The
days are short, waking up in the afternoon. Living here has been dream like, as
each night is different but equally wonderful. After another awesome night out
in Perugia, and cruisey afternoon in sweltering heat, waking and hanging out in
the kitchen, on the balcony, chess, juggling and laughter. Bliss.
Amber
joined us, a friend from Queenstown who has been on the road in Europe for four
months. I have few things to do
here, and have been delightedly unproductive, yet always on the move, sent off
to buy spaghetti for lunch from Bangladesh, the name for the shop at the
corner, or to fetch some beers. It is nice to connect with a person who
understands where you come from; in this I really enjoy Ambers company. We
wandered around the same streets of the center, chatting away about our
adventures, laughing at silly things, and getting excited about our future
movements.
Some
people have left us, and even more leave, coming and going, the daunting and
terribly sad realization that I have to leave here, and no this won’t last
forever, has dawned. Erratically setting my heart on a spontaneous trip to
Sardinia or Sicily uncoordinated with numbers presented by bank statements.
Today
I am in a melancholy state of mind, terribly missing the people who were here
when I arrived, and of course hung over. You would hope that being in a
constant drunken state would help your body adjust to the early afternoon hang
over, but no.
Now
in Vincenzo’s house are the beautiful, kind, generous, and hilarious flat mates
Sara, Mariana and Danilo, Amber and I, Bertand and Sarah, French/Belgium
origins, and three Polish girls. The constant presence of quiet and happy
Gaspare is gone, Teresa and Fabiana are not here to keep the boys in line.
Marcello and Fabio are missed greatly, Ignacio and Chiara’s friendly smiles
also absent. Nicolas isn’t backing up Vincenzo’s guitar strums with talented
solo riffs and baritone song, Cino is also gone, his early morning runs and
late night merriment a definite loss. Alessandra, from France with her quiet
but involved conversation, our struggle between Italian, Spanish and English an
inspiring challenge and source of happiness in my genuine interest and want to
learn.
The
language I use here daily varies, I know it is appreciated when I use Spanish,
English and Italian together, and I know I would become fluent very fast if I
had perhaps one more month here. Italian is beautiful, and with these new
friends I have met I am confident I could adapt my lingual knowledge to span
Italian. I have even more vested interest due to what I am told about Italian,
that it is similar to Chinese in the numbers of dialects, dissimilarities
between dialects and the loss of ethnic variations through time.
Well
it is one more thing that attracts me to return here, and so with a heavy heart
I return to China, wondering why my decision to do this is not giving me as
much excitement as I had hoped. Lets see how my last week in Italy is, still at
Vincenzo’s house, and happy, appreciating these moments and cherishing the
wonderful times I have had here.
