Shantaram

While on our honeymoon, I had to bring a good read for the 12 flights we would be taking, and for all the time we'd spend sitting and relaxing on the beach. I had found lying on the coffee table at my parents home the book Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. This 937 pages book pulled me in like no other book I've read recently has, and it has given me a new appreciation for and interest in India. 

Although Shantaram is a novel, it's largely factual and based on the life of the author. 

"I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun towers, I became my country’s most wanted man. Luck ran with me and flew with me to India, where I joined the Bombay mafia. I worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler, and a counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And I survived, while other men around me died. They were better men than I am, most of them; better men whose lives were crunched up in mistakes, and thrown away by the wrong second of someone else’s hate, or love, or indifference. And I buried them, too many of those men, and grieved their stories and their lives into my own."

Even though the length of the book may appear daunting, it's totally worth the time. So go out and get this pick and enjoy the read! 

Matrimony

I apologize having gone practically the whole summer without posting anything new, however I was little busy getting married. This summer has been everything but boring. I first flew back to Minneapolis at the end of June to see my brother get married. It was a quick weekend full of celebration, laughter, joy, and fun! 

Then I was back in Italy, busy, getting ready for my own wedding. It was so wonderful to have my family come over to celebrate. It was a busy week between Bologna and Tuscany. The ceremony took place in San Gimignano in Sala Dante. We then headed on over to Villa Sorbigliano in San Casciano to continue the festivities. It was a long exciting day that started getting ready at noon and didn't finish until 3am the following morning. 

 

As much planning you're able to do before the big day, there are still stressful moments, funny moments, and some little mistakes. We didn't have a rehearsal and so we laughed when Luca had to ask when to exchange the rings, and I think we made everyone wait with great suspense before the cake cutting as we stood and waited in front of it for a good while until the chef came over and told us we needed to cut it.

The middle of the evening was interrupted when his friends played some pranks on us and we had to sing in front of everyone and recite declarations of love with some of the oddest words such as: eel, spoon, shark, and refrigerator.  Our evening ended with the hotel manger, very upset, that we woke him at 3 in the morning to show us our room, as our friend failed to tell us which building it was in at the large hotel site.  

After a wedding, a reception in Minneapolis, and traveling to Brazil for our honeymoon, we're finally back in Bologna after 6 weeks and getting ready to slow down a bit.