Italy!

June 17-

Arrived at Ronchi dei Legionari Airport around 10:30 am. The flight seemed like an eternity!
I saw Sandro before me, wearing a red t-shirt and shorts; looking like I have 'known' him forever! When I came out he quickly walked over to me, arms extended giving me a huge hug. It felt so natural to see him, after 22 years to finally meet. (Sandro and I became pen pals 22 years ago when letter writing was by post. No emails, texts or skype....)
We kept smiling,  blushing like a bunch of teenagers in the car, just looking at each other, taking it all in.
At this point, I had been awake for 23 hours, pretty exhausted, dehydrated and hungry- not a good combination. For some reason, I was served a muslim meal on the plane- because really my tats and the lack of headscarf really must have given off that I was muslim. The meal itself was not good- horrid really! It was some kind of rice/tofu or maybe chicken? I had a few bites of rice and some melon. Breakfast consisted of the same 'muslim' meal and I ended up with a muffin which was great. The excitement and exhaustion kicked and to add the lack of eating brought on nauseousness on the way to Sandro's home. We stopped along the way at some beautiful look out points- so beautiful to see Trieste in the background, the water glistening in the sun like glass and the view was just a gorgeous. At the second look out, I picked a flower which remained on the kitchen table for a week. A lovely little reminder to look at each morning.


Once at Sandro's, I looked around in wonder- I saw photos prior to arriving but it was not the same as being there. His paintings are everywhere, to be able to touch them finally turned surrealism into reality, and they are more beautiful in person.