Final Thoughts On My Italian Adventure

The one thing I have been thinking about a lot this week is something that Laura said in her blog: “I think I am homesick for a place that doesn’t exist.”  I completely agree.  My trip has come to an end, and I have been thinking back to everywhere we went, everything we saw, everyone we met, and I can not think of a better experience I have ever had.  I lucked out with such a great traveling partner in Laura.  She pushed me to get outside my comfort zone a lot!  Those of you who know me know that I am a planner.  I like having a plan, I like knowing where I am going, who I will be with, where I am, and what we are doing.  When we got on the plane to Italy, I knew we would be in Venice until June 22nd when we would meet Melissa in Florence for a few days.  After that I was supposed to have about 3 1/2 weeks left that were unplanned.   This is a huge problem for me and made me super anxious.  My mom had to talk me down from the ledge a few times with how nervous I was.  I had even told Laura at one point that if we didn’t have something planned by June 17th, I was changing my ticket and flying back with Melissa.

It all worked out.  Three weeks into Venice when we were out to dinner at Sanchit’s restaurant and we talking about how we couldn’t believe it had already been almost a month and what we were going to do afterwards.  We decided then that we had to go back to Venice.  There were too much we hadn’t done, too much we hadn’t seen, and we weren’t ready to say goodbye to our new friends.  In fact, we would have just stayed an extra week directly after we were scheduled to leave if it had not been for our plans with Melissa.  I actually think I liked how it turned out better though, because it was like a mini vacation within our vacation.  Going back to Venice was like going home.

One night when Laura and I were out at the bar with Slava, we created this kind of Utopia that we wanted to live in.  It was called Marslavchilauria or something similar.  It was going to have a little something for everyone, and the best part was that it didn’t matter where the location was.  We all want something different in our lives, but this place would have it all.  It is impossible to create a Utopia for the whole world, but for 4 people, we could make it work.  At least for a while.  After that, when you start to miss your family and friends, and you want them to join you in your new home, you realize that there is more you need to add and build and then in the end, you wind up with our current world anyway.  It would be nice to have a little escape though, a place where you can return to nostalgia and remember how life was when you were in a happy place.

That is the end of that tangent though.  Back to my trip.  If you’ve been following this blog, you know where I went, but if you need a refresher, here is a quick break down.
May 24-June 22 Venice
June 23-26 Greve (Sienna, Cinque Terre, Lucca, Chianti)
June 27-30 Florence
July 1-7 Venice
July 8-10 Rimini
July 11-15 Atina (Picinisco, Sora)
July 16 Rome (Hotel)
That brings us to today.  If you did the math, you know that it is not quite 3 1/2 weeks after my plan ended like I said.  In the end, I did end up changing my flight to come back early.  Not much, but it was cheaper to come home half a week early than to stay.  Laura will still be traveling around until the beginning of August.  It is weird to not have her around.  Last night was the first night I have spent without a roommate since we left Venice the first time.  That is crazy to me!

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited to be coming back.  I was definitely getting homesick and I was ready to be done traveling.  I do good with being stationary.  If I had been able to stay in one place that I was comfortable for a more extended period of time I think I would have been fine.  But considering I can not drive stick and I would have been alone, that essentially would only leave Venice.  My goal before I return to Italy is therefore to learn how to drive a manual. I am half surprised that wasn’t covered at Istituto Venezia since they took care of basically every other one of my issues.

This post is a little scatterbrained, I apologize.  I’m writing it on the plane.  Basically, I guess you should think of each paragraph as a new lead in.

I have learned a lot about myself in the past 2 months, and I hope that I can take some of it with me as I continue, and I hope that I can learn to deal and cope with other parts of myself.  For example, I hope to go forward with the calmer lifestyle of Italy and to not always be so rushed.  I want to enjoy life more while I have the time.  I want to be able to look back and see that I have met more people and learned more about their lives.  I need to become more involved in community activities and get out there.  I also would like to work on being calmer when I am stressed.  Some situations I think I dealt with great, and other times I know I could have kept my cool a little better.  I also need to be more proactive with things that I want.  A late night conversation with a more than tipsy Laura and Melissa may have really put that into perspective.  This will be the hardest one for me, but piano, piano… (slowly, slowly) I hope to make it happen.

I don’t know what else I can say about this.  Life is good and plane rides are long.