Just about two years ago, I saw I had a new subscriber to Em-i-lis. It was a beautiful Italian name, so I assumed she was a friend of my sister and had heard about my blog through Elia.
But Elia had no idea who Elisa Valentina was. Hmm. Several months later, Elisa V started leaving comments after some of my posts, and we began to know each other as I replied and she did too.
Last year, I sent Elisa a birthday card, and also a bottle of jam via Elia as we crossed paths in London.
Elisa and I exchanged Christmas cards in December, and as we share a mad love of shoes and shopping, have emailed pictures to each other of favorite finds as well as pics of our families.
We very much wanted to meet in person this year, and I was sad to tell her that our plans were taking us not to Florence but to Rome. Would she want to come, I asked hesitantly.
She said YES! She and her partner would love to come to Rome and spend a day with us.
As if in a movie, we arranged to meet at the Trevi Fountain at 10:30 this morning. Eli and I recognized each other immediately and hugged like old friends. She hugged Tom, I hugged Markus, the boys shook hands, and there you have it.
We walked all around together, chatting away about a delightful variety of topics, before heading to Grappolo D'oro, the slow food "ristorante romana" where they'd made a reservation.