Non lo posso credere.

...it's over.
I can't even believe it.
These four months have flown!
There were some parts, of course, that took FOREVER,
and it wasn't rosy all the time (life never is),
overall I've had an incredible semester.

It's going to be so strange, going home.
I'm excited to see what's just the way I remember,
and what I've already forgotten.
I'm excited to see how fast I miss Italy, and how much.
It will be interesting to see when I come back, and for how long. Though I don't think I would ever live right in the center of Florence again, there's still so much of Italy I haven't seen, so much of Europe left to see as well, and lots of places I wouldn't mind living. We will see.

Finals ended up going really well - I feel like this may be the first semester I got a 4.0 in college! It may not happen, since there are a couple possible wildcards, but I doubt I will get any B's.

I also can't believe that we're leaving for Greece tomorrow! It just feels surreal. I'm pretty much done packing, though tonight we're probably going to have to re-pack, trying to distribute the weight more evenly and such. I can't wait to be there, lying on the beach, just relaxing. It's been a busy semester, and I need a break, for sure.

Well, I have less than 24 hours left to play in Florence, and it's a beautiful day, so I better get out there. I'll leave you with a part of my final project for my writing class, a poem called "Endings and Beginnings."



My life must fit in a suitcase. In the last week I have been fighting to choose what stays, what goes; and I cannot. It is easier than before, at least somewhat; I will try to take everything from this quarter of a bedroom, the tiny piece of Italian real estate I have boldly named my own, and shove it piece by piece, ticket stub by train ticket, leather boot by silky scarf, into my inadequately sized suitcases.

But it is an impossible task.

Not the shoving, of course – that’s more like an awkward game of three dimensional tetris. It will be difficult, but packing always is. More challenging is the delicate game of dancing through memory, reliving my struggles and triumphs in the hopes of bringing home this ball of light, this glowing sense and innate knowledge of where I fit in the puzzling mess of the world, and fitting it back in the hole I left for myself in the Rocky mountains. That, I simply cannot reconcile. I will be Columbus in his victorious return to a home that does not believe in the world he discovered; I will be the opaque olive oil floating just over the top of the crystal clear water of the life to which I return. I will be the last lingering blossom of wisteria, a hope of coming home changed to a world that is anything but peaceful. Nothing will make sense. Nothing will be Italy.

Ma a ogni uccello il suo nido è bello. Amerò la bella Italia per sempre, ma ... it’s time to go home to see not what will become of me, but what I will make of myself.