Thanksgiving...

Since they don't celebrate it here in Italy, a few of us are getting together today and then again on Thursday for a late dinner. I have a lecture until 8pm as do most of my friends so we are going out to a restaurant that is serving a traditional dinner.

I have a LOT to be thankful for and it's not just to be celebrated on one day. I am lucky enough to have things happen every day that I feel gratitude for. The list is too long for even a blog to handle so I think I'm going to take this opportunity to show the simplest form of my gratitude.

Each day that I walk through the streets of Florence I take someone with me. A friend, my kids, an acquaintance and my family. I never walk alone. You are all with me in my heart and I have so many special memories of every person that has connected with me. I often think that "so and so would love to see this" and in that way, that simple thought I feel gratitude. I am lucky to have so many people locked away in my heart to share my quiet moments with. This blog is to share my outward moments with but there is so much time, thought and feeling that I don't write about here.

I have met some amazing people here in Florence. They are kind and happy and we are all feeling pretty lucky to be here. It is nice to be surrounded with such gratitude.

So celebrate Thanksgiving every day in the simplest of forms...gratitude and you will never feel alone again.

Happy Thanksgiving from Italy to anyone that reads this.

Ciao Ciao Richard...

It's 7am on Monday morning and I just put Richard in a taxi to send him back to Los Angeles. Boy it's quiet in my house right now!

He and I had quite the adventure from Rome, to Ireland and back to Florence. I think I'm sending a guy with a new idea of how to live, but time will tell. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to go to Ireland and reconnect with him after such a long time apart.

I highly recommend to everyone to hang out with their high school love if they ever get a chance a gazillion years later. It was so interesting how different I now see my own history, I learned a LOT from him. At 15 your perspective is so limited and when you look that far back with another set of eyes you really do see things differently.

one more for today...

I have to get to class soon and I think I've procrastinated long enough for one day.

I met with my thesis advisor today and she made my paper grow exponentially so I'm avoiding doing any work at the moment until I can get my head around it all.

I'll end this little blogging session with one of my favorite shots from Warrenpoint...I owe Richard big time for letting me tag along on his journey.

we are EVERYWHERE!

The Stewart clan seems to have made it's way all over the world...including Warrenpoint Ireland!

I am just going to throw up some of the snap shots from Ireland as I go along and edit.

The Fairy Fort

During my day guided tour in Galway we stopped at a Fairy Fort. You could feel the energy surging through you as you walked in like a bunch of butterflies swirling around your stomach. I took only a few photos and a few of the ones I took had this kinda "misty" look in patches between the trees. Here is one of the photos but it might be difficult to see in a small format.

I have so many photos from the trip that getting them all up is a bit of a chore, but I'm trying. I'll put the link to my Flickr account up here again when I've got more to show...

just me...from Rome

sometimes...you see things in life that make you feel like a kid. I'll be going back to Rome on December 1st for school stuff and I can't wait. I'm starting to think that I won't have enough time to travel around Italy and see many things outside of Florence...but I'm not complaining. School is worth it.

Holy shit...

It seems like a whirlwind of activity and I just can't seem to keep up on the blog things these days. So I'm going to ramble on a little in no specific order, but mainly as it comes up in my mind as I type.

Galway is where I left off and it was magic. The people of Ireland are amazing, even though they can't give directions to save their life! We ended up asking at least 2 different people for directions each time we got lost there towards the end because we alw

ays got 2 different answers. I guess it just makes for more of an adventure. I recommend GPS for anyone traveling and driving around Ireland. The food was terrific,

the people are some of the warmest and most welcoming I've ever met and the scenery was magical. I'd go back in a heart beat! I don't know when I'll have all the photos edited because school has kicked into some strange high gear that none of us anticipated the first week back...but I'm working on it.

I've only gotten 2 of my grades back from my mid terms and one was a B+ and the other an A. So I did pretty good so far. I'm not that concerned about the grades because it really gave me a good look at how my note taking and information absorption level is keeping up with the instructors. I still have a paper waiting in the wings and another graded test to hear back from.

This week in school we started cleaning test on a couple of paintings and had some major things happen as far as diagnostics. I can't really write much in here about it because we have a confidentiality clause when it comes to working on some of this stuff but let me just say...way fucking cool! Once I get back I can physically show off my work but not on the internet. It's all very hush hush in the world of conservation and restoration, which I guess goes well with my years as a hairdresser.

Richard is here wandering Florence while I'm in school and getting the first had view of living in Italy. He has been spending his time "sampling" the food...shooting tons of photos just basically relaxing while I head off to learn. Last night we had a fantastic dinner at a place called Ciro and Sons and tonight we are staying in and cooking.

I feel like my whole apartment existence turned on a dime yesterday. Mike sent me a wireless "booster" in the mail and now I can get online from my house!!! I can't even say what a relief it is and how grateful I am for THAT! It's actually why I can type up this blog right now and not have to wait to go back to school.

Here are a few random photos...since I have them ready.