Fun with Culture Shock

I melted into my own ridiculously sumptuous bedding last night listening to ... nothing.  Quiet.  I was grateful for a lovely flight, terrific friends, a most amazing year in a lifetime.  I was ready for a long hot shower, and certain physical comforts I've missed.  In a strange fog, I thought, and expressed to a few friends, "So happy to be here, but it's kind of strange - hollow.  1/2 my luggage is still in Germany.  1/2 my heart - or more - is still in Italy." 

NOTE 1: Yay for upgrades and the wine selections (particularly the Cotes-du-Rhone) in United Business.

NOTE 2: Boo for immigration lines at Chicago O'Hare.  Yes, Mr. Passport Guy, my hair WAS shorter in this picture - it was taken 9 years ago, dig?  Yes, I'm traveling alone - unless you see my invisible friend standing next to me to whom I just silently whispered, "Questo e bischerate" ("This is BS." Hey -  I just made a sentence with another new favorite word. )  THIS is why we are standing here for an hour?  So you can ask women about their hair? 

NOTE 3: Yay for the "big luggage" still in Germany.   My response to the airline luggage people, "Good.  You airline people can worry about that customs stuff.  I'm tired.  Just deliver it to my door when you get around to it, thank you."

(One little boo - my 2002 Sauternes and a gifted bottle of 2004 Sagrantino di Montefalco from a friend are in that luggage.)

My friend, ironically of Florentine descent, scooped me up from the airport last night, and was happy to just keep speaking with me in the Italian for a while, correcting my bad grammar, laughing about the "new words" I've learned.  She could tell I was beat, and deposited me at my door.  I walked in my house - so happy to be home, touching things, saw the box I'd sent back last week that contained my beloved pasta machine and books - but could think of nothing but shower and bed. 

This morning I awoke not to church bells, but to silence I could barely remember.  Just a little disoriented, knew I needed coffee and pastry. Stat.  For obvious reasons I did not preposition arabica beans near my trusty espresso machine nine months ago - so I stuck my nose in the bean grinder, snorted what aromas I could.  I need to clear my head before I leave the house and deal with people, I thought.

I unpacked the box, lovingly placed pasta machine next to her new friend, stand mixer.  The CDs were on top - Zucchero, Valerio Scanu, and Laura Pausini kept me company while I literally danced barefoot on these hardwoods, puled out the books, one given to me by Angelo Gaja on the Vines of San Lorenzo.  A copy of my first Italian film, L'Ultimo Bacio, wine notes, all now laying around my living room - not ready to be put away just yet.  The dream can't be over.

I sit here against the same wall of tears that spilled out yesterday as my plane lifted off from Florence - unexpected - unexplained - realizing, that this is my life now, not a dream.  Yes, thousands of people every year go study abroad in Italy and other places.  It's not a big deal, really.  It's what you make it.  Like I would say to other students, "You get out of this experience what you put into it."

I guess the big deal for me are the changes I allowed to happen - and are still happening - within.  Gotta be where all this emotional chow chow is coming from.  That, my friends, is the dream.  Allowing the people, events, places, feelings to recreate aspects of yourself, alter the way you see things - and others - the way you relate to others - and yourself ... all in beautiful, positive, mind- and heart-opening ways.

Holy crap - I need coffee.  And God, are the mountains beautiful this morning!