July 1, 2008

• 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! 

  • 7:44 am
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