This morning I wanted to tease Juliana and said “Enjoy your last week ever of (school) holidays”, but she didn’t thought this was funny. Instead she looked rather terrified, as if the good life was over now, and it made me aware that probably nobody ever explained to her that in work life you are now granted vacation days and that most of the time you even get to choose when to take them. Monday will be her first day of work and she’s already quite nervous. I will keep you posted.

We had a great summer. I believe in this crazy year of uncertainty and distress, with all its struggles, fears, healthy and economic hardships, we probably all lowered our expectations and increased our sense for gratitude. Only a couple of months ago we were strongly convinced that we would not be able to travel this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But when the lockdown measures slowly loosened up in Europe earlier this summer, we spontaneously decided to jump into the car and drive to a not-so-far-away location in Italy, 484 km to be exact. 😉 Also I wanted to surprise Martin and celebrate his big birthday just with us in his favorite country.

Although the Adria looks jam-packed with tourists in my images below (the effects of a long focal length 😉 ), I wasn’t surprised at all that the Italians were taking Covid-19 measures very seriously.

I feel grateful that we had the opportunity to travel to our favorite country, enjoy all the Italian goodness, soaking in the sun, and recharge our batteries.

To my own great surprise, I did some serious digital detox, and stayed away of all screens and used my iPhone just for snapping pictures and little movies. I didn’t even listen to podcasts which have been my main addiction in the last couple of years. I believe summer and Christmas time are the best opportunities to go inward for a while and just be still and doing an intuitive check-in. Nicolas once asked me why I had moved all of my “cool” apps onto page four of my phone ;-). I know that he will probably never understand this awesome feeling of peacefulness without all the visual noise. In our age of speed, nothing feels more invigorating than going slow.

“Slow” does perfectly describe our first week in Italy at the Adriatic coast where we pretty much didn’t do anything besides reading, eating and jumping into the pool or ocean.

More Italian goodness coming soon … Hope you guys had a happy and healthy summer!