Italy:"Say it like you EAT it"

Once Liz arrived to Italy she knew that it would be a mouthwatering place. Arriving at Italy Liz wanted to stay somewhere that had a home welcoming feeling but also have the Italian culture. When she found the place that she was going to be staying at the landlord told Liz that "only thing in life that is permanent is family." This to Liz felt really ironic because she had been married with some she taught was her going to be part of her family but ended up divorcing him. But then she taught of all the people that were there for her after the divorce, and she knew that they were "family" even though they were just friends because they had stuck with her through the hard times. Liz also being in Italy taught it would be best to expand her Italian especially since she had been learning for the last couple of months. The guy that Liz ended up picking was by a bulletin board. His name was Giovanni. Liz once she meets him fell in "love" with him. At first she loved being with him, since she was practicing her Italian, but then has the time went on she kept on thinking if it was good that at her age she should be involved with someone that was much younger than her. So Liz decided it would be better to be enrolled in a class, and she loved going to the class. The building was old but it had such a beauty to it that made her love it. After being in Italy for about two weeks Liz's depression and loneliness started to catch up with her. As the days went by she kept on telling depression and the loneliness to go away but they never really did they always seem to be stuck firm by her side. Liz ended up seeing a doctor so she could get prescribed some medication, while taking this for three months they ended up saving her life, because without them she would have not been able to overcome anything. Liz was even told that she may need to take them later on in life just to overcome other things. But she said she did not plan to take them anymore she was going to be able to that with the help of any medication. As the time past by in Italy she knew she needed to make more friends. She became friends with Sofie that later on became to be her best friend. But she also met Luca; Luca was her introduction to real Italian food. By meeting him she discovered the greatness and the passion you could have for eating. Liz and Sofie would travel from city to city to try the specialty of the city. The food in each city had such a wonderful taste to it. But when she was traveling from city to city she also understood that she was on a pursuit for happiness, something that she had not had in a long time, but that she was able to accomplish there. Once Liz's sister arrives there. She wants to show her everything and show her the food and how great it is. Liz talks about her sister with such great love, even though they went through a whole lot when they were growing up. The food in Italy makes Liz gain weight, but to her that is okay because she feels like she actually lived the Italy experience by eating the food and she also gained cultural knowledge. A week before Liz is ready to leave Italy to go to India she will come back for Christmas, and to repack. As Liz leaves Italy she leaves with gained pounds but also with happiness she has never felt before, and also with knowledge that she had not been living before but now she is. She is able to enjoy life in so many ways, and the living is a wonderful thing in this world even if she is the only one that knows that about her life.

Summary on part of the book: Before she embarks on her trip

As the book begins Liz gives an explanation on how her traveling around the world well be retold. Her choices to break it down into 109 stories just like japa malas. Even though most japa malas only have 108 beads, she included and extra one to give thanks to everyone that was able to change her life. In the book the first japa malas give you an explanation on how her life was going before she went on her life changing trip. One main thing that happened to Liz was meeting a medicine man in Bali, when she met the medicine man she never knew what she really wanted to ask him, but she ended up asking him about her life. The medicine man told her that she was going to lose her money, end up coming back to him, and have a short term marriage and a long term marriage. This ended up foreshadowing what later happens in her life. But before Liz left the medicine man gave Liz a picture that would also change her life, it was a four legged person but without no head. When he gave her the picture he said to her "you have to be grounded on Earth, and learn to see with your heart instead of your head".  After Liz arrived back home she understood that her husband and her were not in the same path, and knew they had to end it. But for Liz this was hard, because she taught that maybe it was just a phase that she was going through and that she would get over it. But one night just like the other nights that she had been crying something happened she began to pray. Something that Liz had never been familiar of doing. As she prayed she asked for an answer to what to do with her life, but that night she did not receive an answer on what to do with her life, she just got a calmness that made her go back to bed. Later the divorce came and she remembered what the medicine man had told her, she taught it was kind of funny how he was able to tell what was going to happen to her, even without really knowing her. As more time began to be put into the divorce Liz went into a depression, but something happened in her life that caused her to go out of her depression and it was David. David became Liz new "thing to live for" at first everything was like paradise. She even began to do things that she wanted to do like go do yoga, learn how to speak Italian (which would later come into use and also one reason that made her go into her trip) and also have a guru. When Liz started with her guru she knew this brought so much peace that she had not felt in her life in many years. But then things started to go bad; her divorce with her husband was going worse he would not take any thing that she was offering and things with David started to go downhill. Then she remembered what the medicine man had told her about going back, and that's what exactly came to her mind, she knew that she was going to back and learn from him. But then it occurred to her why not going on a whole year trip where she would find herself. So she decided that she was going to go Italy, India, and Indonesia. All she had to do was get her ex-husband to agree to sign the divorce papers so she could leave but this was a hard task. But how this happen was sort of funny, she was going on a road trip with her friend and she began to write a letter to God asking for help with her divorce. An hour later her lawyer called her telling her that her husband had signed the papers. With this Liz was left without money which was another thing that the medicine man had told her. But to her this was okay, because she was about to go on a trip that would change her life. And her first destination was Italy where she would find pleasure, or how she called it "Say it like you Eat it".