"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"

In less than a week, I'll be in southern Italy where it is currently snowing. Looks like I'll be having my very first frosty, snow-covered Christmas! And yes, that actually does excite me. I'm excited for snow. For once. I am usually overcome with fear at the thought of me and snow in the same context, but that's slowly beginning to fade away. I think the beauty of seeing snow-capped mountains everyday is helping me acquiese my fear of extreme cold weather (or "extreme" by Miami standards).

While I'm so happy to be going to a new country, I have mixed feelings about spending Christmas away from home. On one hand, I feel lucky and blessed to have the chance to experience the holidays in a foreign country, where I can learn new traditions, taste exotic dishes, make more friends around the world, etc. And I'm very thankful for my roommate's family welcoming me and Desiree into their small, already cramped home. We'll be in southern Italy for a week, Rome for New Year's and Florence afterward. :D Italian culture is so funny and I can't wait to experience it first hand. That probably sounds really strange (can a culture be funny?) but my roommate constantly makes me laugh with her Italianisms and stories about her people and her hand gestures and her "figura di merdas".

But at the same time, this is the first Christmas I will spend without my family. We're a tight group. I received two Christmas cards in the mail last week: one from my parents and one from my sisters. I barely managed to rip open the envelope before I started bawling. I cried for about 10 minutes and then finally read what they had written me. My littlest sister drew a picture of me and her and Santa and dancing gingerbread men (?) and put a heart in each of our hands. My teenage sister wrote that she misses me a lot, and that means so much to me coming from her because I didn't even know she remembered I existed (she's at that age). And my oldest younger sister's e-mailed message was glued to the card since she's away at college. I miss my family sooooooo much that I almost regret not having bought a return ticket for Christmas.

But in the back of my mind, Reason tells me that this will be a good, different experience for me that will make me stronger and will help me gain a new appreciation for those that I love.

Good People, Good Meals

I apologize for not updating in such a long time! Between being sick, Desiree's visit, and being sick again, I haven't really had much time. I'm recovering from the flu right now and spent last night in a puddle of sweat from the high fever I had, yuck. But this, too, shall pass!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've realized what a good meal does for me. And by "good meal" I'm not necessarily referring to the taste of the food. Because I think it's possible to have a good meal with burnt rice, undercooked potatoes, and flavorless meat--so long as you're in good company and can make light of the situation.

At my apartment, we have good meals almost every day. Since there's not really much else to do (no bars, no nightlife, no nothin'--and it's cold outside), we spend our nights cooking, inventing recipes with whatever is left in the fridge, making rounds at the supermarket picking up strange vegetables and figuring out how they are to be cooked, and inviting neighbors, co-workers and new friends over. In the two months I've been here, I have learned countless recipes from all around Europe: Italian, French, English and Spanish. I have discovered fennel, artichoke (as in the actual vegetable, not just the heart), brusselsprouts, turnips, real pasta a la carbonara, fugasse, rissotto, and the list goes on.

Through these long meals, I have learned a lot about the people I work with, which I can now call my friends. I know their eating habits, their embarrassing stories, how their work day was, their love stories, new French words, new English words, their culture, their worries, their struggles...a lot. It's nice to have people to share a meal with, and I can appreciate taking my time to eat the meals set in front of me instead of scarfing it down in 10 minutes or less and then going back to my laptop to waste countless hours on the Internet.

The Big Comeback

I WISH I HAD TICKETS!!!!!!!

I remember when I went to the Spice Girls concert on June 11, 1998 in West Palm Beach, FL. It was the show that almost didn't happen, as it was the first show of their American tour and their first show without Geri (Ginger Spice). Everyone thought they'd break up and not go on with the show. But they performed nonetheless, and it was one of the happiest and most memorable days of my life.

And now they're back together, all FIVE of them, and I really wish I had tickets! For now, I'll just have to settle for YouTube videos of their shows. The perfomance below is really incredible, so much energy and girl power! Really takes me back to those middle school days when all of our birthday parties were Spice Girls-themed.

HEY SPICE GIRLS, COME TO FRANCE!!!!!!