Okay, Rome, I think I have a crush on you. It's hard not to fall for such a historic and lively city and I know everything looks better in the summer. Still I thought I could resist. I still have a thing for Chicago and I was just starting to see Boston in a different light.
Rome has a certain inherent romance that is impossible to ignore in the summer. It's not that I get to eating gelato in an old square. It's that I am eating gelato in a square where a theologian was burned at the stake for speaking out against the Christian faith. I don't just read a book in the park, I read a book underneath fragrant orange trees in the shade of an 8th century church in a park overlooking the city. A leisurely bike ride outside the city is actually a bike ride along the Appian Way past the catacombs and farmers' fields of ancient Rome.
Rome is also the most welcoming city I have ever visited. It is a small but important thing that I get asked (in Italian) for directions almost every day. I am not singled out or shunned because I look northamerican. People seem to think I belong in this city. And they don't mind so much that my Italian is broken and that I subsitute Spanish and English for anything I don't know in Italian.
It also doesn't hurt that I am tan and relaxed for the first time in ages and that I have effectively put the stress of my schoolling and career on pause for a few months. This is the much needed vacation after an unfullfilling and emotionally draining year.
Do I miss some things from the States? Of course. Do I wish certain people could share this wondeful summer with me? Definately. And maybe this summer wouldn't be so great if I weren't returning in the middle of August.
But, right now I am content to love this city.
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