Pasta, Love and Space

A few days ago, I posted a Summer idea challenge to my dear blogging friends. Thus far in my four months of blogging, I’ve managed to post some different material, thanks greatly to the WordPress challenges, but I was/am looking to expand my horizons a bit.  I figured who better to ask about topics than my fellow bloggers/readers, and so here we are.  This entry is dedicated to jpeters6248 who kindly accepted my challenge a couple of days ago and offered up a few ideas.  She said that I could use all or one of the words in the above-mentioned title, along with the phrase, “The ripples in the water…”.  My intent is to try it all in this one very post, and to do a decent job of it. ‘Hmmm…let’s give it a go.’

I have to admit that when I first saw the word ‘pasta’, I knew that my new blogging friend was onto something, mostly because I love it so!  ‘How did jpeters6248 know?’, I wondered.  Then, I turned to my husband and said, “Hey, I know a way to incorporate them all.  How about, ‘I wish my stomach had enough space for all of the kinds of pasta that I love’?”  Now, that statement would be true and it would encompass all three suggested words, but it’s really not enough fodder for a full blog entry, is it?! Even I know better.  Plus, that one sentence doesn’t include the phrase about the water and ripples. Gotta include that!  So, onward I go taking what I said earlier at least one step further in explaining myself a little and making this a somewhat real blog.

About ten years ago, I was fortunate enough to do a bus tour with my parents through parts of France, Italy and Switzerland.  I knew that I would love Italy, but WOW!  The history, the culture, the people, the language, the beauty, the crazy mopeds, drivers & horn honkers… and, oh, the FOOD. INCREDIBLE!!  All of it.  Now, my dad being a meat and potatoes kinda guy didn’t really care for the notion of all things pasta; however, my mom and I were completely sold, even before we tried any of it being pasta-lovers back home.  And then, when we actually found ourselves sitting in a classy, authentic Italian restaurant in Rome making our way through each drawn-out course, tasting each morsel of delectable cuisine, paired with endless bottles of wine?!  Well, I probably do not need to tell you how it blew all of our expectations out of the water (causing a rippling effect, even:-), and then some.  Even my dad could not deny how insanely in love we all were with the food.  In fact, one might say that all of the’ carbohydrate-y’ goodness left not a lot of space in our tummies by the time our few days in Italy was all said and done.  (I seem to recall gaining a good ten pounds there, despite all the walking we did to take in the sights.  Yikes!  Good thing I packed cool, loose-fitting clothing that stretched. Keep that in mind, if you ever go:-).

As far as, “The ripples in the water…” phrase, that one goes hand in hand with Lake Luzern (Lucerne) in Switzerland.  While Italy ‘took the cake’ with its food, Switzerland topped it for pure, natural, clean beauty, in my opinion.  Now, no offence to Italy whose beauty in history is like none other than I have seen, but our long, windy decent amongst the mountains in Switzerland offered a whole new view on pristine and gorgeous.  As we slowly drove past the Lake, watching all of the people enjoying its very depths shore side or otherwise, we were mesmerized with “the (sparkly, blue) ripples in the water“.  Breath-taking!  I am not sure to this day what made it stand out so clearly for all three of us, as we have mountains and lakes back home, but there was just something about Luzern that spoke to us in spirit aside from its obviously natural allure.  And, all of the quaint little shops in and around the area were just as attractive in their own unique, man-made way.  I actually splurged, which I usually don’t, during our shops visit and bought myself a fancy watch from the infamous, “Bucherer” jeweller, in part because I wanted something special by which to remember the indescribable feeling that we had from a country, which at first thought, we were not enamoured with. In our minds, when initially booking our tour, France and Italy were undoubtedly the two most highly sought after places in Europe for us, and we had no idea how Switzerland even made the itinerary. (Of course, we knew nothing about it, so it was a little lesson in passing judgement ahead of time and being naïve.)  ‘Why was that place going to be part of the tour by comparison of the other two?’, we questioned when we learned where all of our bus stops would take us. Yet, as it turned out, Switzerland was the first ‘gotta go back to’ place on my personal list of travels after that summer came to an end. While I haven’t made it there again thus far, my husband and I have certainly kept it as a destination in the back of our minds.  As a lover of mountain photography, I knew the moment that I met Darren that he would LOVE it there as much as we had.  One day…

Meanwhile, I will enjoy all thoughts about: Switzerland, Italy, (France too, in another post maybe?), pasta, love, space and all of “the ripples in the water”.

(jpeters6248…I hope this one fits the bill.  Thanks!  That was fun, and it brought back a flood of great memories:-).