Europe, ending the year

Landed in NY yesterday after 22 days in Europe, through France, Italy and finally England.

It was amazing and exhausting. A torrential storm of friends and food and art and food and language and food and food and food. I took 1085 pictures. I drove 800 miles through the north of Italy, past castles and towers older than my whole culture. I rode on boats and planes and trolleys. I signed countless books and shook what felt like a million hands. I walked 135.4 miles. Somehow in all of that I wrote, too. I even liked some of it.

I remember feeling happy, and sometimes alone, and sometimes scared. A blast of wind that spun the car a bit on the autostrada. Getting nauseous above Turin in a glass paneled elevator.

I met new friends from everywhere, and drank and ate and even danced with friends I’d known the length of a day or 15 years. I was inspired as a writer, inspired as a person. Once or twice I was probably a bad influence. Maybe. 

I remember a lot of hugs, a lot of laughing. An unending cloud of smoke 10 feet from all of that. I remember fumbling my english after a week alone in Italy. I remember tearing my jacket in Paris and having it sewn up in a bar in Leeds.

This has been a crazy year. Wheels down in JFK marked the end of my 11th international trip in 2015. 11 countries, 3 continents. Thousands of books signed in a bunch of different languages. 

I’m overwhelmed. I’m tired. I’m ready to do it all again.