Lull

It's now my tenth week in Florence and eleventh week away from home, and right now it seems as if it has been much longer. Perhaps it's that "home", my apartment here, feels like it has gone through many changes in a short amount of time--and it really has. Last week, both Killer and Leni left Florence, Killer after 7 months here and Leni after 1 month. Posh is back in Budapest until Sunday night. I have two new German-speaking roommates who moved in yesterday, a guy from Munich and a girl from Zurich. At least Rob is back here this week, though she leaves Saturday.

It doesn't help that for the past week or so, I have been feeling a bit anti-social. If you think about it, 2 months of constant and consistent socializing for an only child who is used to, at many times, spending weeks without seeing her friends is going from one extreme to the other. Then, there's the fact that as much as I want to reach out and make new friends, sometimes I'm just tired of trying. It's a huge effort to try to connect with a stranger, and for someone of few words like me, sometimes it doesn't feel like it's worth it.

I am starting to miss home: my parents, my cat, my friends, my room, my old life. As much as I am on a vacation of sorts, I can't help but feel a tremendous pressure to maximize each moment here because everyone has high expectations for me, myself the most. The result is that now I am exhausted and trying to impose some of my Vancouver habits into the Florentine landscape--namely, being a bit of a recluse.

This is how it is. I cannot expect every day to be perfect. I cannot think that I will magically change or improve myself or my Italian. And I want you to see and know this too, not for pity or any reason in particular other than to share with you the good and the not-so-good. It's not all roses, peaches, and gelati here. Though, to be honest, I did end up having a gelato today. You know where.

Today's word of the day is atteggiamento, meaning "attitude".