I'm in Rome. For the past two days I've been wandering around, stopping when I'm hungry to eat delicious food and read my book (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino...Mom sent it to me a couple months ago and I grabbed it because it's Italian...a cool book, it spends a lot of time describing to you the experience of reading itself). Tomorrow I'm off to Parma, then to Milan on Friday to meet a couple friends from college. I can't wait to be around people who I can talk to and trust that they'll know what I mean, both words-wise and culture-wise. It's been delightful not to talk to anyone for the last couple days, but I'll definitely be ready by Friday. I hope Italy will make me feel reconstituted for my last 10 weeks in Moscow, not make me wonder why I'm going back.