Romeo, Romeo…

So here I am in Venice, Italy. Giudecca, made with of 4 of Venice’s 117 islands, is what I refer to as MY island. This is home, has been home for two weeks, and will be home for one more week before they force me on to the plane kicking and screaming (probably in Italian) like a small child. My Giudeccan home is complete with a window that opens up to the splashing waters of the canal with a great view of the main island of Venice (if you lean out a bit while holding on and look to the left). From atop of my canal I feel like a regular Juliet…with no said Romeo. Of course there are cute Italian men everywhere, complimenting my blue eyes (thanks Mom and Dad!) in their gorgeous Romance language with their drawn out and very stero-typical, but oh so alluring Venetian accent. However, three weeks is hardly enough time to find the love of my life AND convince him to either marry me and keep me here or come back to the States with me. I guess Romeo, will just have to wait. This Juliet, however, can survive on her own. Especially here. It was incredibly easy for me to fall back into the ways of the Italian people. As a matter of fact, I noticed while I was in line at the lost luggage counter at the Venice airport. It was my first time to lose my bag, and all my new clothes I had bought for the two days before work were in said bag that had apparently been left in Philadelphia. After the initial disappoint, I was surprisingly calm. Even after waiting for a half hour just to talk to someone about my lost bag. I had to laugh at the impatient tourists in line with me, who had obviously no idea that not everyone in the world is always in a hurry. The Italians were taking their sweet time chatting it up and loving life (it was also the lunch hour) and the tourists behind me were impatiently checking a watch or pushing me closer and closer to the people in front of me as if it would make someone hurry up. Me, on the other hand, I was in Italy, and I was hearing Italian, and slowly but surely I was being sucked right back into my wonderful dream world that I had left behind only eight months ago.

My first visit to Venice had been under a little different circumstances. In fact I believe the title of the blog post was Venice lost that loving feeling. This time… this time, I see the magic. And maybe this time I’m less cynical and less worried that I’ll never be back, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s summer and sunny instead of winter and rainy, but I finally see why people love it here. I see it mostly in the morning, when the canals are still and it’s just me running down the sidewalk watching the sun come up over the water. I can feel it when I’m on the boat to Burano; all the colorful buildings on the horizon, fresh sea breeze blowing, sun starting to set, and all of a sudden the church bells start to ring from islands on both sides of me….absolutely beautiful. One of those moments that make me stop and say, “There’s no way this is actually happening to me. This can’t be real.” BUT, it is real, and I love it!