My husband and I were trying to figure out the name for the syndrome I occasionally show symptoms of. You may suffer from this as well. You travel to someplace and you immediately fall in love with it and you don’t want to leave and you can see yourself putting down roots and hanging around for a while. You can immediately see where your children will go to school, what you will do on weekends; you can see the rest of your days plotted out in this spot. At first he thought it was called Florence Syndrome, but after consulting my pal google, it seems that there is a Florence Syndrome (and a Paris one! and a Jerusalem one!) but they involve hallucinations and fainting and dizziness on account of all the culture. That’s not exactly what happens to me. I mean, it even happened to me after spending a month last summer in Milwaukee. I could see our family living in an old house near Lake Michigan and having Friday night dinners with my mom, Packer Sundays, and my kids picking up thick midwestern accents. I doubt there’s a Milwaukee syndrome, unless it’s hallucinations from too much beer and cheese.

So, well, why don’t we name it the AliMartell Syndrome. Because, y’all, I am suffering BAD.

I still can’t even get over all of the ways PEI won me over in just four short days. And we didn’t even visit the Anne of Green Gables house, because, well, I don’t know if you know this, but Anne of Green Gables was fictional. And even though I spend a good chunk of my childhood reading the whole series and watching Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea and wishing like hell I was Sarah Polley, there were about 826 other places I wanted to see.

Like eating the edible flowers in the garden at the Inn at Bay Fortune, where the chef gave us a tour of the fruit and vegetable gardens and then cooked us an entire meal using all of his fresh produce.

Like take a culinary boot camp at Holland College where my kids got to make their very own grilled cheese and sweet potato soup and halibut and thai lettuce wraps and then eat the fruits of the labor.

Like Blueberry picking right before we grabbed the ferry from Nova Scotia to PEI.

Like the historic tour of downtown Charlottetown.

Like digging for clams out near Summerside and then watching our instructor Ron cook them up in an old CN Railroad caboose that he kept as a souvenir from the old railroad.

Like taking a chocolate-making (and eating!) class at Island Chocolates on the most beautiful spot on the entire island, Victoria-by-the-Sea.