...day left in America, that is. At
long last the time that I had placed into the category of “so far away it
doesn’t even merit actual thought and will probably never exist” has come. And
now, I am just one day away from taking a hop, skip and a jump across that big
old pond and then across a few more countries to land in Bologna, Italy. What am I doing there exactly? For the next four months I will be participating in the Bologna Consortial Studies Program- living in Bologna, attending the University of Bologna and experiencing all of what Italy has to offer. I will be living with Italian students, perfecting (hah! I wish) the language, and absorbing what I can of the culture. Not to shabby, huh? So, anyways, the day I have prepared for is upon me. Of course, when I say “prepared”,
I really just mean:
(1) Abandoning all pretenses of a diet because I know it
will all be thrown out the window when I encounter those real kick-ass bread
and olive-oil combinations.
(2) Seriously considering changing the spelling of my name
to Lidia. Maybe even adding on the last name of Bastianich. Who knows.
(3) talking to myself in Italian whenever I am alone. Or lezzbehonest even in public. A lot of the time in the car. Can’t wait to add actual people to this equation! (but they’ll probably throw me off my game- we'll see how it goes)
….aaaand that is about it. Ok fine- in actuality, preparing for this has been an effort that has spanned many months and involved lots of
paperwork, lists, packing, re-packing and having mild panic attacks every so often. What I
keep telling myself is that if Lizzie McGuire can rock the hell out of Italy,
have an Italian pop star fall in love with her AND star in a fashion show well
gosh darn it so can I! By the way, I should mention that Lizze McGuire’s life
IS in fact what I am modeling all of my life decisions off of. Have been for
some time.
Not only is this whole “travelling
through Europe” thing new to me, so is keeping a blog. I am typically more of a
consumer of internet information and not a purveyor. Thus, I ask y’all to be
patient with me. And by “y’all” I mean my grandmother and parents because I am preeeeetty sure they are the only ones
reading this. Additionally I am still working on the concept of this effort. I
have titled it “Al Tavolo” (translating into “at the table”) because, while I honestly
just don’t know what to expect from my time abroad, I imagine that around the
table is where Italians share most of their thoughts, laughs and culture. So, I
suppose the idea is two-fold in that I will share my adventures in Italy through
the view of the various tables I find myself at and that I do it as though we are all at one big table together,
comfortably eating and talking. So welcome to my table, and make yourself at
home! Buon Appetito!
