Ciao Ciao!

Well, it's here. 6 days and I will be nestled snuggly in my airplane seat, watching some atrocity on Brit TV and stabbing an unidentified particle of meat on the tray in front of me. Every day my departure date looms closer, I'm in a sort of limbo between excitement and sheer terror, the latter and former interchanging between 30% and 70%, depending on the time of day and the level of difficulty my Italian "word of the day" phrasebook bestowed on me that morning.

It's usually at night, when I'm lying in my bed, an array of needless electronics and wrappers of processed food around me, that I start to get more and more nervous. I mean, I've been to Italy before, and I can reflect upon the people as being, in general, friendly and accommodating. I think the biggest issue is the first few days, when the stuff that I forgot in my bedroom at home is beating me over the head, or when it finally begins to dawn on me just how much I should have gotten a job over break. It's the self-subsistence and loss of comfort that most frighten me, but I feel that, as with all things, it will be fine.

Thankfully, then, the excitement usually wins over and coddles me to sleep. In a week, my mailing address will end in Roma, Italia. In two weeks, I will be skiing (read: falling) down the Swiss Alps after a 10+ hour bus ride filled with newly downloaded iPod tunes or, perhaps, a textbook. I have such high expectations for the next four months, and the best part is that they will most likely be reached.

I plan on taking the biggest risks of my life and doing what makes me uncomfortable. If my hair gets long, I will walk into a salon and tell them to do what they want with it. Who knows? Maybe my barber will ask me to go dancing (a la Roman Holiday) and I will discover how the moon hitting my eye is, in fact, love, as Dean Martin so proudly reassures me. What's the worst that could happen? I wake up in an unidentified apartemento with a stranger's mother breathing over me, wielding a wooden spoon and spewing countless expletives? The consequences may manifest themselves, but I am ready.

I'd like to list a few goals here and there, as I'm sure some will crop up and others fade. For now, my main goals are to see Paris, Greece, and Ireland. I want to find a bench in a park in Trastevere where I can write in my (count 'em, 3) different journals. I want to buy a pack of shrooms in Amsterdam and go on a canal cruise. I want to visit a nude beach and at least go topless, be it whether or not I close my eyes to avoid the double takes of the Smurf-size Europeans that need to verify whether or not a beached whale is in their midst. I want to visit Brendola and see where my family comes from, see how the villagers live their lives. I want to make a close Italian friend that I stay in touch with after my return. I want to know a thing or two about wine, I want to be mistaken for a native, but most of all, I want to feel as though Rome truly is my home.

And who knows? Maybe a book will come out of it. But for now, bellas, I must be off to gape at my wardrobe and wrap my head around the fact that I can bring one eighth of it along me.

Wish me luck,
Cason