Excerpts from my diary

I'm back at the spread of green lawn in front of a church where I lazed with someone special a few weeks ago.
I'm realizing that I love people. Their strangeness, their quirky habits, their personalities, petty desires, hopes and dreams. I love people in the US, with their baseball, popcorn, and Wal Mart tennis shoes. I love people in Italia, with their sunglasses, boots, long drawn out cigarettes, and dark hair. I love people in Ireland, their pale faces splotched with red, noses, chins, and jaws chisled in interesting angles, sipping tea after every activity of the day, and drinking the best dark beer in the world (for breakfast).

I love that no one is different, in that everyone is themselves, no matter if they think they are or not.
I love how everyone is so deeply enamored of themselves that they fail to see how close and familiar they are to every other human being.
Every man spirals into himself and his own life. Branching in, branching out. What many fail to see is the one thing that is created. The painting that's finished when all the finger paint is dry.

A pigeon just soared down from the church above me like a gray feathered airplane. It would have been funny if it had landed on my head, but no. Not this time.

I like how the Signora I live with feeds the pigeons out on the back terrace. And how Nasrim, the Iranian girl in the room across from me, feeds them too. I like how Kim, my Vietnamese roommate, is always cooking something yummy and fried and how there's always some left for me. I like how Teresa, my other flat mate from Mexico, is simply carina (cute) in every way. I like how the Signora wears a sleeping cap to bed, stays up later than me, and usually rises after me too.

I like how right now, all these people are gathered outside a church on the lawn, just lazing. The white pup across the way - he just cocked his bum in the cutest angle, so as to make a wee wee.

I think it's funny that, the other day, I bought a square of yeast and ate a good part of it with bread before realizing what it was. "Levito" must mean "yeast" in Italian--not a kind of cheese. Needless to say, I had some pretty interesting cola-like burps the rest of the day.

I like how there's piano music drifting out the windown behind me. And how that reminds me of hearing the same thing in Venice.
Un ragazzo (guy) looks at me from across the lawn, pausing several seconds. Somehow he must think this action is made less obvious by wearing sunglasses.
Adesso, vado in centro a comprare castagne arrostate, e poi, vado in internet cafe.
Now, I'll go to the city center and by roasted chestnuts, and then, I'll go to an internet cafe.

...and here I am!
Ciao for now,
Melissa