Europe 2006

I'd better start to get into the habit of writing in this blog regularly, especially once I actually start traveling, or else my family and students who have had this blog address thrust upon them won't, when they don't bother to check it, be missing much. I haven't actually left on my trip to Croatia yet, but I've been planning the stuffing out of it, and I think it's actually so uber-planned that even the most anal of uber-planners (read: me) would be satisfied. For the time being. So what do you think of this itinerary:

• Calgary-Milan
  
• Milan - Lecco (hello, Noor! More on him later)
  
• Lecco- Menaggio
  
• Menaggio - Treviso
  
• Treviso - Pula
  
• Pula - Trogir
  
• Trogir - Dubrovnik
  
• Dubrovnik - Milan
  

We're staying in youth hostels and apartments for all of the Croatia leg of the trip, and are using the cities above as bases for island hopping and general beach-bumming. I'm especially excited about the time in Trogir, as we're going to flit over to Brac and Hvar Islands.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE that my husband's cousins in Dubai, as well as my brother-in-law in Victoria BC, are all going to Croatia around the same time as we are... but our itineraries are all off to a sufficient degree that we won't be seeing each other. Incredibly frustrating. A frustrating coincidence. My brother-in-law is renting a boat and sailing with friends from Split to Dubrovnik. Oh no, I wouldn't say I'm JEALOUSSSSS.....

Has anyone found a better way to get from Dubrovnik to Milan other than to fly SkyEurope to Bergamo and take a train or bus from there? It's pretty cheap, and doesn't take two days and an overnight in Ancona. Love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

So, last blog (I know you all read it), I said I was going to mention how the Jewish girl became big sister to the Muslim. Considering what's going on between Isreal and Lebanon at the moment, my story is even more meaningful (in my opinion, of course). Here goes... two years ago November, my mother falls ill while traveling in northern Italy. Someone from the family needs to go over there and take care of her, then bring her home. My siblings and I, spread across Canada, discuss it briefly over the phone, and we decide that my brother will go over first, then I'll meet him there.

End of October, flying from Frankfurt to Milan, watching a huge orange harvest moon from the inside of an airplane, leaving my husband and two boys behind (not to mention my job). Perhaps the most depressing day of my life. Worried sick about my mother, who is battling pneumonia with two tubes down her throat in an Italian hospital.

I finally arrive in Lecco, after two flights, a bus, and a train. My brother meets me at the train station and we walk to our hotel (Hotel Moderno, I highly recommend it). To shorten this long story, our visits overlap by a day, during which he shows me the route to the hospital, and a bit of the old city to orient myself.

Two weeks I spend in Lecco, visiting my mother twice each day in the hospital. Two weeks watching her in desperate discomfort, not knowing when she'll be released, or how permanent the damage will be. I suppose I wasn't tripping lightly through the stores when I bought my groceries or used the internet cafe, and one day the gentleman who owned Planet Net struck up a conversation with me (we actually blundered through some fractured French until I figured out he spoke perfect English). He was probably wondering what a sad Canadian girl was doing in Lecco in November. After hearing about my mother, he took me under his wing, driving me here and there, buying me coffee, showing me pictures and telling me all about his beautiful fiancée Irum, and encouraging endless stories about my family. We eventually got around to the Star of David around my neck, which I presumed would come up eventually, as my new friend Noor is a devout Muslim, originally from Pakistan.

We talked about the formation of the state of Isreal; we talked about the international situation and the atrocities committed in the Middle East. We talked about my life as a Jew in Canada, and his as a Pakistani Muslim in Italy. I don't think there were too many topics that we didn't eventually cover.

After two weeks, my mother had recovered sufficiently to be air ambulanced home, after having received small gifts and many good wishes from a dozen merchants and small business owners in Lecco who passed their messages to her through me (Noor included). Noor drove me to Milan and saw me to my hotel; when we said goodbye, he told me that I had shown him Judaism in a new light, and he considered me his "sorella". When I finally returned to Prince Rupert, I filled my husband in on the latest news regarding my mother, then told him all about Noor. I don't know who was more grateful for a stranger's friendship in a time of crisis: myself, or my husband.

So, Noor (and his new wife Irum) and I have kept in touch over the past two years, and the ONE and ONLY reason we are flying into Italy rather than Croatia is so that I can see Noor (my "fratello"), meet his wife, and have them meet my family after all this time.

It's so easy, especially if one is a jew or muslim, to think of the conflict in very black-and-white terms. Black and white ain't always right. Get out there and meet some people, see some things before forming opinions.

So, if you read my last blog (and I just know you did), you realize that we are meeting not ONE but TWO sets of friends on this trip. Can't wait!