brb

I had a dream this morning. I got accepted to Harvard, and they had been reviewing the applications in my parents' garage. I was out there, in the garage, talking to these two nice women about my application and my ideas about bike use. They casually said I was accepted, and then they asked me to write all new rules for how students can use bikes on campus. They said that at Harvard, you had to buy a Harvard bike to ride. I saw the bikes, and they were really ugly and fat and short and had huge tires. I couldn't change what they looked like. This all made me decide that I didn't want to go to Harvard.

I'm not sure what this means, but I hope it's good.

What is not good has been my writing ethic & my attitude lately. I've been a Grouchie Pants, and it's time I got over it. My plan for today was to meet friends for brunch & feel like a real ex-pat, hanging out at cafés & talking about how weird life is when you suspend your version of reality & jump into another culture. (I over-think things. They just see it as a pastry & a bowl of tea.) I was then going to go around town taking pictures of fun things.

But it is raining, because it is usually raining here, so I am not going to go take pictures. I am going to study statistics & read "War & Peace" & write for a long time. I'm going to eat pizza & drink beer & think about Italy. I'm going to smack myself with happy thoughts until I'm in a good mood.

I hope that you don't have to smack yourself. I hope that you wake up on Sunday already happy because you're not at work and it is Sunday. I hope it's sunny, because that, to me, seems to be the purpose for a day like "Sunday".

I hope that you enjoy a week without me talking about myself. This is my last blog post until we return from Italy. I'm looking forward to coming back to you with stories & misadventures & new facts I've learned.

Best,
Meg