i'm going to paris!

and then home!

and then texas for the fall!

i am not going to write about the bad things going on because i don't want to think about them. i have been struggling during this last leg of my trip; in fact, i tried to skip my trip to paris in the first week of august to go straight home but i could not change my flight. it is probably just as well. when will i be here again?

anyway, i am dripping with sweat and it is still quite early in the day. here, when you leave the house in the morning, you are already sweaty and gross. it's just something you get used to, like having a second skin. a second skin of grime. yum.

i am excited because i am going home for three weeks and then doing a semester in texas. boyfriend and i will finally be able to be together consistently. it will be wonderful!! i was talking to this guy who works at a restaurant near my apartment last night during a late night gelato run. he was like, 'gelato eh?' and i was like, 'i won't be in italy much longer, i have to.' he was like, 'aw, we won't see each other anymore, etc. but i bet you miss your family.' i was like, 'i miss my boyfriend.' then i realized that that might have sounded badly, like i don't miss my family, but he nodded and said, 'lo so,' which means 'i know.' i think he meant it in a 'i can understand that' kind of way. it can be difficult with another language because i try to be literal, translating word for word into english in my head, but it doesn't work that way at all. for example, he didn't know i had a boyfriend so he wouldn't say 'i know.' maybe he meant it as 'i see.'

it will be kind of sad to leave, if only for the great neighborhood acquaintances i've made. i can't stand any of my neighbors back home. and i doubt people will greet me with a daily 'hi beautiful!' as the often-used 'ciao bella's flow abundantly here, from men and women. if it were not for those, i might throw myself into the canal, living in a country with really thin women and gelato everywhere.

months ago i mentioned having lunch with my fellowship director. she is my mentor and my hero. i admire her like no one else.

i found out this morning that she has pancreatic cancer, and that it has spread. i don't think i have to tell you what that means.

after weeping around the office, my boss sent me home. after weeping around my apartment, i wandered around venice a little bit. i have come online now to email her a letter telling her how much i love her and how much i owe to her for changing my life.

i wish that i wasn't so far away.

i treated myself to a pair of birkenstocks today and i am in love. had been cheaping out on shoes for a long time and after rome, pompei, florence, etc. i wanted to cry, my feet hurt so badly. besides, they are cheap here since i am so close to germany. boo-yah.

today was my day off. i found myself napping frequently, sweating a lot (it is soooo hot), and visiting three churches with my chorus pass. (i bought a pass for access to 12 churches without paying for individual tickets, yes you have to pay to go to church here, it's so wrong, give them a couple of tintorettos or titians and it goes to their head, j/k). it will be hard to go home and be without all these churches. it is just amazing here. and it's not just a touristy thing, i light candles and say prayers and it's a nice experience all around. of course there are churches at home but they don't have tintorettos or titians, darn it!!

wish i could write more, will as soon as things ease up. i hope you have all decided to check my blog less frequently but not to go away altogether.

i really miss writing. yes, it was extremely exciting to be in italy when they won. people went crazy in the campo where i was, but i was so tired that i went home and missed the real party in which people jumped into the grand canal and screamed their heads off.

will blog soon! especially when work slows down.

hello all. sorry for being so delinquent, but i am so busy all the time. it's good busy, as in traveling and doing cool projects at work and stuff, but still. i am quite tired.

just a brief update... i loved loved loved rome. i also went to pompei which was amazing but also quite depressing. sorrento was beautiful as well but didn't spend very much time there. then i went back to work for two days and now i have spent yesterday and today in florence, another city i love! i actually met up with my italian professor from back home because he's doing research here, which was really fun.

today i see some more sights and then go back to prepare for all the upcoming stuff at work. it is really hectic (!!) but whatever. it's better than only having tedious responsibilities, no?

pictures to come if i can ever get them up.

also, i wrote another feature for andi's awesome webzine, estella's revenge.

tonight is my first night ever in a hostel. my locker smells like fruit rollups, courtesy of whoever had it last, and apparently no one told the folks who run this place that you don't put a chunky girl on the top bunk. oh, the joys.

actually, i am just being my terribly witty self. it is pretty nice. i have the entire dorm to myself because people my age stay out all night and drink. it's great to be an old woman stuck in a young woman's body!

so, story of my trip so far. last night i got out of work at around 10:00 p.m. (um, i mean 22.00). went home and packed. set alarm to rise at 4:00 a.m. to turn boiler on. did. distinctly remember re-setting alarm for 5:00 before going back to sleep, despite being in a half-asleep stupor. after that, I don't know what happened. woke up at 6:40, had missed my bus to the airport. so i trotted off to the train station, which is 5 minutes from where i live. i took a train for about 2 hours to bologna, then changed trains for the remaining >3 hours to rome.

got here, checked into my hostel, dropped off stuff, went to the coliseum. i came out of the metro station and it was right across the street. incredible. it was absolutely amazing.

i didn't want to miss a thing, so i bought the audioguide. geez louise. could it have been any harder to follow? they give you a map and you're supposed to punch in the number when you're standing on the spot. it's the coliseum! how do you distinguish where you are from a map? it's like, "walk up to the column in the section of the ruins that looks ancient." "these are the seats from which the senators used to spit on poor people." where? where did they spit?? (i'm just kidding, they would never put that in an audioguide.)

frustrating, man. i couldn't even figure out which door they dragged the gladiators' bodies out of.

afterwards i checked out the arch of constantine, which is right outside, and then i went to the roman forum and il palatino. i enjoyed it so much that i altered my tentative plans for my future right then and there:

okay, boyfriend will move here and we'll have our kids and they'll be well-versed in italian and art history. and then i never have to go home!

then i thought about what boyfriend's reaction would be and realized how creepy i was being.

so sleepy. a dopo tutti!