Weekends in Italy

Over the past few days I've been thinking about a great variety of really random things. These things include, but are not limited to, and in no particular order, are the following:

1. Weekends in Italy

2. How much I want to study abroad in grad school

3. How much I hate the untag option on Facebook

4. How thankful I am for my life

5. How I'm so sick of talking about the Presidential election, global warming and the "economic crisis"

6. How I love my job, but I wish it was full-time...and at the same time how I'm happy it's NOT full-time.

7. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Most of these are general thoughts, however numero uno seems a little peculiar, I'm sure. I was thinking about the weekends in Italy from 2007. When I studied abroad, I was never eager for the next day. I was never anxious about getting a day finished and onto the next. I never wanted the weekdays to fly by and get to the weekends. Not saying that I didn't love my weekends (that's what this post will eventually evolve into) but more commenting on the fact that I honestly and truly "lived each day to the fullest", as cliche as it may seem. I literally seized each and every friggin' day. Not many people can say they go through life doing that, and I'm not going to claim I'm still doing it, however, I know that I should.

In Italy, my days were full of class, exploring the espresso, exploring the surroundings and exploring the nightlife. Granted, this does not sound like the most stressful of situations, and I'm not going to say that it was, by any stretch of the imagination. Basically, I was constantly busy. I napped twice in Italy. Twice. Count em. On average, I got about 5 hours of sleep each night, getting home around 5am and waking up at 10am for my first class. Give or take a few days, and a few hours. It was about 90-something degrees each day with full humidity and I remember actually having the nerve to complain about how hot it was. What was I thinking? WHAT the HELL was I THINKING?! I would do anything to be back in that humidity, walking 4 miles to school every morning with my roommate, Veronica. Veronica would make me walk everywhere, everyday, and in the end, I'm so glad we rarely took public transportation. The things I saw on the old city streets of Rome are things I will never forgot and can never be replaced.

This past weekend, I was thinking: we would travel every weekend in Italy, never spending one weekend in Rome. At the end of each weekend, even though we loved all of the places we traveled, we were always ready to be back at home in our apartment in the middle of Trastevere, Rome. Why was that? I'm not quite sure. I was trying to think of a reason myself, because I'm typically not like that. I live for adventure. I live for being somewhere different, always. I'm not sure why we would always be excited to get home. I'm thinking it was because we never ran out of things to do in Rome. I never once said "wow, I'm bored".

I aspire to someday live in a place that feeds me constantly, more metaphorically than anything. I want to be in a place, maybe Rome, that isn't boring, that doesn't have that "end of the weekend" feeling like Connecticut does (haha). I love Connecticut, sort of, but I mean, for obvious reasons it does not compare to Rome. If you have any ideas as to why I felt this way, let me know. I just really wonder why I was so content. I want to feel that way again with home. However, I think I left my heart close to where I left my dreams. I'm not sure if I'll ever really feel like that about Connecticut. Ya win some, ya lose some, Constitution State.