Arrividerci!

After much saving, planning and research, I am excited to say that my cousin and I will be leaving on a plane for Italy this week!  I am beyond excited and can't wait to take my journal and camera and just be a sponge, soaking in and marveling the sights, smells, sounds and tastes around me.  

In addition to my journal and camera, I'll need to pack a few other things, which led me to one of my first thoughts while packing, "Will I do yoga in Italy?"  I immediately thought to Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, who while an avid yoga, said the whole time she was in Rome (four months), she never even rolled out her mat.  She said Rome and yoga just didn't go together.   In reading her experiences of pure pleasure and guilt-free gluttony, I could see her point.  Maybe they just didn't mix.

I'm packing very light, just one carry-on, so I debated quite a bit over whether or not to pack a travel mat for doing yoga.  I had to ask myself, would I really do yoga every day like I do here when I'm traveling all over Italy, tired and worn out?  At first, I thought no, it's a vacation, leave the mat at home, you'll get enough exercise with walking.

But, then, yoga isn't just exercise.  It's my center, my grounding.  And I've come to look forward to my practice each day, I've worked hard to maintain this consistent practice over the last couple of years, no matter what.  Perhaps I shouldn't stop just because I'm in another country and on a "vacation."

Will I do yoga on a hotel room floor in Florence, on a balcony in Rome, outside the monastery of Assisi?  The last one may be a stretch and get me some weird looks from the Franciscan monks, but the other two I can picture. Though it's something extra to carry, I think the mat is worth packing, even if it's just 5-10 minutes a day to stretch, center and unwind after jetlag, travel, walking miles and miles every day, the general exhaustion of travel and let's face it - all that divine pasta!

So, the decision is made.  My new trusty travel mat is in my backpack along with my other necessities and I'm ready to experience Italy in all its glory and nature.  Taking yoga out of the norm and into different settings while traveling has always been an interesting endeavor in opening up my perspective (and has resulted in some of my favorite yoga experiences I've ever had), so I hope this will be no exception and that I will be able to bring back some good Italian yoga stories to share in two weeks.   Until then, ciao!