Italy Dream List

My plane leaves later today! I am getting really nervous and anxious for some reason, even though I've been waiting for this for months and I'm not afraid of flying at all. I wonder why? Oh well. I am calming myself by making a list of things I absolutely MUST do while I'm in Italy. Here goes:

1) EAT: This, more than anything else, is my big goal. I literally just want to eat and drink wine. And I want as many local dishes as possible. This may or may not include a fried spleen sandwich and some sardine pasta in Sicily... it’ll depend on just how gross I feel like getting that day.

2) RELAX: I really want to get into the Southern Italian culture and just chill. I want to relax on the beach and not have to worry about going anywhere, doing anything, or money, or stress. This isn’t my usual style, so this might be the hardest thing.

3) Pick an orange off a tree: I love looking at orange trees. So I want to pick one off a tree and eat it.

4) Speak Italian: Even if I get nervous and mess up.

5) Make friends: The other people in the group are way younger than me (like 5 years younger), and they are all undergrads. So basically their goal list is probably like "Get drunk" and "Party." I'm not the most social person, and I'll be very different from them, but I'm going to try to make friends with some of them anyway so I'm not on the outside. Someone's gotta have something in common with me, anyway.

6) Try a mudbath on the Aeolian Islands: As a group, we are taking a boat ride out to the various Aeolian Islands (including the volcano Stromboli!). I'm super excited and want to try out the mudbaths there on one of the islands.

7) Ride a vespa: I’m not sure if I’ll get any opportunities to do this, I guess I'll have to do some major sucking up to some locals. This isn’t a do or die thing like the others, but it’d be really sweet to pull an Eddie Izzard-style Pope and say “Ciaaaao!”

So that's it. I'm not going to have internet in Italy, so I probably won't be on this blog much at all, but I'll see you all when I get back in 7 weeks!!! :-D