They say you can't go back to Constantinople....

Hmmm....I'll just have to go to Istanbul!

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Really, I'm not kidding! I said I had a lot on my plate this week.... let's just say a week ago I had no plans to be getting on a plane this Friday and going to London for a few days, before jetting off to Istanbul! And later, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia & Hungary. I'm still pinching myself! I'll let you know how it goes.

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I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down.

Mitch Hedberg

American comedian (1968 - 2005)

Au revoir!

Hello!

Welcome to my blog! 

Since this is my first installment, I'm fighting the urge to begin, essay style, by waxing on about "What is a blog?" ...."What does it mean to me?"...."What can my blog possibly mean to you?".... "Will anybody ever read this?".... "Will I have a theme?".... and, most importantly, "Will my posts be overtaken by ellipses?"....  

Ah, let's leave the analyzing to the squillions of people who have blogged before me, and jump right in! 

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I set this all up during an "Abroad" portion of At Home and Abroad.  I was in St. Louis, just one leg of our Tri-State Tour O' Friends.  What an eclectic jaunt-- going to watch our talented, scene-stealing friend in the play, Batboy (remember him in The Weekly News of the World, or whatever that quirky tabloid was called?); sleeping on a funny little double bed wedged into a cold corner;  heading further south to play with a delightfully precocious 5 year old and her equally delightfully precocious parents; sleeping in the lap of luxury in a queen size bed with a canopy in a house so large that we kept forgetting which floor we were on; touring my husband's alma mater with the student newspaper turned into a pathetic excuse for an umbrella in a downpour; arriving in St. Louis to nice, warm weather and immediately taking advantage of the situation by heading to the zoo (yay!) to see the happy animals; sleeping on a hide-a-bed mattress pulled out onto the floor at the home of my husband's oldest (as in time, not age) friend whom we both adore; falling down the stairs and spraining both ankles (a low point); celebrating my husband's milestone birthday on The Hill with large portions of somewhat monotonous tortellini and excellent gelato (peach) while having just learned of the offical, diamond-laden engagement of our daughter; heading north again to host that same precocious child and her parents at our, ahem, second home (hey, we just couldn't get enough of each other!); and finally.... arriving back at my real home and bed.  

So there you have it, "at home and abroad" indeed! 

It was a grand time.  We love our friends!