London Heathrow Terminal 5 and I have two hours to go until take off to Rome. I have not slept and I am unsure what time of day or night it is but I do know that I keep having to take off my boots and get out my lap top and show people I am not a gun toting maniac of a twenty something travelling in this content. I prove this with my boarding pass and super powers.

Pret a Manage in hand, their granola bowl and mango smoothie I am tied to the sticky finger pad of this internet portal that charges a sum that probably equals what I spend on coffee in aweek for thirty minutes of access. Losers. Or am I the loser for paying the sum? Please do not answer this question. It is not meant to be answered.

One flight down and one flight and one bus and one train to go, I am praying with a mighty force that my Italian vocabulary will come rushing back to me the second the wheels of the plane land in FCO; that I will be able to transfer myself plus 70 pounds of luggage over two suitcases to San Giovanni Valdarno where some familiarity awaits. At least for a day or two... I can bask in the glory of a Spring that seems eons ago and yesterday simutaneously, until I load up and head North to Piedmont, a new place, a new trip, two new leaders, a new round of this intense Backroads frenzy-of-a-life.

My seat companion across the pond was an older lady that was extremely interested in talking about her son for the first fifteen minutes of the flight. After the point in time where she noticed I was smiling, nodding but not answering any questions she politely turned over and slept half-cocked in her chair, snoring loudly for the rest of the flight. She only rolled over twice, once when I was half way through Made of Honor (your friend was right Hillary, we should have watched it on our girls night) and then again when I was laughing out loud during this part of 'What Happens in Vegas' when the girl wakes up to discover she got married, asks her friend for advice and all her friend can muster is: 'Dude, last night I threw up in my purse.' Ah, aren't we all that friend at one point or another, well meaning but completely unable to dispense appropriate advice for the situation.

So my stop over in Toronto is complete (including a pseduo birthday celebration, being fed, watered, cared for and worked out by my parents, mia padre e mia madre, wow look at my awesome Italian coming back) and I am on my way. Look at me go, woot woot.

Back to the Pret Granola... now if I could only find a place to sleep for an hour or two.