Joel and I left home at 2pm on Monday afternoon for our 5:30 PM departure. We arrive in Rome at 5PM on Monday evening (which was 8AM Tuesday morning PST). On our short intra-country hop between Munich and Rome, I happened upon an article in an on-flight magazine about Bertrand Picard, the first person to fly around the globe in a hot-air balloon. This was an inspirational and serendipitous find.

One of the quotes from Bertrand that I love:
“An adventure is nothing more than a crisis that you accept.” The opposite take is “A crisis is nothing but an adventure against which you try to defend yourself.”
He goes on to add: “Adventure begins the moment you leave your comfort zone. We should never underestimate the small adventures we encounter every day.”

A couple of others from Bertrand:
“As soon as I move outside of my habits, I allow myself to change. Anyone who allows themselves to think differently starts to regard life in a new way.”
“I shut my mouth and listen carefully in order to understand their way of looking at the world.”

When Joel and I were driven to our hotel from the airport through the afternoon streets of Rome, our experience came close to what we encountered while being driven through the streets of India. No monkeys, no sacred cows, no gypsies hanging out of camel-drawn carts, but lots of honking cars and busses coming right at us from all directions. Then suddenly from above that carpet of vehicles, stretching high above the earth, appeared the remnants of 2000 year old architecture.

In America, mild signs of aging are smoothed into something stream-lined and flawless.

All of a sudden, amidst all of these crumbling ruins, I am feeling so much younger!