Meditalia: 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