Below: Picture my friend Michele took of Sunset over the Ticino river near the Ponte Coperto in Pavia when we had a huge flood a few weeks ago...the people in the houses across the river had to bring their furniture up to the second floor, but there wasn't too much damage...


So I know I have been pretty slack at updating this thing, and I am disappointed in myself because it is so true that the unexamined life is not worth living and I am afraid that due to my short memory, by not processing my daily thoughts and experiences I am going to lose all the lessons forever. I have to do something fast to preserve them! The problem is I'm in Italy and nothing is done fast (except driving of course) and this slow relaxed lifestyle is more addictive than nicotine. I now can proudly say I am able to sit at dinner for 4 hours, walk at 0.1 mph, and arrive half an hour late and think I'm on time. Quite a skill set for my resume, though not so helpful in getting my work done fast.

I actually find myself worrying about when I get back to America and spend time with my American friends again, they will still be going at the same old American pace and no one will want to sit for two hours at dinner with me or go for an evening passegiatta (stroll) through the city at a snails pace. I am even starting to like having people milling around all the time everywhere I go...in most of the US the sidewalks are lonely because everyone is isolated in their cars.

I think of all the years I was the first one to flee after an event just because I liked to always be moving, but now I'm becoming the last one to linger and I'm starting to wonder what I was always rushing away to all those years...another event to rush away from?

It becomes clearer every day that social connections are what make life good. When I think back on my time in France, for those first few months when I was so miserable: the isolated self-contained living situation, the ridiculous workload, and the culture shock made for a limited social life centered upon sharing a common misery, which I would have been even more miserable without....but it wasn't idea. But here, even though everything that was bad about France is much worse in Italy, and my best friends here are the friends from Italy, life is so much brighter because of the huge social network (lots more people in the program here from all over the world) centered on enjoying each others company, cooking together, meeting for evening drinks in the central square, tea parties, barbecues, and so on. All fun and games and little work, but I'm much happier as of late, and though I only have about two months left in Europe and I am looking forward to going home, I am beginning to realize that my perspective have evolved this year and though I often tell myself that Europe is interesting but not my kind of place, I think I'm going to miss it here. Of course such revelations always come at the end of something.

A few things about the Italian and/or french lifestyles that I wish we could adopt back home:

1) Cooking food from fresh whole food ingredients
2) Shopping in smaller locally owned shops, even if it means paying more
3) Air drying my clothes
4) Walking everywhere possible (even the elderly walk or bike everywhere in the center!)
5) Lively bustling city centres with lots of outdoor cafes and bars
6) Aperitivo (buy one drink and eat all the food you want for free!)
7) Evening strolls
8) Window shopping (their displays are so beautiful...in fact there is not much else besides what is in the window to some of the tiniest shops)
9) Gelato shops
10) French Boulangeries (bakeries)

Ok, that's all I will write for tonight because it's already 1:30am, but I set the lofty goal for myself that I would write something in the blog before today was over. I'll update a bit on my Greece trip and what I've been up to the past month hopefully tomorrow...but in Italian time that could mean next week :D