Lane mates… love ‘em, curse ‘em, pass ‘em, compete against ‘em – they undoubtedly make you a better swimmer, enhance your day, and make for entertaining chat around the dinner table.

One of my favorite lane mates, a woman I met when I first started the U.S. Masters Swimming program here in Northern California, is currently learning to speak fluent Italian with the University of Oregon – Study Abroad in Italy program.

We immediately discovered our love of international travel, and we both have a particular fondness for France and Italy. We’ve since moved on to different lanes, but we still share a love of travel, fine food and foreign languages. I was super excited to hear from her upon her arrival in Italy’s hill country.  This is what she had to say:

“It is b-e-a-u-t-I-f-u-l here!  Hot, but beautiful. I finally went swimming for the first time on Sunday. I had to walk 30 minutes downhill to find the pool and then, of course, I had to walk 30 minutes up hill to get back. Classes are going well after a scary start–we were all like deer in the headlights on our first day. The teachers started out very fast and then just kept going.”

She also reports, “Brace yourselves–platforms are coming back–but with a twist, I think they combined them with online skates!”

I look forward to hearing more from her, as well as seeing her pictures upon her return. Of course, it’ll be great to see her beautiful, smiling face on the pool deck…  Abbia un viaggio sicuro. Lo manchiamo! (I hope I just said, "Have a safe journey. We miss you!")

This entry was posted on July 21, 2009 at 6:04 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Lane Mates by tracyb Comments Off