This season’s bucket list is “summer at home” themed: everything you can do is close to home!
Hi friends.
I feel like spring completely passed us by. Between coronavirus and racial injustice, it’s been a hard season.
The recent examples of societal racial injustice cannot be ignored. And while this has been hard to watch for me personally, I know men and women of color have been dealing with this for hundreds of years. My discomfort pales in comparison to what others grow up with and confront daily. I am sorry for the ways I’ve not responded in the past. I’ve spent the past few weeks learning, apologizing, listening, and researching. I’ve found some great resources to both learn from and put my money where my mouth is, and plan to continue paying attention and acting.
Honestly did spring even happen? Coronavirus kicked in when we were still in winter mode, and somehow it’s suddenly June!
Here in Italy, quarantine has lifted enough for local travel. Everything requires a mask and 50-80% emptiness in vehicles and restaurants, but it’s a small step back to normalcy. It seems like Europe is committed to radically changing the definition of normal: for restaurants, transportation, and much more.
It’s worth noting that when Italy began reopening shops and restaurants (our fase due/phase two), the numbers of new cases per day hovered steady and then dropped, meaning introducing these new opportunities to leave home didn’t cause a second wave of coronavirus cases. The lockdown worked.
With that in mind, we have felt safe traveling and doing whatever our regulations allow at the time. While the experiences are very different than before (never have I ever had so many people take my temperature), we’re exploring locally and further into Italy.
The biggest day trip so far has been to Venice! I went the first day that regional boundaries opened, and it was such a unique experience. While it was much less crowded, it didn’t feel like a ghost town by any means. It felt much more local, with old friends calling to each other in the streets and catching up. The tourists I did see all spoke Italian. While museums and the restaurants on Piazza San Marco won’t open for another week, most places to eat and shop had already reopened.
That being said, I know for much of us the summer holds much less travel than we’d wish. So this summer bucket list is much more focused on exploring new places via their food, literature and culture, as well as digging into your own hometown!
Summer Bucket List (Close to Home Edition)
- Try at least two new restaurants each month
- Get my hair cut at an Italian salon (check! Did it today!)
- Tighten up my summer reading list: I’m focusing on reading books about race and racial justice (using this as a starting point) and my Italian reading list
- Cook a meal from a different country or culture each month
- Send a handwritten letter once a month
- Make macarons, cantaloupe & prosciutto, and pesto
- Learn the history of my city and region
- Volunteer – bonus points for bringing family or friends along!
- Plan a future international vacation
- Keep doing workout videos with FitOn (seriously, if you want free workout videos, do this. I cannot figure out how this app makes money.)
- Plan a date with yourself: self-care, take a walk, read a good book, have a lovely dessert, whatever that means for you
- Call a faraway friend and catch up
- Cook dinner for your neighbors: whether you invite them over or drop it off, do something thoughtful!
- Make something: a craft, that DIY project you’ve put off, a T-shirt blanket, a piece of IKEA furniture… just make something!
As always, members of my email list get a free downloadable graphic of the summer at home summer bucket list! Want to grab it? Join below!
