Walking down the street today, I overheard a conversation between two English speaking travellers about buying shoes. The part that I caught was,
“Well I figure that, since I’m in Italy, I should probably buy some leather shoes.”
I chuckled to myself and realized that I’ve almost forgotten this isn’t where I live. I don’t live in this city, this country, or even this continent. This is just a vacation. An extended one at that, but still a vacation. Throughout the trip, I have done my best to fulfill all those “since I’m here, I should probably…” goals. In Italy, though, it’s been a different story. Not because I haven’t done the things that you’re “supposed” to do here, but rather because I haven’t done anything just for the sake of doing it. I do things because they make sense, because at this point I couldn’t think of not doing them. For example:
1) I eat pasta basically everyday. Not because I feel like I should, but because it’s a perfect meal and I honestly can’t think what a meal would consist of without it.
2) I walk around in the evening with no intention of going anywhere. The evening passegiatta is a sport in Italy, and while at first I would walk around just because everyone else was, I now feel like my night isn’t complete without taking a little stroll.
3) I speak more sign language than actual Italian, but it works because so do all the Italians. I kid you not, I was on a bus a couple weeks ago and while we were stopped I was watching a conversation between friends at the station and it wasn’t until I took out my headphones that I realized they actually were speaking in sign language, and not just enthusiastic Italian. The line is very blurry.
I’m sure there are many other facets of my daily life that I haven’t realized are different now, but I think I’ll leave it up to friends and family to tell me just how I’ve changed when I return…