At (almost) 23, half-way through the graduate program, this feels like something I need to do. When I signed up for it last year, it was for several really basic reasons: it sounded like fun. Italy is awesome. People I liked were talking about going. All of that is still true, but now it feels deeper than that. I'm not expecting this to be an Under The Tuscan Sun/ Eat. Pray. Love, transformative, find-myself kind of ordeal. But a few weeks and several thousand miles between myself and Atlanta will be, at the very least, welcome.
That said, I'm trying to come at this trip without expectations. I'm excited because it's Italy. I'm excited because of good food and good company. I'm excited because living in another country for five weeks is inherently stupendous. But I don't want to load myself down with anticipated experiences. Or even sights or tastes. Hollywood has taught us that Italy is all beauty. It's cobblestone and pasta and crazy drivers and beautiful pieces of architecture. I can say, from experience, that this true. I saw all of that, in excess, while there. But I'm not interested in what we know we will find in Italy--I want to get there and quickly adapt so I can experience and bring back the new bits of Italy that movies and postcards don't offer us.
Despite having traveled to Italy before, I really don't know what I'm in for. I was only in each city for a couple of hours, and all of the places I traveled in Europe four years ago were very tourist-heavy. I guess that's what I'm most excited about right now: getting to live in Italy for a few weeks. I've hosted exchange students my entire life, so it's going to be very, very cool to be able to relate to them in this manner, to be able to understand being transplanted in a different culture and expected to live an entirely new life. Though we keep teasing Dr. Davidson because he is so persistent in reminding us not to be too American while we're there, that's exactly the advice I'm going to follow. I want to live in Italy (though, admittedly, I might take way more pictures than any Italian would in a given day.)
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