Contolini Family and Geography Blog: "Lovely"

We should use this word more often in our daily vocabulary. It adds kindness and peace to conversations and to an often too busy lifestyle. It helps me to stop and think and notice the small details.
The time in London with my Italian family and Isabella was short and intense but also lovely.
We spent time sightseeing, sitting and talking and eating good food, tasting an English tea and visiting a few pubs. We spent time to reconnect. Thank you mom and dad for making the trip. Thank you to my brother and his young family for coming as well. It was short, but I am glad we decided to do it.

I had not been in London for almost 20 years. I forgot how crowded and frenetic it is. I love the challenge of moving around the city on the Tube (the underground network of London). It is surely an amazing feat of engineering, but it is stressful to move around crowds of people and noisy cars and streets. Next time I want to visit this museum and learn more about its history: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/
And it's not easy to navigate a group of 10 people, ages 6 to 70+ up and down escalators, museums and crowded streets without getting lost.

I met a long time friend that hosted me in her house when I spent time in England learning the language during high school. We spent 3 hours together to tell each other about our last 30 years of life. 1 hour for 10 years. It felt like time had not passed. Her voice is gentle and slow. A kind and lovely reminder for this efficient engineer to listen more, to slow down, to appreciate listless time having tea and cookies... We walked and ate gelato and talked about past and future.

While in the UK, I was also introduced to the Netflix series "The Crown". It's fascinating, especially by using it as a tool for a history lesson of the British monarchy. Watch an episode and then check the facts. I am learning a lot that way. We don't have Netflix, but the DVDs can be found at the local Public Library.

The whole trip helped me remember why I fell in love with the UK when I first visited it a loooong time ago. It's a country with a fascinating history and culture and beautiful parks of which I hold lovely memories. But it's always the people that make a place special and I have more special memories to treasure of this place now. Until the next time, God willing!