Welcome Home - To Viterbo

Close your eyes.  Try to imagine that place you always retreat to.  Is it a beach?  On top of a mountain?  Or is it just away – far away from your desk and your computer?  For me, it is Italy.  Since the day I set foot back on American soil after my first study abroad in 2008, I was heartsick for it.  I didn’t realize how heavy the weight of missing Italy actually was until four days ago. 

Standing in front of a beautiful yellow church in Ischia Ponte during a religious ceremony, fireworks started to explode overhead.  And with those fireworks, I felt myself almost lifted up.  I wasn’t sure at first what the feeling was, but I think I’ve got it now: pure and complete joy.  Relief even.  What I experienced was a feeling of coming home after a long absence.

 In the spring of 2008, I left the U.S. for the first time for Viterbo.  Situated above Rome in the middle of Lazio, it is completely off the tourist track.  And by off the tourist track, I mean not even on the radar screen. 

For five months, I lived an entirely new life in a foreign country.  I spoke Italian every single day, ate everything Italian I could get my hands on, learned how to cook, and made incredible friends (friends I still have now).  I traveled around Europe, experienced my first long distance relationship, and grew in ways that were incomprehensible to me at the time.  I began examining life in a different way – replacing all of the “how is that even possible” with new words…”why not?” What happened in Italy has since spurred an insatiable thirst for exploration, and I have devoted the last six years of my life figuring out how to do as much of it as possible.  So far, I’ve been pretty successful.

 But now I’m at one of those crossroads.  School is over, and there are jobs on the horizon.  But I keep coming back to the same question: can I give this up? 

I was walking through a cemetery in Ischia on my birthday (morose, so what), and I stopped to think for a while.  Rich, poor, white, black, happy, unhappy – we all end up in the ground.  That’s it.  How you spend your years doesn’t change the end result.  We are all going to die.  So why not roam and run while we can?  The obvious answer – money – is the one that comes to my mind immediately.  It makes me wonder.  What if money were no object?  How would my life and the life of my loved ones be different?  What would we do? 

For the next month, I’ll be in Viterbo doing some thinking about the future and living out my daydream for the last 5 years.  While a month is hardly enough, my heart is happier now than it has ever been.  Have any of you ever been somewhere that you became attached to in such a strong way?  

Auguri in Ischia

The day Alex and I booked our flights for this five month trip through Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East, I was online booking a long weekend in Ischia.  I had the perfect place saved on AirBnB, and I knew it was exactly where I wanted to spend my birthday on May 31.  

So where’s Ischia?

A one hour ferry ride from the Molo Beverello Port in Naples lies Ischia, Capri’s neighbor.  All I knew about the island was that three Italian friends told me they loved it.  I didn’t ask why, what was there, or where to stay....(turns out you should stay in Ischia Ponte, there are lots of spas and shopping, and there are castles and aqueducts…that’s pretty much all there is to know).

Fortunately, we ended up here.

With Gina Menegazzi, Italian grandmamma extraordinaire.  Her two-bedroom apartment overlooks the stunning Castello Aragonese, the azure sea in front, and a row of pastel colored houses weathered from the ocean winds.  The sea is so close to the windows that you can hear the waves lapping all day and night, and you feel a sort of constant drowsiness and relaxation.  I slept better there than I have since the cave in Cappadocia, and that’s saying something. 

Breakfast every morning was fresh baked bread with fresh honey, butter, and lemon and orange jam made by Gina herself. On May 31^st, I woke up to happy birthdays from my tempory grandmother and Alex, and a wonderful breakfast by the sea. 

Next it was shopping and pizza by the water, followed by an absolutely incredible dinner at Il Pontille.  In case you ever find yourself in Italy, do yourself a favor: just tell the waiters to surprise you.  It ends well.

After the owner insisted that Alex was in fact Matt Damon, we were given four glasses of prosecco and some birthday cake.  We were so full that we forgot to go home and light the candle on the lemon cake we bought that afternoon.

No matter, we had it for breakfast the next morning overlooking that gorgeous ocean.

When I blew out my candle, I made the obligatory wish.  Guess what it was? 

That 26 would be as good as 25.  What an incredible end to another fabulous year.