One day left - a post made almost in my sleep...

So, tomorrow evening I will be departing for Italy. There is definately a piece of my brain going "aaaaaaahh!" right now, although it's calmed by my exhaustion and the surreality of the approaching moment. Everything except this computer is packed up and barely under the weight limit, and tomorrow will be spent finding recipes to bring and seeing my sister, who will probably be having her first child tomorrow. That's another surreal part of the present, to go with a good number of others from this summer. But, as I'm very tired, I won't be going into any reflective babbling, at least for the moment. In short, I'm excited for her, somewhat sad that I probably won't get to meet little Julia yet, and struck by the passing of time. Hopefully all will go well. We'll just have to see, since there's nothing I can do about it either way, and with her needing to be induced, I will probably be in the airport by the time anything really happens. O well.

In more definitive news, though, I have a place to live! Well, that's if the couple don't turn out to be really sketchy or actually aren't an old couple at all and are creepy men who want to kidnap me. But that seems unlikely and I'm rather hoping it's not the case, although the tiny paranoiac in me is muttering otherwise. Since the offer seems genuine, though, I'm really eager about this place. I will have a room to myself in a large house in a "part of the house not frequented often" by the couple, with a private bathroom, full access to the kitchen and garden, etc. The house is caddy-corner across the street (!) from the university, and next to an old palace that is now a museum, in the downtown area of the main drag in Ferrara - which means a nice, safe Renaissance neighborhood with almost no cars but a million bikes, with lots of restaurants, markets, stores, and pretty places nearby. Oh, and I'll be a few blocks away from a park, several palaces, museums, etc. and also a climbing gym, all right in the heart of the old city. But back to the house. It's apparently got lots of antique furniture, paintings, and a library of 17000+ books and whatnot. There's no laundry machine in the house, but that's alright, says the landlady, because I could just have my laundry done by the maid who comes every week, whose cleaning work is already included in my not-too-high price... ! And there should be regular internet, so I will try to keep this updated pretty often. The family seems very interesting, too, and friendly. A retired couple live in the house, with their children living somewhere in the near area - one's a sculptor and one's a politician/lawyer. They have a granddaughter who apparently wants to be my friend, too. :) The couple used to be heavily involved with the development of the DC (Democrazia Cristiana) political party after WWII, so I have a feeling I'll be learning more than I expected about post-WWII Italian history, and probably even current Italian politics, about which I know little. Several of the family members have very intensive websites, which was useful for checking them out a bit. Hopefully, this will all work. Again, although it's likely, I'll definately want to wait and meet the family before I sign a contract and whatnot.

It really was such a huge relief to find somewhere that seemed it would work well for me. The idea of going to Ferrara and apartment hunting for the first week was really not terribly appealing, I have to say. This way, a whole number of little worries that I had have just kind of flown out the window, which is nice for trying to concentrate on getting everyting else ready to go. There has been much wrestling with suitcases and computers in this house of late, I can tell you that. At this point, I'm nervous for finally leaving, but also excited, and just kind of feeling like it can't quite be real. At this point, I'm mainly worried because my Italian hasn't come back as much as I had been hoping for (although that's my fault) and Arabic and French, hell even some Japanese, despite how different it is, are all working their way into my Italian and picking it apart one grammatical nuance or vocabulary word at a time. I'm sure actually being there will help, but I'm kind of expecting to sound like an idiot when I get there, which is rather disheartening, I have to say. I don't think I've ever had as much language confusion in my life as I've had the last few weeks. I've got to be nuts, I've decided, to be trying to do 5 languages, and to start another next spring. It sure is fun, though, but I do hope I can actually manage to first, remember Italian and second learn a lot more while in Italia.

Well, I'm really exhausted now, and have been falling asleep with my laptop... so I'm gonna finally go to bed, I think. Here we go, hello Italia! Yay. Well, talk to you all from the other side of the world... Happy beginning of school and classes for everyone already on campus for the year! Ciao...