I think this is the first time in my long relationship (almost 5 years now!!) with LJ that I have only posted once in an entire month – well the month isn’t over yet, so I have a few days to redeem myself! But I do have a good excuse. In the past 2 weeks we have been in Taipei, Rome, ancient Pompei, Munich, Stuttgart and literally all over Switzerland. We have already driven 1600km in our tiny, filthy (there seem to be a lot of bugs on the highways) Italian rental car and we still have to make it back to Rome.
I write on our last night in Switzerland from a rather swank hotel in Saanen which we got for a super discounted price. Tomorrow we are heading to Milan where we will spend a day, and then back to Rome to spend another day walking the Appia Antica before heading to Ostia for the night and then back to Taipei for a day and a half before finally making it home to Brisbane. (Maybe this time we’ll hit the night market. Or the super fast go-kart track.)
While the trip has been a bit stressful (after all, the most of it has been Zaubi’s business trip; thus the frantic driving from city to city giving presentations as well as my having to spend an awful lot of time wandering around alone; moreover, there have been a couple unlucky albeit unserious mishaps), there have been a lot of highlights.
Of course, there are the oodles of ancient ruins (POMPEI!) seen and yet to see which make me, an ex-Ancient History Masters student delirious with joy, there is the fact that after a ridiculous comedy of errors, my sister made it from Paris to Rome to spend a couple of days with me, and then I got to see a friend I haven’t seen in 4 years and her new baby, likewise we got to spend some time with Zaubi’s cousin and his wife and their not-so-new baby, we got to buy lots of German books (I need practice!) and other hard to come buy German favorites, to walk all over the lovely, serene, green and flower-studded Swiss meadows, and finally, today to take a cable car up to the top of the Les Diablerets glacier and it was just so stunningly gorgeous.
And so, we will all-too-shortly stagger reluctantly back toward Brisbane with our little under-20 kilo (well, maybe not anymore) duffel bags stuff chock full of dirty laundry, chocolate, limoncello and honey wine, Ricola Kräutertee, and German books.
Man,I’m tired. I hope they open the sauna tomorrow morning before we leave…