Thursday, August 2, 2007

Sulla Terra Ferma...

Ciao... from Ottawa! :-)

Having never travelled through so many time zones before, I couldn't have known what to expect upon my return. The physical symptoms of jetlag have really caught me by surprise! I had no problems at all in Italy; the transition to their time zone was smooth. However, my return to Ottawa has been somewhat bumpy...

We arrived in Montreal on Monday around 12:30pm local time. Hubby was there to greet us. It took a bit of time before I eventually made my way out of Customs. It seems my honesty on my claims form led me to some "quality time" with a Canada Customs Officer named Claudia. :-) Fortunately, she was very helpful & pleasant and my 30 minutes with her were not too stressful. Admittedly, I didn't know if I'd be able to close my carefully packed suitcase again, but it all worked out! I had to pay a whopping $9.00 in taxes on the items purchased in Italy.

In an effort to fall into the local time zone, I forced myself to stay awake until around 10pm Monday night. That meant that, apart from a shallow 45-minute nap on the plane, I had been up for 23 hours. Oy. Tuesday was tough. By Tuesday evening, I was experiencing some serious dizziness and I didn't know what was happening. At one point, I had to get down on all fours because I was sure I'd topple over! And I wasn't able to lie down & close my eyes to go to sleep; the room was spinning so hard that I felt sick to my stomach. I fell asleep propped up on pillows. But I did fall asleep...

Wednesday was back-to-work day, but I only lasted a couple of hours. I was in a fog. My body was present, but I was not. I was here, yet not really here. Très bizarre. But at least the dizziness had stopped... Today is much better. Although not completely alert & sharp, I was able to put in full hours at the office - I took the opportunity to catch up on some work-related reading.

And so, here I am, wondering how the heck I can possibly wrap up the sharing of this experience of a lifetime (so far). I think it'll take time... I've just started organizing my photos; I took between 600 - 700 pics, so that too will take time! :-) For now, allow me to offer these few teasers:
Pisa and its famous Tower

Firenze at Sunset

JAG at Rocca Maggiore (Assisi)
Typical Street in Cortona


JAG at the Colosseum (Roma)

Crete Senesi Landscape (Monte Oliveto)

Until next time...

Pace e bene,

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