home sweet rome

I've been very lucky in my life. I've been able to travel to places that, as a kid, I only dreamed of. And I've been able to do it a lot. More than the average person and more than I would have ever imagined I ever would.

Traveling is a very special thing to me. Wait--let's pause for a second. There's something I need to clarify: traveling, to me, means traveling to Europe. More specifically, to Italy. And, more than traveling, Italy is what I am most grateful for. 

Calm down! I'm not knocking any other countries, or being culturally elitist or anything like that (or so I claim... ;)). I guess...I don't know. Italy holds a special place in my heart. For reasons that I can't even begin to put into words. Italy is....comfort; its calmness; it's peacefulness. Italy is family, and history; it's the past and the future. Italy is my Dad, and how he would constantly tell us that its the best and most perfect place in the world (he was a self-professed cultural-elitist ;)). It makes me happy. When I look back on my life so far, all of my best moments, all of the times that I can honestly say that I have felt truly happy, were in Italy. Maybe it's a vacation thing...I don't know. But I don't care. I love it. And as long as I live, I will love it. It is my home; my true home. Its where I belong. Not because I don't belong anywhere else, but because nowhere else really belongs to me. 

And every time I come  back, just when I think I'd be tired of it, I find myself craving it with all of my being, again. 

More.