I'm baaaaack!

Hey everybody, remember me?? Probably not at this point! Well, I'm back from Italy now, and sorta uber depressed about it. I come back from sunny Italian beaches, great food and amazing adventures to boring old central PA. And it's cold and cloudy to boot... sigh.

Being in Italy was amazing though. I know it's cliche to say it, but I can't even really describe it to people who've never experienced it. I mean, Southern Italy can be really really frustrating sometimes, which I think people don't expect. There's a lot of corruption and inefficiency, it's dirty and hot and smelly, there are no toilet seats, and nothing ever gets done when people say it will be. Not to mention the infestation of roaches in our apartment! (I lost count after we killed 25 of them.) But then at the same time, it is so incredibly beautiful that you don't mind anymore. I saw more beautiful places there than I've ever seen in my life, seriously. I never completely got over it.

And I had SO many cool adventures. I cliff jumped at a topless beach in Tropea, got stung by a jellyfish (which turned into a battle scar, it's pretty cool), went to a goat farm and ate freshly-made ricotta, snorkeled off the coast of Sicily, saw a saint's day festival, bathed in a smelly sulfur mud bath next to a volcano (and reeked for three days after), got lost in an old-fashioned fisherman's village, tried every regional specialty that I could, bought my food at a loud crazy street market, and relaxed on the beach almost every day. It really was una esperienza indimenticabile! :-)