Denise--
Oh, your description of your reaction upon seeing Venice almost made me cry in appreciation. I react the same way to seeing a place of great beauty. I was in Europe as a teenager, and in Greece after my senior year of High School. I remember standing on the Acropolis and being overwhelmed that Plato actually WALKED right where I was standing, so many thousands of years earlier. It was amazing. Obviously, Europe is out for me now, unless I could afford to take a transatlantic ship there and back....maybe someday....
How wonderful it will be for you both, being Russian/Hungarian, to travel around the Baltic countries....Will you get to see St. Petersburg? I would LOVE to see that place.
It's funny, with all this talk of such exotic places that one of my most favorite places to go (the type of place that brings me to tears of joy) is the desert (don't laugh, LOL).
My boyfriend (the on and off Ernest Hemmingway one) and I went to Death Valley last summer. I had always wanted to go there and never had the chance. Denise, it was one of the most wonderful places I've ever gone. We went in our RV (which we've since sold, sadly) and were in a spot that backed right up to the open desert with the most amazing view of the entire valley, looking southward (from Furnace Creek).
After the sun went down, we'd drag our camp chairs out into the open desert and sit under the deep black sky studded with so many millions of stars...all the ones you can't see in the city. The desert at night has a hot, strange wind that almost gives you goose bumps (and not because it's cold)...because it's so mysterious.
There were so many animals, tracks, scat, to study. A small aquafer/creek ran right by the camp area, and the animals would come there to drink at night. The biggest thrill of the trip was being within several feet of a coyote early one morning, who stopped to stare at me before trotting off.
One night while sitting in our chairs out in the desert, we heard the noise of an animal I named "Bigfoot." It was probably a mountain lion, which is a little scary that we were just sitting there stupidly, drinking wine in camp chairs in the dark. (Jerry jokingly said no lion would attack us b/c he's an "Alpha" male...). The next day we saw huge tracks...hard to read in the loose sand, but something really large....
Of anywhere I might travel in this world, I know that the true home for my heart is the desert. Jerry and I often took the RV to desert places and the minute we'd hit the desert, my heart would just leap for joy. Even the heat of Death Valley in June didn't bother me.
So, anyway, all of this is a way of saying that I truly know how a place so beautiful can affect the heart so deeply....
Like you guys, I don't have unlimited wealth, so each trip I take will be very special. Like you, I want to see and do as much as I can, now that I'm in my 50s. I can't believe that in about 8 months I'll be exploring places in the South Pacific.
BTW, Jerry might come to the brunch with me in May. It's looking pretty likely that we will be taking the Navigator trip together. We are so much like that couple in Out of Africa, so you never know with us, but we are tired of wasting time apart when we could spend these later years together. We really have a family--his 20 y/o daughter considers me to be her stepmom, and my 30 y/o son and Jerry are close, too...they're too peas in a pod, who love to travel and explore off the beaten track places.
I can't wait till the brunch in May...my chance to meet so many of you face to face. Liz
