A Quick Update on Life Over Here

Here we are, nearly five months into our Italian experience.  We've slowly made friends in the area, mostly our American co-workers here on the base, but a few Italians from my office who love to talk about food and culture, the craziness of driving and the weather.  And ever so slowly, the days of locking myself away in my apartment are seeming more and more like a memory than the norm.  We've traveled around the Amalfi Coast and around Rome, up to Ireland and Le Cinque Terre.  We've gone to the grocery store out in town and pondering which of the 200 types of cheese we really want to buy.  I've found out that mussels in Italy have little tufts of "hair" that you have to rip out before you cook them, else it's a gritty experience later.  Also, that Leroy Merlin, the European (or at least Italian) version of Home Depot, has a freakish love of Disney's Aladdin and decorations in the front of the store to celebrate it.  I guess it's really popular out here, some 15 years after the original release.

Things here are becoming more familiar to us.  It's nice to finally understand how to drive here and to find myself a bit more at ease with the craziness of my daily commute.  The small of things of home still seem far away, like a trip to Target or calling my mom on the way home from work.  As it is, Skype is our best and worst friend, working sporadically and sometimes coming through in the robotic "Darth Vadar" voice that terrifies my sister.  Regardless of what works and what doesn't, I am thankful at the very least, to be here at this point in time, when we have GPS units and Skype and flat rate boxes to deliver stuffing from my college roommate or Trader Joe's pumpkin muffin mix from my sister.  We truly are blessed to have the people that we love keeping us in their hearts back home.  And as for me, I am more blessed than anything to have my wonderful, patient and handy husband with me to share each day.  Our anniversary is next Monday and when I look back on the two years we've been married, I could not think of a better friend to have shared the laughter, tears, many injuries or a trans-continental move with. 

For the future that awaits, cheers!