{"id":527,"date":"2015-08-18T13:04:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T17:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/?p=527"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:10:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T01:10:45","slug":"time-to-pause-and-refresh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/time-to-pause-and-refresh\/","title":{"rendered":"Time To Pause and Refresh"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hotel<\/a><\/p>\n

By Tim Turner<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Summer is a great time to pause and refresh by taking a vacation. My wife Melissa and I have been so blessed to be able to go on an annual anniversary trip.\u00a0\u00a0Well to rewind, the first few years were just dinner out, not a trip.\u00a0\u00a0We have over the years as the kids gotten older worked our way up to bigger trips like Quebec, Napa, and St. Lucia.\u00a0\u00a0Our in-laws come to spend time with their grand-kids while we go on our trip.<\/p>\n

This year for our 24th anniversary we took a trip to Italy and Greece.\u00a0I could fill pages telling you about the incredible food, beautiful views, and all the historical sites.\u00a0\u00a0For this article, I want to focus on the idea of what it means to “pause and refresh”… and slow down.<\/p>\n

\"cappuccino\"<\/a>As a coffee drinker, I love going to Europe because there is a cafe ready to serve you top quality coffee about every 25 feet.\u00a0You think Starbucks is everywhere… go to Italy and count the number of places you can get espresso and cappuccino.\u00a0Even if you stop at a “rest area” by the highway, they have no coffee “to go” cups.\u00a0\u00a0Instead they have a $30,000 coffee machine just like in the cafes with a real person making high quality espressos and cappuccinos.\u00a0In a gas station, people were 15 deep to belly up to the “bar” to get an espresso before continuing on their way.\u00a0There were no instant press-a-button coffee machines there to quickly fill a cup and run… No, they paid a skilled person to be there and run a high end espresso machine.\u00a0In a gas station.<\/p>\n

One tidbit you might not know is that in Italy they don’t ever serve coffee in a “to go” cup.\u00a0In fact, they don’t even have “to go” cups.\u00a0\u00a0Trust me.\u00a0\u00a0I asked.\u00a0I asked at many places.\u00a0I asked at small cafes.\u00a0I asked at espresso bars and street carts.\u00a0I asked at high end hotel restaurants.\u00a0“No no no” I kept being told.\u00a0This was very odd to me.\u00a0We had a rental car and needed to hit the road.\u00a0I need my<\/p>\n

\"Hotel<\/a>

Hotel Grande Fasano in Lake Garda area of northern Italy<\/p><\/div>\n

coffee for the trip.\u00a0“No no no Senore”.<\/p>\n

Our rental car was an Audi and i<\/p>\n

t had no cup holders.\u00a0Let me repeat that… NO cup holders.\u00a0\u00a0 Why?\u00a0because Italians don’t drink coffee to go and they don’t drink anything while driving.\u00a0I think because it takes too much focus to drive over there.\u00a0Having lived through Atlanta traffic for 18 years, though, I held my own pretty good against the Italian drivers. Contrast this with America where my new son-in-law, who sells cars for Toyota\u00a0is most frequently asked “how many cup holders does this car have” as a major buying criteria.<\/p>\n

One of the hotels we stayed at was the Hotel Grande Fasano on Lake Garda.\u00a0It was a historical palace converted into a hotel with glorious views of the massive lake.\u00a0Before we were to leave one night to go to Verona, I asked one of the ladies working there if I could get some coffee to go.\u00a0She said “sure you can take the china up to your room\u201d. I said, “No I meant a paper cup to take in the car.”\u00a0She said “no no no we don’t have any.\u00a0You are in such a hurry.\u00a0If you want coffee you need to slow down and take the time to enjoy it, even if it’s 5 minutes.”<\/p>\n

\"20150724_123419_300x169\"<\/a>

View of harbor in Rapallo while sipping capuccino…<\/p><\/div>\n

OK at first I was annoyed by this, but as our trip went on I realized that it was definitely better to have high quality coffee while pausing to enjoy it, rather than running out the door with a “to go” cup.\u00a0Even when we went to a cafe for lunch, we saw people popping in at all times of the day for an espresso.\u00a0They stayed for a few minutes and were off.\u00a0But for those few minutes they stopped to pause and refresh… and slow down.<\/p>\n

Besides the coffee though my wife and I found plenty of places to stop and pause and refresh.\u00a0In Rappallo, a city near Portofino on the Italian riviera, we would take a daily walk through and around town for our exercise, and also to see the town on foot.\u00a0We found a guy with a coffee stand by the harbor and would get a cappuccino every day and just sit by the harbor… and pause for just a few minutes.\u00a0We enjoyed the view of the boats and the people walking by…the morning sunshine warming our faces…while enjoying our cappuccinos… and fancy that\u00a0it was served in a real china cup….from a guy running a “coffee stand” down by the water.<\/p>\n

The Italians are definitely onto something.\u00a0Taking the time to enjoy a cappuccino or espresso is the perfect way to “pause and refresh” so that you are ready to face the rest of your day…<\/p>\n

\"Opera<\/a>

Opera in Verona inside the Roman Arena right before the start of “Don Giovanni”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"gondola<\/a>

Gondola ride in Venice<\/p><\/div>\n

\"View<\/a>

View from hotel in Rapallo<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Perfect<\/a>

The most perfect and delicious cappuccino ever… or at least on that particular day!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Cappuccino<\/a>

Cappuccino at Hotel Excelsior in Rapallo on fine china with the logo of the hotel on every piece.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The azure water of the mediterranean. Lots of rocks and no beaches in Rapallo.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Turner Summer is a great time to pause and refresh by taking a vacation. My wife Melissa and I have been so blessed to be able to go on an annual anniversary trip.\u00a0\u00a0Well to rewind, the first few years were just dinner out, not a trip.\u00a0\u00a0We have over the years as the kids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.torrid-tech.com\/community\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}