Italy has been remarkable, but I did lose my glasses in the Adriatic Sea.

While I have impressed the Italian peninsula with many other instances of my frequent and flagrant violations of common sense, this one most clearly heads the group.  It happened at the first beach we went to, and only a short time after we arrived.  Since without my glasses the world looks like it does in a car during heavy rain when you don't turn on your windshield wipers, it didn't take much motivation to keep them on while I waded out to join the others.  After all, it is very hard to interact with other people when you are incapable of seeing their facial expressions.  Besides, my last few pairs of glasses stayed on my face so well that I could do push-ups with them on. 

These glasses, however, were different.  Once the water was pretty deep, and I tried to stay above a wave, off they came and quickly they sank into the dusty abyss of the Adriatic Sea.  Now you must understand the context in which this event took place for me.  The first thing I do in the morning is put on my glasses, and taking them off is the last thing I do at night; they are practically a part of my body.  Thus, I reacted in the same way as I would if my arm would have fallen off, by entering into a state of infinite panic.  It was like I was Sauron and the One Ring had just been cut off my finger; my source of life, what I used in every moment to apprehend the world around me, was now in a vast and dark body of water. 

The Adriatic is much too salty to use your bare eyes to look for things, so I had to buy some goggles to commence the search.  I've before noted that it's something of a conundrum to look for the very things that help you see.  The goggles helped a good deal, though, but since the water was still very dark and thus visibility minimal, even with the goggles, it seemed like an impossible task.  Regardless, I began searching, and soon found that the sea did not want me to have my glasses back, as it had boobytrapped the area with anemones.  Since they were at various places and would sting me occassionally, looking for my glasses was somewhat like a game of minesweeper.  A beach we went to later had sea urchins covering the sea floor, and since they are black and spiky, they even looked like minesweeper bombs.  And because of the possibility of stepping on one of them, swimming that day was actually much like a game of minesweeper.

I did not find my glasses, though I did look for hours and swallowed a lot of sea water.  As we left the beach, I contemplated the irony of the saying that everything is 20/20 in hindsight.  Hindsight was the only clear thing at the time; the rest looked like a surrealist painting.

Alas, I got glasses from an Italian optomotrist the next day, and people now have facial features again.  But now I must go, and I again note that I only have a short time I'm able to check things here, so I am sorry if I cannot get back to you!  Farewell to you all, time is a thief, live your days well!

Everyone, my sincerest apologies for a long and unexplained moratorium from my site, but I had a last few busy days before leaving for Italy last Friday.  Right now I am in Italy "studying abroad," a phrase which seems to me like a complicated way of saying you are dating a girl.  When someone would ask me, "Oh, are you going there to study abroad?" I would always think of the phrase as "study a broad" which I would sarcastically answer in my head, "Why yes, and her name is Sarah." 

It feels like bizzaro world being in a place where everything is just slightly different.  The signs for things all look like English, except with vowels on the end, and the people all look American, just with tans and slightly different clothing.  All in all, I feel like I have invaded a different reality, where I am "under the radar," as it were, an invisible agent in a world of Italians. 

By the way, the rumors are true; Italy is every bit as beautiful as everyone says it is.  In central Lecce the streets are all very narrow, paved with smooth stones and next to two story buildings which all have balconies.  (Being here provides a much more profound understanding to the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.)  There are caffes around every street corner, and gelaterias around every other one.  Everyone here drives very small cars, and a good percentage of people drive vespas, or small motorcycles (we even saw a small child riding one with training wheels in a piazza.)   

Coming from the consumer-oriented culture of America, it is at first unfathomable that almost all Italians close their stores and go home to sleep for four to five hours every afternoon, and then come back in the evening and re-open them.  But once one walks around all morning, practically offering themselves as a "burnt offering" to the blistering Italian sun, and then upon arriving home around 1 P.M. in a deep lethargic stupor, immediately collapses on their beds and falls asleep, they attain something I would deem "siesta enlighthenment."  Though one comes to Italy not understanding the cultural phenomenon of siesta, one soon cherishes the idea with heartfelt gratitude.  Just think--an entire culture which understands and embraces the idea of "chilling." 

On the flight over I sat next to a girl my age who was also going to Italy to study.  Since I don't own one, I had forgotten to bring a camera, and while we were talking I mentioned this to her.  Now, I understand that taking pictures is intrinsically part of the meaning of life to females.  Everyone should know this; the evidence is well documented on a site known as "facebook."  Thus, expectedly, she gasped profoundly and stared in disbelief at me, apparently wondering what planet I had come from, or perhaps if I had come via time travel from the past and did not fully understand the importance of pictures.  Pictures do have some worth, I admit, but I find it odd that some people seem to think that the primary purpose of being at a place is to document that they were there, rather than to do whatever there is to do at that place.  

My time here is very limited, and I probably will not be able to check up on this for awhile, so I hope you are all having wonderful summers.  Arrivederci!