Walking Across Italy

For the past 2 months I have been preparing for another hike with my 3 buddies (Stephen, Juan Pablo, and Joe) – also known as The Old Age Mutant Ninja Turtles. This year, we are hiking 270 miles across Italy from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean. Our course will cut through the provinces of Marche, Umbria, and Tuscany. And we hope to complete this journey in about 21 days.

To prepare for this adventure, I am walking about 5-6 miles a day. Most of it is on the hilly golf course near my house. I have to get out there early in the morning to avoid the golfers who hate to share their fairways with an old guy with walking sticks. Today, I was out of the house by 6:45 and home before 9am.

Since walking on the golf course can be somewhat boring, I pass the time refreshing my italian language skills by listening to an italian language podcast called “Coffee Break Italian”. The lessons are about 30 minutes long and it has helped me get back in the swing of things. While walking today, I saw the first sign of autumn — a gang of wild turkeys out for a morning stroll. They were kinda skinny and need to be fattened up if they are going to make it to the Thanksgiving Day dinner table.

The other way that I am preparing for this next adventure is by practicing my italian with two lovely Italian college students. We meet everyday for 1 hour and they converse with me and teach me about the language. They are very patient with me and they have really helped my command of the language ( if I have any). It is great to converse with a native speaker. Today, we tried something different where they gave me a sentence in English and I had to translate it into Italian. This was a challenge for all of us. And they did it very well. (Loro l’hanno fatto bravissime.)

Tomorrow I’m going to start packing to see how little I can carry for a 3-week trip to Europe. Grazie per leggere questo blog. Ci vediamo a presto.

Ciao

Pietro