Traveling With Celiac Italian-Style and screaming along the way

Recently, I've taken to screaming several times a day. It is not like I've adopted this as a hobby or something. I'm screaming because, at the moment it seems very much like I might die. So I scream. Just a good old-fashioned fear response, which has been occurring since, at the Rome seaport, we rented a small car. I've been unusually frightened ever since.

Of course my fear is occurring for a reason: Italians either drive 120 miles per hour because they believe they are Batman test driving the newest Batmobile or 15 miles an hour because that's the speed they drive farm equipment. The problem is these slow-moving obstacles are almost impossible to circumvent because those driving 120 miles per hour come flying out of nowhere like stealth bats-out-of-hell, scaring witless Americans who then become too frightened to pass the slow-moving obstacles. It is indeed a game with unclear rules. A part of this game I have figured out is that those in the Italian Batmobiles are keenly aware of the slow-moving obstacles. This I know is true because no one seems to crash. Ahhh.  Unfortunately, those of us in-between, the sort of law abiding, hapless foreigners on holiday who stupidly rented a car in a foreign country rather than taking the train and who don't understand the rules to this driving game are left panicked. Or in my case screaming.

My screaming is not planned, it is certainly not appreciated by my driver-husband, and it is wearing me out. Then yesterday, I started screaming for a new reason. Something dark, competitive, and alarming has awakened in R who seemingly has determined he'll beat the Italian Batmobile drivers at their own game. It seems the American Dark Knight has risen, looks exactly like my husband, and is driving me around Southern Italy -- but in nothing nearly so safe, or cool, as a Batmobile. During those brief moments when I open my eyes long enough to glance at the odometer, and I see that my husband is now driving 115 miles an hour with the speed edging up, I scream.  Right now, my life scares me.

All this makes traveling with celiac seem much less important and easier to handle, especially since after a day of screaming I'm much less hungry and more interested in making red wine my meal.

Back to the topic at hand we will go --  eating in Italy when one has celiac -- once we return the car. Can't wait to join the bike tour!
Ciao.

Crusty, yummy gluten-free bread in Matera.

Traveling with Celiac

Currently, the bed count is 82 -- but more about that in another post.

I'm sitting in my cabin looking out at the tranquil Mediterranean Sea watching small fishing boats chug into port. Enormous, ah well-fed, seagulls circle the boats because these birds know what I know -- Spanish seafood is delicious. Eating in Barcelona is a pleasurable feast of simple, fresh food. When I was first diagnosed with Celiac, I worried that traveling, especially to a foreign country would prove almost impossibly tricky. While staying healthy when traveling can be tricky, it has proven less challenging than I had feared -- as long as I plan ahead.

Since receiving the diagnosis in early 2009, I've had two major attacks and a few minor ones. Both major attacks were in the states and occurred years apart.  The recent one in Palm Springs, CA following a family celebration dinner in a restaurant reminded me that I best always be careful when it comes to eating food away from home.

During the years between attacks, I'd traveled to Argentina, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Canada, Ecuador, Galapagos, places in the Mediterranean, Prague, other parts of the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Budapest, Baja, Mexico, Amsterdam, Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand. All without any significantly detectable incident. Here are some random thoughts on how I've managed while on the road.

1. When I visit a foreign country, I'm on guard about food and focused on eating safely more so than when I am in the states. Unfortunately, in the states there are times I assume, like in Palm Springs, I know what is safe to eat and that assumption lands me in trouble.

2. Generally people in foreign countries tend to know much more about Celiac or even gluten sensitivity than people -- chefs, servers, food service workers -- do in the states. For example, eating in Halifax was easy because restaurants understand Celiac in part because a high percentage of Nova Scotians have Celiac. This holds true in Italy and Ireland.

3. For many travelers, street food is a genuine pleasure and a way of experiencing a different culture. I, however, view street food as poison and avoid it completely. Even if the vendor tells me the food is gluten free, I'm suspect of cross contamination and hidden gluten.  I limit myself to admiring the food's appearance.

4. I carry packaged food with me. Think Thin gluten free protein bars are easy to pack and have substituted for a meal in more than one country or on a long distance flight.

5. Celiac Cards!  We don't leave home without them! Several years ago, R found a web site that posts downloadable, printable Celiac cards that state exactly what I cannot eat, what I can eat, and what happens if I ingest gluten. The cards are available in every language imaginable. In a foreign country, I show the server the card who then may show it to the chef and we figure out what I can safely eat. I must say that universally, servers are happy to help me. The cards allow me to travel with less anxiety to countries where I do not speak the language.

6.  The Internet makes managing Celiac while traveling so much easier.  We search ahead of time for gluten free or gluten free friendly restaurants so that we arrive with a few restaurant options. Tripadvisor is a great resource as are the many sites or blogs written by others who have issues with gluten.

7. I've learned to ignore comments or observations about my diet. Many times I meet someone who knows someone else who is reported to have Celiac but can eat so much more than what I do. I'm glad for that person. However, I've learned what works for me and when I'm on my game, I stay safe.

Happy Travels. Gotta go. More of Barcelona to see.

Traveling With Celiac in Italy

Bed count 89. Locations of beds 87, 88, and 89 -- the magical land of southern Italy, Puglia, the heel of the boot. Let me just go on record that I think the Italians really know how to live, minus their limited use of air conditioning, terrible highway driving, and roads in need of repair. And I guess I'll add to the list their tradition of starting dinner each evening at 8 or 8:30pm which can be a bit late for an American. Beyond those complaints, I think Italy is heavenly and mostly makes up for the minuses with sunny, warm days, slower pace of life, amazing scenery, and abundant, glorious food.

On this segment of the trip, we traveled to Siena in Tuscany, the old port town Bari on the Adriatic, inland to historic Matera and then with the bike tour to small villages like Alberbello, Ostuni, Fasano, Otranto -- all beautiful parts of southern Italy, a region fairly easily traveled when one has celiac.

Here's a summary of what I've learned about dining in Italy with celiac--

1. In larger, frequently visited (think day trips from Florence) cities, like Siena that serve international tourists it will simply be easier and more convenient to find safe food. In Siena our hotel Palazzo Ravizza recommended a restaurant only a few minutes from the hotel. The restaurant owner's wife has celiac, diagnosed when she was seven. While this is an unfortunate situation for her, for a traveler with celiac it has yielded a restaurant owner who deeply understands celiac and manages his kitchen in a celiac-safe way. It was such a joy to safely eat delicious Italian food that we ate there twice and recommended it to a couple we met on a tour. His restaurant is Vivace (vivacesiena.com). The owner of Vivace recommended another restaurant that makes safe gluten free pizza. We delighted in Siena's considerable charms and  ate well.

2. In Italy, food service workers are required to understand celiac and food allergies  and in my experience they are well educated. Once I mastered the important phrase "Senza glutine" (without gluten or gluten free) and handed over my celiac card, which every server knowingly brushed away, I was in business. The Italians, no matter how limited their English wanted to help me have a delicious, safe meal. Celiac wasn't an annoyance to them. I wish that were true in the states.

3. Make friends! Not just in life but when traveling, especially in smaller cities where dining options may be more limited. Richard befriended the gregarious Italian gentleman who ran the tourist office in Matera. He recommended a wonderful restaurant, Fornaci, and phoned the chef to confirm he could accommodate celiac and to tell him we were heading his way. On our arrival, the chef came out to greet us, took my Italian celiac card, wrote on the reservation "gluten-free" and told us to come back in an hour. When we returned, I was greeted with fresh gluten-free rolls and told I could select anything I wanted from the menu and he would prepare it gluten-free. In Matera, I found gluten free heaven and excellent, affordable wine. It is very good to have friends.

    The remains of my wonderful fish soup!

4. Traveling in a country that values fresh, quality food mostly makes eating safely easier. Beyond pasta and bread, much of southern Italian cooking is naturally gluten free. Zuppa di pesce, a luscious tomato based fish chowder of mussels, shrimp, white fish, and clams is 
made without any wheat filler and easily found in many restaurants, even in small villages.
And many a small restaurant in a small village offered gluten-free pasta.

5. With some advanced notification, even organized tours that include meals will provide excellent food. I've been on tours where styrofoam-like, overly wrapped pseudo-food was presented (or tossed at me) as my included meal. Not in Italy. On a day long tour of wineries that included lunch, I enjoyed antipasto, salad, and pasta with the group and the chef asked specifically if my gluten free pasta was to my liking. It was and I came home with six pounds as proof.

    A Puglia specialty -- which is gluten-free. Black rice, vegetables, and fresh mussels. Heavenly.

6. While my preference is to be as stealth as possible about food, that often isn't possible because fellow travelers are curious about what I eat. I'm always prepared to answer questions about celiac, but I do grow annoyed when others want to know why I'm 
receiving "special" food. Thick skin is a good thing to pack when traveling.

    Seafood pasta found in the small village of Monopli.

Is it no wonder that my current day dreams feature extended stays in sleepy Italian masserias, long bike rides along the Adriatic, and multi- course meals enjoyed late into the night? Oh, Italy.

It will Probably Be Different From What You Imagine

  Oh fantasy, where would future plans be without you? Many people imagine, fantasize about life after decades of work. They envision lots of play time on beaches, long afternoon naps, endless travel, all kinds of anti-work activities, more of that most precious commodity -- free time. Humans have the capacity to predict (usually based on prior experiences) how something might unfold, how the experience will go for them. It isn't too difficult to predict how one might experience a routine trip to the grocery store or a stop at a gas station. But what about completely new experiences, those without prior experiences attached? For many of us, there are experiences we simply need to live through to figure them out, to process and understand them and to know ourselves in them. The transition to retirement is like that, at least for me.

  Prior to taking the gap-year, I read all I could find about gap-year adventures, senior gap-year adventures, retirement, semi-retirement, encore careers, re-imagined careers, passion about careers, life phases, life transitions, round-the-world travel, vangabond senior living, full-time life on the road (in addition to books on the topic I read blogs like Retirement:A Full-Time Job, Satisfying Retirement, Early Retirement Journey and HomeFreeAdventures).  In other words, the good researcher and curious part of me did her investigative work. In my active brain and electronically, I explored all sides of the stay or go question, all sides of taking a break, traveling for months at a time, becoming a permanent bum, finding new pursuits. I became a knowledge expert. As best I could, I prepared myself for this significant transition, and mostly my prep work paid off. Traveling for long stretches always comes with complications, some predictable, some not -- delayed flights, torrential rains, sketchy hotel rooms, illness, questionable, sometimes unrecognizable food  -- but most of the travel was magical. New experiences each day, lots of adventures, the delicious excitement of the yet to be known. That part of the living through experience has worked.

  Moving to a new community and new house has been.......not challenging but different from what I thought it would be.  R and I knew retirement, semi-retirement, or whatever I call this next yet-to-be-named phase would be trickier for me than for him. We are different with different needs and wants and expectations. I get that. I did not know that each day, with each experience I would be collecting data on how I want or don't want to live this phase of my life. Apparently, I'm one of the must-live-through-this time-to-know folks. 

  One of the ways I know that I'm puzzling through an experience is when I don't quite feel like myself. I'm not the Chicagoan anymore but I'm hardly settled in the new life, even though I now possess an Oregon driver's license and my passport sports my new address. I recognize my house as my house but it doesn't yet feel like home. I'm meeting new people but none know me historically, through the experiences that have shaped me into who I am. Over the years I have learned that floating in this state of not-quite-me means I'm in transition and is a necessary, if uncomfortable part of change. Who wants to wake up each morning not-quite feeling like themselves?  I'm traveling through this phase with the knowledge that I'm on my way to somewhere new, probably a place unfamiliar to me, a place unlike the fantasy. A place, since I've not lived-through it, I could not quite have predicted.  The tremendous upside is that moving into the unknown leaves me open to possibilities. 

  Last week I read Oliver Sacks' piece in the NY Times "My Own Life: On Learning I Have Terminal Cancer."  Not only was I deeply moved by Sacks describing his experiences, I found his thoughts on living till the end wonderful guidelines, perhaps a philosophy for simply living fully, especially when one is in the last quadrant of life. Here are a few of Oliver Sack's thoughts extracted from the article --

"It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me."
"I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can."
"I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight."

"I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective."
"There is no time for anything inessential."
"I must focus on myself, my work and my friends."
"I shall no longer look at "NewsHour" every night."
"I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming.
This is not indifference but detachment -- "

I wonder if Dr. Sacks' response to this phase is different from what he imagined? Mostly, I admire his clarity of thought. To achieve such clarity is my goal.

Good morning, Bend

80 Beds, An Anniversary, and Moving Forward

     Rainforest, New Zealand 2014. I look really small.

    The bed count within the gap-year reached.....80. I'd like to say the 80th bed was located in an exotic, breathtakingly beautiful locale, a place full of adventure and dazzling sights but.....in reality the 80th bed resided in a Hampton Inn directly off I-5 in Elk Grove/Laguna, Northern California where we stopped for the night on our way too long drive from Palm Springs to Oregon. Clearly, not all bed experiences are created equal. But I'm so getting ahead of myself. WE HAD AN ANNIVERSARY!

     Thursday was an anniversary of sorts. A year ago that day, movers swept our boxes and furnishings off to storage in Indiana and we piled ourselves into our overstuffed SUV to begin our journey west and into a new phase of life.

     Those who know me know my love for travel and ongoing itchiness to see and experience the world. Where did my gap-year adventures take us? Because I love data and counting stuff, I've made a few lists.

State side (and in no particular order)  National Parks  -- Mesa Verde, CO, Saguaro East, AZ, Crater Lake, OR, Olympic, WA, Grand Canyon, AZ, Haleakala, HI, Hawaii Volcanoes, HI. I like this list.
Other locales -- NYC and the 9/11 Memorial, a visit with dear friends, and tour of Harlem, cycling on the San Juan Islands, WA, visits to Vancouver, WA, Portland, OR, Palm Desert, 
Palm Springs, Tucson and more.

Cruises -- four -- Transatlantic from Florida to Amsterdam, Norwegian with stops in Iceland, Faroe Islands, and Shetland Island, Vancouver, BC to the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Islands through French Polynesia to North Island of New Zealand to Sydney.
Bike trips -- two -- Ireland's Connemara Coast and New Zealand's South Island.

Places visited -- Lisbon, Portugal, La Harve, (Normandy) France (Omaha Beach, WWII museum), Dover, England, Bruges, Belgium, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House), Brussels, Dublin, Ireland, Connemara Coast, Ireland, Galway, Ireland, Glasgow, Scotland, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oslo, Norway, Bergen, Norway, Faroe Islands, Shetland Island, Scotland, Grainger Fjord, Norway, London, Vancouver, BC, Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Auckland, NZ, Bay of Islands, NZ, Sydney, AU, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Christchurch, NZ, Franz Joseph Glacier, back roads of NZ, Moeraki, NZ, Queenstown, NZ. Happily, almost every place we visited was new territory for us.
We also managed to see all my siblings, many of our nieces and nephews, some grandnieces and nephews, R's family, and the Canadian group of aunt, uncle and cousins, as well as longstanding dear, dear friends. Toss into the year that we sold one home, bought another, and sold another small property. Gosh, I think we were on the move.

  My gap-year has been astounding, but not one without unexpected complications, disappointments, delights, mistakes and missteps  -- just like life. I wish that everyone I love, cherish, care about in any way could have such a year, to travel, to grow, to change, to learn, to see, to appreciate -- with an emphasis on appreciating, how much we have, how few material items are required to make a good life. Then perhaps we could all discuss how one settles down after such a year. I haven't a clue so right now each day I'm just making it up. Just like life.

      Forward R and I move. More beds to locate and count. More experiences to enjoy.

    Mum and Joey. Kangaroo Island, Australia. 2014

    Feeding my Australian friends.

Deciding or Deciding Not to Decide -- Letting go of Cinderella

I recently saw the movie Into the Woods, a wonderful, fantastical, musical telling of several famous fairy tales. R and I had seen the musical theater version in NYC decades ago and loved it.

Most of us know the basic story of Cinderella, the young mistreated step-daughter who through magical means attends the King's ball, captivates the charming prince but dashes from him as midnight approaches leaving him to hopelessly chase after her. In this telling, Cinderella dashes from the prince not once or twice but three times. On her third dash out the castle door, Cinderella, thanks to the planful Prince, becomes stuck in some pitch (black goo) on the palace steps. As she struggles to free herself, she puts her internal struggle into song, giving poetic words to her indecision. Should she stay? Should she let him catch her? Should she continue to run? She ponders the risk of being caught, including will she fit in and is she really what a prince would want.  What is the right decision she wonders? She sings her way into a kind of decision -- which is to not decide. Instead she leaves the prince a clue as to her identity, her shoe, figuring if he wants her, he'll find her. The decision then falls to the Prince.

As I sat watching the lovely Anna Kendrick sing her song of indecision, I found myself identifying with her. Oh, I thought, I'm having a little trouble in the decision department myself.

When I closed my practice, we sold the home, and traveled west, I decided, in a sense not-to-decide about retiring. I decided, in what I thought was a stroke of insight, to take a gap year. A gap year. A year off. A travel year. A year not-to-decide.  A year of not committing to a decision. At that point, what I most desperately knew was that I wanted to leave the Midwest, travel, and resettle in the west where R and I both grew up.

What I passed over was the process of figuring out how I might want my life to look if I did retire -- my retirement vision.  The incredible world travels and cute new house provided excellent distractions from deciding and figuring out this next phase. Retire or not? Part-time work or not? And the bigger, more detailed how do I want to spend my time?
  
Oops. While I was busy channeling the indecisive Cinderella, I should have been connecting with my usual planful self. Ugh. But it is not too late. While I'm feeling a little stuck in the goo, I'm not beyond mobilizing myself. And R reassuringly has pointed out that I can figure this out in pieces and I can change my mind if a year from now I decide something different. I like that kind of flexible thinking.

Right now I have two months until the "gap year" ends. My goal is to create my initial vision for my retirement and step out of my Cinderella phase (see pretty shoe below) into my Life-in-Bend phase (see bootie). Since the process involves research, I'm excited because I love a good research task.

Ditching Cinderella but keeping the shoes. Booties work best in Bend for stepping into the new life.

Learning New Skills Is A Good Thing As We Age......But All At Once?

The WSJ ran a story a week ago called "It's never too late to learn new skills," highlighting how older adults can learn languages, downhill skiing, even coding no matter their ages. This is an encouraging idea for me and R (and so many others) because we are learning to cross country ski (lots of hills in Bend even when cross country skiing) and I love learning and this gap year has been, and I hope continues to be all about learning and new experiences. Besides current thinking is that learning something new is really good for our aging brains. But I have a question -- must all my new learning, all the new skill sets come at once?

Apparently so ... at least when one moves. Right now, everything is new -- well except for us because we are still old as is the car.  There is the house in all its gleaming newness to figure out. There is the new city, mostly yet to be explored not to mention the vast Oregon outdoors and spectacular nature. Then there is the new life to be discovered, new friends to make, activities to select and engage in, places to go, people to see. You get the drift. Also there are the new physicians to find and new dentists to book. Did I mention that we also each need a new driver's license requiring us to take the written test?

All the appliances and gadgetry in the house are also new. When's the last time you read instruction books for an oven, convection oven, cook top, outside gas grill, refrigerator, dish washer, heating system, and washer and dryer?  On Christmas I almost melted a pot because I didn't bother to "learn" that the cooktop has a super burner which produces enough force to lift a small rocket or melt steel. And because we divested ourselves of many older household possessions prior to leaving Chicago, I have the pleasure of learning about, but never really understanding, how to use two televisions (they look like TVs but act like sly, slightly suspect oversized computers). Now we have AppleTV with its bright, teasing icons that frustrate me with constant lock outs and a mysterious DVR recorder that I can't operate and a Smart TV I'm unable to turn on. I'm actually not sure how the Smart TV differs from a regular TV but I'm guessing I'll learn. Or better yet, one of them may tell me -- if they are so smart. However I frame this time, it comes down to that I have lots to learn. So much it turns out that my brain and I had to take a "break." For those not in the mental health profession, that's a euphemism for I had a melt down. It wasn't pretty. It was a little sad. But after a day or two of rest, I and my brain recovered.


What's the lesson? The WSJ article is correct -- older brains that sit upon older bodies 
can learn new skills. But probably the skills should be learned one or two at a time rather 
than in large chunks. That's my experience.
Bed count holds at 72 but I'm hopeful that a little travel is in my future. After all the learning and new skills acquired, I've earned some R & R. After I pass the written driver's test.