Someone told me theres a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair

I always debate what to name my blog posts. Since they are so few and far between now, which I feel terrible about, the debates aren’t as frequent, but hey they’re brain-racking. I feel like there are a few alleys I generally head towards – lyrics from the song I’m listening to, a quote that has been stuck in my head, a quick word preview, or a random summation of the blog post to follow. Here, it happens to be from the song I’m listening to. I’m actually in the process of slowly compiling my annual summer playlist – you know, that one that you instinctively reach for in the car when you cant really decide what you wanna jam to and then it always turns out to be a wonderful choice. Dad for you these days its probably crude humor Sirius channels, Mom for you it’s the same as it was 35 years ago, Butterfly Kisses, Britt for you its, and everyone knows this one, Mike “No Diggity” Doughty, Alicia it’s the siblings weekend mixes you always plan to create that never happen, Damon its “mmmmmmmmmmmmmm what-ya-say”, and I cant really get a read for anyone else on this one. I’ll move on…

I’m typing this in my room where I don’t have internet so I cant remember where I left off with my last post. The logical idea would be to walk a few steps down the hall where I get wifi and log on real quick and check, but I couldn’t down the glass(es) of wine like I’m currently doing out there. Following a lengthy conversation with my dad the other day, I’ve been trying to ease myself into a somewhat vegetarian/vegan diet to prepare for the summer which appears to have forecasted such a menu. And while we’re on the topic of food, I’ll tell you what I want right now – a gallon of ice cold skim milk, four pounds of mundel bread, and Wegmans, anything made by/endorsed by/sold by/touched by Wegmans. I hate to reiterate, but I am totally ready to come home. I’m not down about it, but I’m not on that high that I was all semester. I don’t think I’m complaining, I’m just living differently than I was during the rest of this experience. I was trying to take in and get the most out of every second of it all, and it got kind of exhausting. I’m ready to relax, live life simply. Trips are getting stressful to plan and I hate having to worry about a budget every single day. I’m ready for summer life to start, I’m ready to interact with my family and friends again when I feel like I’ve changed so much.

I don’t have too much to update on right now. It was a normal week. I got out and did some stuff that was fun, and this weekend I went to Cinque Terre with my buddy Chris. Its five little towns on the northern Italian coastline that lie on the rocky beaches of the area and are connected by like a 5 hour hike. So you can hike between the towns and stop in each town and explore. I’ve been dying to do it since I knew I was coming to Italy, and it was pretty wild. There was the main trail, but we surely diverged off it, grappled down along the rocks on the coast, took high roads to other inland towns, found random burial sights in the backwoods. The second night, we didn’t have a place to stay so we slept outside. We were scoping out the best spot the first two days while we were hiking and we knew when we found it – a closed off trail that led to an island ditched out in the water. We waited for night cover and everyone to leave, hopped the fence into the trail, and set up shop. We laid down garbage bags, put on every single piece of clothing we had, and wrapped ourselves in another garbage bag for “warmth.” Then we proceeded to drug ourselves with allergy pills to try and knock ourselves out.

I was very surprised at how well it went, but I mean that in the most relative terms. I was expecting to sleep terribly, but I’d say I in-and-out got a total of four hours. It was absolutely freezing, but just as a flower grows toward the sun, we subconsciously had rolled towards each other in the night to conserve warmth. It was a totally new experience and something that I know how to approach now. We saved about 30 Euro with the choice, and it made the weekend so much more epic. I don’t have tons of pictures from the weekend, which shouldn’t have happened because it was so picturesque, but it got annoying to carry my camera as I was hiking, but I think I captured some good things.

This weekend also just clarified for me that I cant exist in the cold. I totally shut down, go into self-preservation mode, and can only think about all the possibly ways to keep myself warm. I don’t talk, I don’t care about anything but warmth, I don’t make decisions, and I cannot feel extensively happy. As soon as we got hiking and warm again, I was right back with it, but its like I think by shutting down completely I can Zen my mind into keeping myself warmer.

I crossed three things off my list though of things to eat while in Italy – bologna, pesto, and gnocchi. The bologna here is amazing, mostly because its not treated is that crap of all meats (Hot dogs! You know what those things are made of? Lips and assholes!). Pesto is something I’ll probably never order again. I’ll eat it again, but never go out of my way to choose it over any other Italian dish. Its great, but its very rich, and I only need a few tastes of it and I’m good. The gnocchi (not gnoncchi) was phenomenal, basically melt in your mouth softness (like fresh out of the oven Mundel bread…).

When we woke up on the island on Sunday it was weird to realize that it was Easter. I was kind of sad of the fact that I didn’t even remember and I wasn’t so bummed out about not being home that it hadn’t even crossed my mind. We went to mass in a nice little local church and it was really enjoyable, but I just daydreamed about family the entire time. I was looking forward to coming home and Skyping with everyone, just to learn that the party was already disbanded! I hope everyones Easter was wonderful though, and that the time spent with family was celebrated and cherished.

So theres the weekly post. This weekend I’m in town but going on an organized World War II excursion. Its all day Friday and most of the day Saturday and they take us to several different WWII things (monuments, exhibits, historical areas) dealing with the time period, which I’m pretty psyched for because it’s a part of history that never ceases to intrigue me. Sunday I’m going to a Roma soccer game, my first European futbol experience!!

In addition to the summer playlist, the Summer List 2010 word document has been created – all signs of where my head is at. I think I’m stressing a little about my end of the semester trip because its tough to plan and hard to guess if I’ll stay within my budget, but I’m trying to not let that bother me too much. Nostalgia is so bittersweet…

Love everyone to death that’s still reading this, it means so much to know that you’re interested in whats going on with me. Hope the writing is still entertaining and I’ve shared some good stories.

Zach