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Mentally and physical fit for solo travel

9/24/2019

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Maybe one of the results of traveling alone is that I realize that in many ways I am not an old woman, and that I can’t pull the age card other than to keep my shoes on at Logan security. I’m not trying to deny my age, but traveling alone keeps me aware of what I can and cannot do. No question, if you want to travel solo you have to be mentally and physically independent.
     Mentally I can take care of money, manage the bus system, get to and fro on time, and stand in long lines and walk miles at Rome’s Fiumicino International Airport (where no one takes their shoes off). To travel solo internationally you must be able to manage an airport from start to finish.
     Physically I have incredible stamina. It’s a gene thing. I had practice throughout my childhood as I worked hard to keep up with my grandmother as we walked down 5th Avenue in NYC. She set off at a vicious pace, and I notice I am keeping up the tradition. My mom, who lived to be 101, took a daily walk up until the last nine months of her life.
     Yesterday, according to my phone app, I walked 7 miles, took 17,959 steps, and climbed the equivalent of 33 floors. This was my Duomo climbing day, thus the 33 floors; but the miles and steps are pretty accurate for all my solo travel days. 

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Playing the age card--keeping my shoes on

9/11/2019

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​I am at Logan Airport waiting for my Alitalia flight to Rome. Yes, it is 9/11 but Terminal E is busy with international travelers. This old woman doesn’t worry about the date, nor does she worry about traveling alone. I’m healthy, ready to walk all over Rome, and can’t wait to sip my first cappuccino.
       When I went through security I played the age card when asked two different times to take off my shoes. It seems that no one believes that anyone over 75 could or would hide something dangerous in their shoes.
    FYI, CNN is Logan Airport’s news station of choice. 

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    Author

       I am a 78 year old white, educated, privileged woman, in excellent health, with a wonderful family. I go to church and travel by myself to Italy and Scotland. That’s my public vita, my public persona. But that’s not all who I am. I have secrets, secrets of an old woman. So let me say some more.
         I’m old. Not in the usual physical ways of a person age 78, but I’m old in years, and that very fact guides the sense of meaning that I feel and experience in my life. Put succinctly, more and more my age is becoming the filter through which I lead my life.
         I’ve had a rich life, with caring parents, a loving husband of 54 years, two wonderful children, and four amazing grandchildren. My teaching career was rewarding; I published six books for teachers describing my experiences as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. When I retired I earned a divinity degree and became the spiritual care counselor for a local hospice.
        I ask myself if now I am really retired. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that I have more free and unscheduled time to satisfy my longing for silence, solitude and simplicity, which I blog about in this blog-- www.acottagebythesea.net, and more time to attend to my spiritual life, which I blog about in www.aprayerdiary.net. I have more time to spend with family and friends, help at church, read for pleasure, write, and travel,. My old woman secret is that I am still searching for meaning and the search is intense and life supporting.

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