My pal Macklemore tells us in his new song to find something that you love and do it every day. If you do that for the rest of your life, eventually the world will change. I ventured to my second day of class listening to these words and feeling truly inspired. Living in Italy isn’t something I am going to do for the rest of my life, but I’m learning to fall in love with life here one day at a time; a good goal to strive for no matter where you live.

Jet lag and I finally parted ways but I’m still guilty of practicing poor directional sense. At least now I’m acquiring a better grasp on “faking it until I make it.” And somehow, I’ve always been able to find my destination. At home, I’ve taught myself to live life fast. Italians serve as a constant reminder to slow down and enjoy truly living (with a bottle of wine in hand and maybe some gelato). Speaking of gelato, we finally found a gelato place that was actually better than Bellingham’s gelato. We were beginning to lose hope. But seriously, I’m quite certain this gelato is the best in the entire world (not even exaggerating). And only 2 euro… are you kidding me?!

On a serious note, my classes are 6 hours long here. Yes… 6. That wasn’t a typo. I will never ever complain again about a 2 hour American class. God bless America. And also God bless Italy because even though their school schedule is strange, their idea of happy hour makes everything worth it. We discovered aperitivo – which means drinks before meal. You pay a little bit extra for a drink and then you get an unlimited buffet of “appetizers.” Their idea of appetizers are pasta dishes, pizza, and basically full courses of food for free.

In other news…. we are going to Switzerland and Ireland this fall! I keep pinching myself that I’m even here. And now I’ll have to pinch even harder since I’ll be traveling to countries I only ever imagined seeing in photos. I hope Ireland actually cooks their beef to an edible state. I ordered “medium” steak tonight and it was still mooing. Caitlin says she’s got beef with this Italian beef.

I forgot to mention they don’t believe in elevators in this country. So after a week of climbing 4 stories of stairs just to get home, we are finally not feeling [as] winded when we reach the top. It’s also getting cooler… down to the upper 70s now. And we are getting friendlier with the locals. The leather store clerks below our apartment are becoming our friends and we even received free bracelets yesterday as a “welcome to the neighborhood” gesture. We basically are authentic Italians now if you can look past our decisions to celebrate the nightlife at the Hard Rock Cafe. French fries just taste so much better when they’re not easily at your disposal. (There is a McDonalds here but the logo is green and yellow so we don’t trust it.)

Every day it is becoming easier to stop comparing every little thing to America and instead accept Italy for what it is. Little by little, we are doing what we came here for… becoming cultured and expanding our horizons. And I’m certainly looking forward to enjoying a few more of these Italian sunsets. Ciao for now!