Craziness

This blog is recounting my first month in Italy, which I would like to call "craziness." As soon as I arrived in Italy, it felt like a whirlwind, something completely different than my experience when I first moved to college by myself. For the first month at college I was quite lonely, didn't know anyone and didn't make friends for a while. I guess I was expecting something like this, a lot of alone time to reflect on my life, etc. However, this was the exact opposite. I immediately had this small group of American friends who were attending my school in Italy. A part from that, I made friends with this girl my age, Eleonora at the main cafe here, "Cafe Duomo." I like to call it the "Starbucks of Tuscania" because that's where everyone hangs out. Dann and I ate lunch there the day before he left to fly back to the states, and she was our waitress. I knew immediately that we would be friends and sure enough, it happened. Even though she left Tuscania three weeks after I got here to go to her college in Perugia (an hour and a half away) I still consider her my best Italian friend here. We see each other every time she comes home for the weekend. So that's how this started. And it continues, Eleonora has a brother, Marco who has a group of guy friends that always hang out at the Duomo. So my group of America student friends here which is about 5 people combined with the American group and thus the craziness commenced. We hung out together literally every night for the first month. And I'm proud to say that I became the translator of the group when the English-Italian communication couldn't always be achieved from one group to the other. Although, I wasn't that great at it, but I got by. Thankfully between both groups we each spoke enough of each other's language to function. So the American group: Justin, Maria, Kaitie, Townsend, and me and occasionally Mike and Emma at the beginning. The Italian group: Marco, Federico, Giulio, Mariano, Gino and occasionally Roberto and a few others. We hung out at the Duomo every night after dinner, which started at about 10 o'clock. Add two hours to everything you do in America and that's the schedule Italy is on. :) So we would have a few drinks, coffee or whatever and then after, we went out of the half time to the next main city, Viterbo. This is the Dallas to Flower Mound. This included going to a go-cart track, discotecas (aka clubs, although after 2 times of that, I was done with that scene), a friend's house, bowling, winery, walk through the park, more caffes/pubs, etc. On weekends we went to the beach together and special events like the jazz weekend, and the hot chocolate festival. It was so_ much_ fun, some of the best memories I've had. But after a month of that, and almost no time to myself or to write for that matter, I was tired. I love going out with people but too much of anything isn't good. It was at that point that I realized I needed some major balance in my life. I loved my new friends but that first month was no different than my life in America - exciting and always on the go. Now the exciting part is wonderful but the always on the go part was not exactly the reason I came to Italy. I came here to calm down, not to constantly run around.But still, to this part of my life I say thank you for the wonderful friends that I made and the great memories we shared that made my cultural transition the easiest thing in the world. It was truly an unexpected blessing. It's after that the balance set in and that is the part I like to call "clicking."

A dopo....