I want to be more aware.

I want to be more aware. To move forward with this I am proposing to ONLY concentrate on one thing at a time. After a month abroad without an internet / phone attachment to myself, I realize how often I question something and then go directly to looking it up. What a blessing that my questions can be instantly answered! So different from finding time in the next day to go to the library and look through the encyclopedia. (The library culture has really had to change since, right?!)

As a result of wandering, then, directly looking, I see a globalized impact on Italy and her cities. I wonder about myself and the constant distraction this availability provides as I am working on a project or concentrating on daily work -the availability is a distraction. As is, being available.

Along our trip the large plans were taken care of, such as what city we’d be visiting and where we’d be sleeping. But, the day to day time was very loose. So, we judged what was next by the prior ten minutes, and continued on for a month in that way. What needed to be done, or what we desired to do, grew out from the last thing that attended us. We didn’t have to remember to do anything, but did something as it came along.

To be more aware of my trip i am going to write and remember it day by day and give myself the time to be thorough.

Zurich, CH .   Day 1

Wandering through the streets of Zurich I see men in suits, bicycle traffic moving along with the street, city rail trains stopping for pedestrians. Zurich was founded for a reason I cannot find beyond that it was enjoyed by lake dwellers. Zurich’s central location probably accounts for one of the reasons it is now the largest city in Switzerland. Now, financial institutions inhabit the city, and on a Friday afternoon bankers and young families are out for a long lunch.

There is the Limmat River cutting through the city, the old town Zurich to the west of it. The river leads to the Zurichsee, the Sea, and a view of Die Alpen. The old city of thin passageways and no cars, people walking between the key maker signs, jewelery shops and sweater stores. One low entrance has green silk curtains to the inside of the door so that upon entering you could close off the door to a window.

Phil climbs the Grossmunster church’s wobbly tower steps while I fall asleep in a back pew. An orchestra is rehearsing in these stone walls, their sound so awake and alive as I drift off.

We stop by the lake. The night concludes in a pink sky, school bands play their trumpets in piazzas around the city. We climb the stepped ten feet wide streets between five-story buildings in the old town to listen and clap with the crowd on the church steps.  We have an Italian dinner by the river, just sit down to be served instead of asking for a table.  The waiters have these compact computers for taking our order with, then someone else bring our drinks out… very efficient. I see a sweater I’d like to get for a friend on our walk home (our mobile home of not more than a bed, a shower and one another for the next month) and think these mountain people know how to dress.  Ladies in at least three layers; tight pants, leggings under dresses with sweaters, jackets and scarves hanging off them as they walk by in heels. Zurich is clean and cool, church bells ring through out the next morning but no one is awake before nine.