Our trip to Italy was GREAT! Nick is working on posting his photos and we’re both working on our trip blog.   Before we left for Italy,  however, we were skeptical about many things.

1) Q: Should we have gone now when it is not travel season or waited until spring? A:  We absolutely did the right thing by going now. Italy was not crowded with tourists, so it was easy to get into all the places we wanted to visit.

2) Q: How would I be able to sleep through Nick’s snoring? A: I didn’t sleep at all on our  first night there. On the following nights I tried to fall asleep before Nick did. Most of the time, that worked. When his snoring awakened me, I worked very hard to go back to sleep, and often succeeded.

3) Q: Would we have anything in common with the other travelers? A: They were absolutely wonderful people! They were sympathetic with Nick’s recovery process, and many were recovering from issues of their own. Some had had recent hip or knee replacements, one had myasthenia gravis, and  another, Parkinson’s. The more able bodied helped those who were less so. Seventeen of them were retired teachers from the Troy area, where Nick went to college, so they had much in common with both of us!

The oldest member of our group (in chronological age but not in spirit) was 93. He had been a bomber pilot in WW II. He bought a house in Malibu for $500,000 and sold it for $13,000,000 as a tear-down! His goal is to see the world either for the first time, or to revisit favorite destinations that he and his late wife  had seen together. The last time the two of them were in Rome was after WW II when they went with their friends Burt Lancaster and his wife. Among his recent destinations have been Ecuador (Galapagos Islands), Peru (Macchu Picchu), and Antarctica!

4) Q: Would Nick be able to eat the food? A: He doesn’t have his appetite back yet, and his food needs to be very moist because of his lack of saliva. However, he learned that adding olive oil to dry foods made them easier for him to chew and swallow. He ate most of the pastas easily. Bread was too dry. Eventually he tried the pizza. Although we saw thick crusted pizza,  the pizza crust was typically very thin. He was able to eat the thin crusted variety. He could eat some of the salads if he could dress them with olive oil but without  vinegar. The dessert was often fruit salad, which is far too acetic for him. All in all, he enjoyed many of the meals and was only unable to eat a few of them, after which we searched for gelato. Nick started by choosing milder flavors such as vanilla, but he eventually ventured to pistacchio and chocolate. So delicious! Once he had mini-cannoli… fantastico! The ricotta filling was so creamy. On the other hand, when it came to Italian buffalo milk  mozzarella vs. American  cow’s milk mozzarella, we preferred the American kind.

So after two weeks in Italy, Nick gained a pound. He  used my pedometer every day to track his steps. He was thrilled to reach 1000 steps at first, but eventually 5000 steps was the norm, with some days surpassing 7000 steps.

I’ll be back with doctor’s reports and the links to our photos and blog when they are ready.