After three glorious days in San Menaio, a small town on Italy’s Adriatic coast, I am back in Lausanne. San Menaio was wonderful, as it always is: no Internet, no work, just peaceful beach life with my Italian cousins.
The Italian side of my family is always incredibly welcoming and accommodating in their little beach house. We spend the mornings and evenings at the beach, separated by lunch and a siesta. Then, after dinner, we travel to nearby towns at night to “fare la passagiata,” just walk around a bit. The food is always prepared fresh from little carts that travel by the house in the morning selling fish, fruit, vegetables, etc. Life is good in San Menaio.
I read some of the first Harry Potter book in Italian while I was there. It was slow going because my vocabulary of magic-related words is pretty deficient. By the end of the trip, though, I was reading much more quickly than at the beginning. Now that I’m about to recommence the torrent of IMD activities, we’ll see if I can finish the book by year’s end.
It’s great to be back but there is much to do before we begin a mini-course on Crisis Management tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind another week of vacation!