Deal or No deal?

As I begun staring at the empty white page before me today, I pondered how to convey all of my thoughts into words. Obviously, this is not at all possible, but what I can and try to do is if give you a piece of my mind and a taste of my life in Italy. I hope I am not too brutally honest in some of these posts. I typically write about 4 or 5 different posts before I finally come up with one I am comfortable sharing with all of you. Today, I'm going to do this a little differently...

Let's start by playing a bit of deal or no deal. Today right now, someone comes to you and says, "How would you feel about moving to Italy for a while???" My guess is the first thought that would run through your head would be "NO WAY!!!?! Italy??!" Visions of pizza and pasta, Italians and Tuscan buildings, along with Venice and Rome and a beautiful language run through your mind. Sounds like a dream come true eh?

Next, let's say you are interested in the offer, you ask questions such as, well who can I take with me?? How long is the stay? Where will I be staying? Where will I be working?? etc...

Now let's say all the stars align and you accept this deal, you will be staying in Italy anywhere from 9 months to about 1 year. Now the planning begins!! Who will be staying at your house while you are gone?? Who are you allowed to bring with you? Spouse, significant other? Or your parents? Do you have children? or no? etc. Let's say you are a teenager, going with your parents, and brother. Where will you be going to school? Have you graduated yet? Are you close to graduating? Who are you leaving behind? Friends? Best friends? Boyfriend? Cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents? Loved ones? Those you spend the majority of your time with?

Do you have a passport? What about a current birth certificate, renewed within the last year? Is it "dually apostled"? Do you know what that means? Do you know Italian? Will you need a visa (you are staying a year. so yes.)?? What about extra passport photos? Have you been finger printed? Do you know Italian? Or do you need lessons? Is whoever is sending you there paying for the lessons?? What about all of your possessions, are you leaving them home? Do you go to church? Do they have that church in Italy? Is it located near where you will be staying? Will you have a car when you get there? Do you know how to drive it? Are your airplane tickets bought?? How do you plan to travel with a years’ worth of luggage? This isn’t even a quarter of what you would be doing but just to give you an idea ;) Have you said your goodbyes?? Did they break your heart?? Do you miss them already??

Alright you made it through all 5 billion securities and customs and you are on the plane! Wahooo! On your way! How exciting!! You miss everyone back home but what the heck it's only a year right???! and you get to see Europe, lucky! As many people have said, "you are so lucky! you got to leave all your problems behind!". Oh boy, are you naive. The problems don't just magically disappear as soon as you leave them behind. You gather new problems and the old ones multiply. You arrive in Italy about 20 hours later, and what do you know, they immediately start speaking Italian. And you don’t understand a word!! But why?!! You took lessons! You should know what they are saying right?!?! Think again. Oh crap the signs are in Italian too! Where do you find your bags?! Great...okay you need to find a help desk...maybe they will speak a little English.

Think back to your lessons, how do you say help again??? Think hard! That sign says "Aiuto", and there’s a desk beneath it.. “Aiuto" yeah I think that means "Help". Perfect! You walk up to the desk, "Ciao, parla Ingliese?" She responds with her thumb and her index finger almost touching mumbling something along the lines of, "a lil-ttle..". You think to yourself great!! A little is enough! You ask "where is the baggage claim", very slowly??? She points you out the door and to the left, to the taxi stand...that's helpful...not. You look to her and say, "grazie". Meanwhile you walk away trying to find your bag, eventually finding someone who you know rode the same plane as you and follow them creepily to baggage claim. Ah you finally spot your bag! Perfect! (your two huge American size suitcases that is). You grab them both, make sure your family has found all of theirs. Find signs point you to "Hertz Rental Car". Ah, English.! Yes! You find Hertz, wait in line for an hour and a half, getting just a taste of the fact that Italians do not know the meaning of customer service. You finally get the keys, you walk outside, its raining. sickkk. \m/ with your two American size suitcases you drag them awkwardly and loudly down the stairs to get outside. (Welcome to Italy, no forward thinking…such as *people getting off a plane are probably carrying luggage and therefore, an escalator would be more suited* no, that would take planning and forward thought.)
You follow the sign to the hertz cars, find your fiat panda, and practically break the trunk so all of your luggage fits. Squish your American size legs inside the tiny little car. (yes, I am actually very tall here). As your mother drives around Italy, you feel this immediate urge to roll your window down and vomit, simply because there are no lines on the road, people drive however and wherever they want. They park wherever they want. They stop whenever they want. They drive whenever they want (including through red lights), they stop on railroad tracks, (the trains will stop for you), cars always have the right of way. They do not stop for pedestrians and they will honk at you whenever they please. You finally make it to your hotel, of course your two rooms are not ready yet and you will have to wait 4 hours. Yes once again welcome to Italy, where customer service does not exist. This is just the beginning of your journey. You haven’t even been in Milan for 6 hours.

Welcome to your new life. If I continued and walked you through my entire journey I would literally be writing for months, if not years! So this is where I will stop, about 30 hours into your journey, where you have yet to even truly see or realize the depth of your adventure. At this point I want you to think about your life, where you are at, who you are with, what you are surrounded by, those things you take for granted, etc. And try to imagine they are all put on the back burner, you are leaving things and people you know and love, and you get to experience a new culture. A wonderful, life changing, make your world spin kind of experience, yet you might just go royally insane while you are at it.

I love Italy. It’s beautiful, the people are great, the food is amazing, the weather is refreshing, yet I do miss the simple American pleasures and most importantly those I love, I’m not going to lie, if you offered me a plane ticket home today, I would take it. But I am enjoying this journey, embracing the culture, learning the language, and loving the people. and It won’t last forever. Miss you all. Baci e abbracci. (hugs and kisses)

Oh and I'll start ending all of these with a quote by me, or simply one I've enjoyed.

Keep Laughing. It'll keep you sane. Keep smiling through the pain. You still have much to gain. Keep loving through the hardest part. It'll keep you young at heart. -my thoughts