When it rains...

The theme of this year in Italy has been, "When it Rains, it Pours." I have translated this phrase into Italian and German, waved my hands to make myself understood to the French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

No work: TOO MUCH WORK
No prepared food when I get home: TOO MUCH FOOD
Not enough hobbies: TOO MANY UNFINISH PROJECTS SITTING AROUND
No tourists: WHY ARE YOU STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET STARING AT A PLAQUE?!
No friends: TOO MANY...

No wait, you can never have too many friends.

Especially not when they travel from across the world to visit... you! And these are fun guests. I'll be honest, most of the time the saying holds true: "Guests and fish start to stink after 3 days." Not these guests. These guests battle the public transportation system carying 10 bags of groceries so they can cook you a Cinco de Mayo dinner while you're at work. These guests don't drag you to all the same museums you've seen a million times. And most of all, these guests make me laugh and feel like my all-too-American self again for the first time in too long.

I think I started to get too used to my Italian persona. Now, there's nothing wrong with understanding differing cultural norms and adjusting your behavior to fit those norms. For example, raucously loud laughter in public areas in Italy will not only earn you strange, but also dirty looks. So you tone it down. Italians do not speak in character voices on a constant basis. ("No soup fo' you!" "I'm walkin' here!") So you drop the character voices. Italians do not burst into song, and certainly not musicals, so you drop the musicals. (I will make an exeption here, which is Angelo, who will frequently regale me with his rendition of "I feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel you, Johanna!" But then, that's why he's the top. He's the tower of Pisa. He's the smile on the Mona Lisa.)

I am pleased to announce that having Hannah and her friend Jessica visiting me this week and the next has woken up that little part of me that was sleeping, but not dead. We're all tired as heck, (and some of us angrier at the public transportation system than others,) but I can say without hesitation that we're having a pretty fantastic time. Right at this moment, the two of them are getting massages at the Spa in a tiny hill town, and in less than an hour I'll be off work and on my way with Angelo to meet them there for dinner under the stars and natural hot springs until 1am.

When it rains, it pours.