Reflections

During the last week we quietly passed a number of milestones on our Big Italian Adventure. While we were on the school trip we celebrated our 3 month anniversary of arriving in Italy. Just yesterday I passed my 100th blog entry. Although the official total is higher, not all of the entries are mine. Amy and Maggie contributed a handful. Finally, we celebrated Thanksgiving away from home. Each of these events provided a separate opportunity to sit back and reflect on life, friends and the world we live in.

Living in Italy has been a dream come true. It is a goal I had been working toward for almost four years, long before the start of this blog. I would plan and plot, trying to figure out how to make it happen. It got so bad that Amy stopped listening to me go around in circles. We went through two cycles of searches with the School Year Abroad before we finally landed our positions here. At each stage I had to push Amy out of her comfort zone and past her reluctance. Now that we are here, we both realize how wonderful it is and don't regret a single one of the snags and hurdles which needed to be overcome.

When we first arrived in Viterbo, it was with a sense of wonder and excitement. I would literally walk down the street, surrounded by 1000 year old buildings and tell myself, "Wow, I'm living in Italy. I really did it." I still get that tingle, that same sense of awe. But, it is tempered now by something else. When we go to the store, when we leave school and head for the apartment, when we walk out of a restaurant and look at the stars overhead, when we are away on a trip and come back, ... we are coming home. Our little apartment here is now our home.

We are both greatful and thankful for all of our friends, both old and new. While we are far away from Springfield and miss our old friends there, we have met a wonderful group of people who are now also our good friends. We look forward to continuing to mix our old with the new over the coming months and years!