Aaand so. Do you want to hear about the epilogue? I kind of had one sketched out. (Of course you do.)
Actually, there’s not much more to say about the trip itself that hasn’t already been said. Sevilla was by far our favorite of Spain, Grenoble was beyond amazing, Venice won for improbability and Osteria Bea Vita far outshone the rest of the restaurants on our trip, and returning to Crete cemented its nomination as one of my favorite places. There have been so many great moments…the Tour de France, windy death-roads on the way to the mountaintop restaurant, watching candles being made, Agriculture August, lots of sunsets, and of course things like bad hotels and getting lost. We did a pretty good job doing a pretty crazy thing!
For the curious (and for posterity) I made a handy map of where we were, and although some of the routes are not exactly the ones we took, it’s close enough without getting too hardcore about it. Voila! I guess the thing I was most struck by right when I got back was how jealous I was of the women in France and the municipalities of Crete, who would scoff at my fascination with the “emerging trends” of slow, local, and organic food because they’ve already been doing that their whole lives. It does not get any more direct than buying your eggs from the farmer or making your own olive oil. They have no transport emissions associated with their food, which is almost unimaginable for many in the States (those who have gardens and such notwithstanding). Suffice to say that I’m impressed and I will be trying to measure up to even a fraction of that. Omnivore’s Dilemma touts eatwild.com as a database for local pasture farms and once we settle in I think Peter and I will put in for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box. While investing in this style of farming seems selfish (given that prices are too high for much of the population) and less thrifty (a tomato is a tomato, right? Why pay more?) the agricultural practices seem to be generally better and hopefully if demand goes up then the cost of production will go down. Anyway, I’m not much of an expert on this facet of environmentalism but it seems like the right thing to do. We seem to be across from a very helpful grocery store to that end, in that lots of things are already organic without me having to pick them out as special. We’ll see how it goes!
Otherwise the move to Pittsburgh has gone reasonably well. An insane week of packing, last minute visiting and even later-minute appointments (haircut, chiropractor, massage, thank goodness) has passed even quicker than I had thought. It’s crazy to think we won’t be back in Delaware for so long – that I can’t just hop in the car and be on Main Street in a few minutes. But after four days here we are mostly unpacked and settled, although the rhythm of life is certainly different than in Europe. Significantly less walking, for one thing. I find it has been harder to get used to this new place, even after so many other days of new places…probably because I know I’ll be here a while. In any case I think we will be okay, we just have to figure out the bus schedules and payroll and all the minutia of life that didn’t really come up while we were abroad. Woo hoo.
Well I guess that’s it for this blog! Adios, au revoir, ciao, and yassu… hope you enjoyed the read!
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