This is my letter to Italy.

Today I had to take 200 pictures sitting in one spot for my photography class. I did my shoot at the Fashion bar. Here's one of the 200- Sam & Elisha.

Happy half birthday to me! (& Mel!)

Dear Italy,
Please don’t take any offense to the following. I have some complaining to do (which will be infrequent in this record of my experiences, I expect). I’m just being honest. But don’t ever think that what I say decreases my fascination/adoration/enchantment with you. Kay? Kay.

First of all, you kind of smell awful. Your air is completely taken over by smoke, and I feel as though I have barely breathed fresh air since I’ve been here. Especially at night, In the piazza, where everybody is around (so, consequently, where I always want to be) I can almost feel the smoke filling up my lungs and after a while it suffocates me a little. And it’s not something I ever want to get used to or become immune to. That is one of the one things that I like better in America than here- they’ve gotten over the obsession with smoking over there. So yeah, I don’t like smelling like smoke 24/7- all my clothes and my skin are absorbing the smell & it spreads. My apartment also manages to smell although the 4 of us are very clean.

Your internet sucks.

So does the time difference.

Also, you are so far away. I really miss my friends. I love it here. But there times, I admit, that it would be nice to be at Denison. I can’t have the best of both worlds, and being here I’m definitely not settling for anything. So I am so lucky to have so much to look forward to when I get back as well. Tutto bene.

And, you are also sucking up my money like a dementor in a field full of Sirius Blacks. Yeah, sorry, I just watched Harry Potter #3 with the roomies and that is the first simile that I thought of. I apologize for it’s lameness that it reaches on all levels possible.

You’re also still doing a great job of overwhelming me. You are so full of stuff to experience. I don’t know what to do with you. And you will only make this more difficult for me as time goes on, I imagine. But in case I forget to tell you later, thank you for that. You are still new and scary and uncertain for me, but that is exactly what I want to fill my life with. You are a challenge for me. I find that now my newest perspective on how to approach each day is to facilitate/introduce challenge. Every day I do and want to continue to step outside my comfort zone. Because if I don’t do that here, I won’t get it all. I don’t want to miss out on ANYTHING I could experience here- good or bad. So yeah, keep it up.

Besides all of these, always, you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman.