It’s my last full day in Milan and it really feels like it. I woke up feeling downright ill. It had started raining at one point in the middle of the night and it continued on through the early morning. The weather matched my mood and physical feeling perfectly. I was up by 8 or so and used the morning hours to finish up recounting much of the last week’s events. Feeling sick definitely helped provide me with an excuse to slow down and just be for a bit. My original plan had been to take a train up north to explore an area around the foothills of the Alps but with my right hip feeling sore and my achy head and runny nose, it seemed like staying close to home was definitely in order.
I’m not surprised that I’m starting to come down with something. In fact I’ve been thinking about it a lot today and seeing a lot of parallels to the ‘nutrient dense food’ concept. This idea holds that not all food is created equal - food grown in healthy, mineralized soil (whether organic, conventional, biodynamic, etc) will nourish its consumer differently than that which isn’t (seems obvious). And in the same way, organisms that eat nourishing, nutrient dense food will function optimally. And when it comes to plant disease and pest outbreaks, guess which plants are susceptible - the ones growing in poor, depleted soil. Those grown in rich soil are robust and resilient, able to fight off disease and pests. Well, I think I’ve been starting to immerse myself in nutrient not-dense living recently. Much of the food I’ve eaten in Italy has been composed of three primary ingredients - white flour, tomatoes and cheese. Not exactly the most nourishing of foods and given the legacy of land use (centuries worth) here on this ancient peninsula, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that much of the food is not what one would consider to be nutrient-dense.
On top of that, I’ve really been running myself ragged during this trip. Lots of late nights, fairly early mornings, heavy work and full on encounters with people. I’ve repeatedly said that I’m going to need a vacation when I get home and there’s truth to it. Which I think is one of the reasons I felt so demoralized when my return home was delayed. I really don’t have much more energy left to travel.
Well, today I tried to save it. My only real goal was to exchange the remaining Euros I had but that proved to be a fairly momentous task - probably partially my own fault. Many of the banks were either closed, wouldn’t change money for non-customers, didn’t change money, or well I didn’t go in. It was a frustrating search until I finally settled on one that didn’t really give me the best rate but at that point I was at my wit’s end and just needed to get it over with.
Since then I’ve basically just gradually made my way back to the hotel to relax. No big plans for tonight (my last night in Europe). I might go get some Indian take out. I did make a video montage of some of the photos from the cob workshop that I hope to upload to youTube and embed in the blog. I’ve got a pretty full on travel schedule back to the states starting in about 24 hours and I want to make sure I’ve got some energy to get home without getting too run down.
so that’s it!
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