s, this country still has a new feeling when compared to walking down the streets of say Paris or Rome or London.

So that was my day and my day of driving led me to these thoughts and my thoughts became this post.

Daily prompt: The happy wanderer

Tags

airlines, Europe, postaday2014, The Wanderer, travel

What’s your travel style? Are you itinerary and schedule driven, needing to have every step mapped out in advance or are you content to arrive without a plan and let happenstance be your guide?

I do appreciate how the daily prompts seem to get their inspiration from song lyrics; these lyrics were actually featured during a good part of my travels with my sister and the various traveling companions we picked up from country to country. While we were in Rome with our Australian friends, they introduced us to the Canadian trio who were very galant gentlemen, later when we parted ways with the girls, we then met up with the boys in Greece. “The Wandered” was sung very often by the Canadians as we hung out in Corfu over twenty years ago. They sung it acoustically at dusk when we would sit outside in the village of Palakis enjoying life. Greece, back then, seemed to me to be the ideal place to sit and just enjoy being, living and appreciating the world around you.

My traveling style is pretty laid back, I like to travel lightly so I pack as minimalist as possible. I don’t know if I would call myself schedule or itinerary driven, but I do like to learn as much as I can before I leave so that I have a good idea of what I want to see and most importantly what I want to eat. That being said, I do like to fly by the seat of my pants and let my feet lead me to where I wind up, if that makes any sense.

I think that I would describe myself as someone who loves the journey as much as the destination, while long airline flights aren’t what they used to be, I don’t hate them because they are leading me towards an adventure and I love adventure.

I have been very fortunate in that I have had quite a fair share of traveling adventures both thanks to my parents for shipping my sister and I overseas to be taken care of by our extended family, but also because having been raised to travel, I made deliberate choices to travel to Europe every summer that I could before I got married and I was then fortunate enough to marry someone who loves to travel as much as I do. So my traveling adventures have turned into our traveling adventures and that has made it twice as nice and twice as adventurous.

Daily prompt: Three coins in the fountain

Tags

backpacking, Europe, postaday2014, Rome, Trevi fountain

Have you ever tossed a coin or two into a fountain and made a wish? Did it come true?

When my sister and I were on our backpacking trip through Europe, we spent at least four days visiting Rome with our three Australian travel companions and we made the point of going to the Trevi fountain to throw a coin and make wishes.

“Tradition has it that you will return to Rome if you throw a coin into the fountain’s water basin. You should toss it with your right hand over your left shoulder (or left hand over your right shoulder) with your back to the fountain. You’re not allowed to look behind you while you’re tossing the coin but the fountain is so large it’s basically impossible to miss.”

I copied and pasted this blurb to make sure that anyone who reads this and hasn’t visited the Trevi fountain yet, if they do, that they will do it correctly so that their wish does come true because I know that I did it all wrong. I did not throw my coin with my right hand over my left shoulder, that’s why my wish didn’t come true and why I haven’t returned to Rome as of yet.

Seriously, I am sure that the superstition isn’t true but just in case, keep it in mind if you ever get there, on the off chance that it is true.

I do remember how majestic the fountain is, how clear the water was that you could see all of the different coins from all around the world. I wonder how many Euros there are in relation to the other currencies nowadays, back then when I was there the Euro didn’t exist, there were instead Lira’s, French Francs, German Marks, Dutch Guilders and maybe even some Greek Drachmas.

I remember that the Spanish Steps weren’t far off and the largest McDonald’s that I had ever seen was right there next to the steps. I have to say that my memories of Rome are still fairly clear and vibrant, I couldn’t stop looking everywhere, all around, left and right, up and down, there was always something breathtakingly beautiful to see. I had really loved Rome and I would love to get back there one day, just to walk all throughout the city, it is such a magnificent city with a tremendous amount of history that four short days is not long enough to fully appreciate all of its riches. I wish that I had known of the coin tossing instructions back then, I would have returned to Rome much sooner.