Pretending

It's starting to get warm enough here that we can actually spend time outside. My sister, my friends, and I ate lunch outside today at school. It was quite lovely to be out in the fresh air. In case you hadnt noticed, our family likes to pretend we're European. In the summer we read outside, we eat outside, we leave our windows open (until it gets too hot and I complain too much). These aren't things typical Minnesotans seem to do. Whenever we eat supper on the front porch, or I sit outside enjoying a cup of tea and a good book it reminds me of being in Italy and Austria and Germany, because that's what everyone did there. They spent and enjoyed time outside. On Wednesday, it will have been two years since we boarded the plane which flew us across the ocean to the Eternal City. Two whole years. It's very bittersweet because on the one hand, I have so many cherished memories from that trip. On the other hand, it's so hard to go about your normal, everyday life while you remember that two years ago you were wandering down the streets of Rome and having the time of your life. I wish I had a concluding sentence here, that wraps up those feelings of wanderlust and stuffs them inside a shroud of gratefulness (I mean, not many people are given the wonderful chance we were given) but I don't. The truth is, I just want to go back. I just want to go back so badly.

I guess all I can do for the time being is just continue to live in denial and pretend I'm still where my heart is.

Also, our attempt to be European is probably evident from the choice of beverages on my parents' part. Dad's drinking the same sort of Maibock that he was drinking all over Germany. I'm not the only one who misses Europe.