aMURica

I can't seem to decide if being home feels completely normal and fun or like an out of body experience mixed with a minor head trauma.  Sometimes I get confused and think, "Wait a minute, where am I?" like everything happened very suddenly, drastically, despite the fact that my last few days in Italy I kept thinking, "Come on, already.  I just want to go home!"  It's understandably taking some time to process, as there's no subtle way to ease yourself into moving to the other side of the world.  One day you wake up in a villa in Italy, and that same night you fall asleep in your childhood bed.  Still, I can't stress enough how happy it makes me to be starting a new life here, near my family and my old friends, and I don't regret my decision for an instant (although admittedly, the food withdrawals have already started).  Bottom line: I can't help but miss Italy, but I love Amurica.

Everyone has been welcoming me home with lots of fun activities, the first of which was a Giants game.  It was just the girls, all of us snacking on peanuts, All Beef Super Dogs, and $10 beers.  We won the game because I wore my lucky Giants Snuggie, and no one was embarrassed at all when I walked to the car with it still on.

My first Saturday back Jessie hosted a welcome home party with some of my closest friends in the area.  They even made food they know I love and Mary was with us in the spirit of her lovely new dog, Dolce.  James came, and I hadn't seen him in two and a half years (literally to the day)!  We ate a ton, played advanced charades (If I remember correctly it's called Hamburger Hamburger?), joked about the slutty frog figurine on Jessie's patio ("That frog's a bit slutty, no?"), and enjoyed using Dolce as a prop for the majority of our photos.  It was such a fun night and felt fantastic to be hanging out with my best friends without the pressure of an impending departure.  I kept telling myself to relax..."You're not going anywhere!  You can just enjoy it!"

And then it was America's birthday!  What better way to feel American than to bring out the barbeque and wave the good ol' red white and blue.  We had a pretty large crowd over to celebrate, mostly friends of my parents that I've known since I was little, including my piano and confirmation teachers.  I made a sweet new 2-year-old friend that followed me around everywhere and wanted all of my jewelery and my dog.  Aside from the Giants losing, it was a beautiful day!

 

 Finger lickin' good!