Monday, with all of our luggage in tow, we boarded the train for Milan and spent most of the day swaying back and forth on the rails, listening to Radiolab podcasts and watching the scenery roll by.
That night we met with Giovannina's cousin, Livia, for drinks and a great dinner that included cavallo (a.k.a. horse) steak and sausage. Then we took the metro to Rachelle and Ernesto's place (more of Giovannina's cousins) where we stayed up late chatting before collapsing in bed.
The next morning Ernesto took us to the airport for our final flight - #18 - of our trip, the one that took us all the way back to Seattle, which is where I'm writing this blog entry from right now.
Sitting in Darren and Oriana's living room, their cat Lebowski curled up next to me, I can see the the cold, grey clouds roll across Puget Sound and watch the crows dive through the wind as it howls its way up the cliffs from the ocean below. We're not on the Mediterranean anymore. Or the Bay of Thailand. Or Great Barrier Reef. We're back in the Pacific Northwest. It's been a long trip and at times it feels like it was all just a dream, like we went to sleep for a while, woke up and nothing's changed. But I flip through the photos and look at Giovannina's suntanned face and the blonde highlights in her hair and I can see marks of the sunlight that's been shining on us for the last five months from all over the world. At some point, the wind will stop, the clouds will pass and the sun will greet us here as well. And then it will be summer here in the Pacific Northwest too, and the next leg of our adventure will begin.
A sunny evening and a BBQ on the deck with friends.
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