It's been a bad day for shuffle play
I keep pushing that button, you know, the one that skips this song and goes on to the next. The "what the hell is this and why is it still in my iTunes library?" button. Funny how that happens, some days every song that comes up is perfect, and others, well, not so much.

I am trying to keep myself busy today because I am feeling twinges of being homesick from twines of being anxious. But I can't wait! My parents are here in fifteen days, Kerry and Alex soon after. I am going to Venice next weekend....it really doesn't get much better than this. I went for a run/walk (all dogs on leashes and no public peeing, I am happy to say) because I getting stir crazy. I can't pack until I do laundry, which I am saving for the last few days so that I can maximize my clean clothes. Laundry this summer is going to be interesting.

It's all rough plans, a place to sleep, and the rest comes as it comes. Mostly, I just want to wander with my ten days alone. Bologna, Venice, Bolzano. Apparently they rent bikes for almost nothing in Bolzano so it is my plan to get my hands on one and just go. No one to be accountable to, nowhere to be. A friend of mine wants to come, and she might meet me there, but I kind of want these ten days to myself. She called me adventurous for traveling alone, said she couldn't do it. Am I adventurous, really? Or am I just independent? I don't know. I do know that I had a dream the other night about wandering around Venice, and I will tell you that in that dream, it's awesome. I over Rome and Florence for now, will go back to show them off, to see it through someone else's eyes only. (And I haven't been to St. Peter's yet, so that has to get done). I am ready for new pieces of Italy.

I was running through cobblestone streets, up the staircases and down the alleyways, and I reminded myself to look again. To look hard, because my period of belonging to this place is coming to an end. I can't say whether or not I have made the best of my time here. There are certain things that I never did, and when I compare my experience to the people around me, I wonder if maybe I missed something. But this is useless thinking, the comparing mind will always find fault and regrets are not worth the mental energy. Besides, this is my trip, my life, and I get to go about it as I choose. Unlike most of them, I am only just over halfway through. It's funny in a way, that everyone is ready to go home, and I am just starting the craziest part.

So here is a brainstorm for the summer, keeping in mind that all are distinct possibilities!

Climbing Mt. Etna, lots of cave/volcano stuff to see
Accademia in Venice
Venetian glass
Dolomites
hot springs in Tuscany
paragliding
Ischia
Greek ruins in Sicily
Remote islands off of Sicily
scooter?
biking
the Alhambra
The Prado
Slavador Dali Musuem
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Pompei
Vesuvius
Gardening
yoga on the farm
speaking lots of italian
remembering spanish
tapas
cinque terre and hiking
beaches
overnight hut hikes in Abruzzi and Tuscany
Ceri festival in Gubbio
Hiking Mt. Subasio in Assisi
Drinking beer and eating Kebabs on the steps
Parents!
Kerry and Alex!
Meeting people in hostels
Lots of train time (ick!)
being self-sufficient
Gaudi architecture
southern spain
lots and lots and lots of coffe and wine!

Who are these people in the world who don't travel? And do they have any idea what they are missing?

I read the first few pages of a couple of books in Spanish in the foreign language section of Feltrinelli yesterday and I was very reassured. I can still read the language even if it takes me a very long time and lots of hard thought to produce it. I told Peter Fischer in complete honesty that what I learned here is that I want to be able to speak another language. I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to speak and communicate in another tongue. I held an entire phone conversation in Italian yesterday, it made me so happy and proud. But not Italian. It's beautiful and romantic, yes, but....

I am in love with the desert, with New Mexico from afar. I love the green hills, the olive groves and grape vines. However, part of my can't wait to stand on the cliff in the Petroglyphs behind my parents' house and survey that beautiful landscape. And so part of what I am learning afar is to love my home and to understand what it means to feel like a place is home. It's not Colorado, strangely enough. I feel that I would much rather prefer to call New Mexico my home than Colorado. Even though I don't really live there, Albuquerque pulls on me more so than Boulder. So in a way, the future takes a shape, the idea that I would actually like to settle there, yes the summer will eat me, but I don't care.

Read any and everything by Barbara Kingsolver and you will begin to understand this love affair.

I read somewhere that traveling makes you want to travel more, we find ourselves in the midst of a current trip planning the next. It's completely true. Next on my list though is Glacier National Park, and another two or three road tours of the Southwest (Bryce, Zion, Escalante, the Grand Canyon, Taos, Carlsbad again, Arches again). We used to go each spring break when I was a kid, pack the car and go south where it would be warm enough to camp in March. Yet I feel as if I haven't seen half of it. Too bad I don't have a car and gas costs so much!

I ramble at this point, but that is how I am feeling this week. It's limbo again, between living and packing, waiting for finals, waiting to leave, for Metra to call for lunch....It makes me feel so scattered!

Enough of this.

Pace,

Monica