About Me, Part Two (minus the digression of About Me [Part One])

Ragu` alla Bolognese (cooking credit: Fabio Sarti)

So when I left off in my About Me post (before I started rambling on about eating in the presence of Italians), I was on the plane back to Vermont, where I would complete my joint English and Italian degree at Middlebury College.  Need I say that I cried for the full ten hour plane ride from Rome to New York?

There was some major reverse culture shock to deal with in my first weeks and months back in America.  I kept hearing these Italian voices everywhere: Ma perche?  Perche fanno cosi` gli americani?  Non si fa, non si fa!  [Translation: Why do Americans DO that? Why? That’s just not how it’s done!]

Why are Americans always eating?  Why do they carry huge cups of coffee around with them like an IV filled with caffeine?  Why do they walk around in 20 degree weather (that’s Fahrenheit, I never mastered Celsius) with WET HAIR?  Why are they so awkward with each other?  (Okay, enough, I’m digressing again.  Basta.)

Gradually, I readjusted to American culture (and remembered that I am an American who likes to constantly eat and carry a coffee IV as an alternative to propping my eyelids open with toothpicks.)

Meanwhile, I felt that for the first time I had a true external purpose in my life.  I simply knew that I must go back to Italy, and I promised to myself that I would.

Okay, let’s fast-forward a bit here.  Quick photo scrapbook:

I cooked a LOT of Italian food as President of Middlebury’s Italian Club.

Dallas and I in front of a pot of Cappellacci alla Zucca

Brazadela: Ferrarese Lemon Bread

Eggplant frying for Melanzane alla Parmigiana

I lived in the Italian interest house.  My friends (and the occasional random passer-by) never, ever left hungry, or uncaffeinated.

Then, I graduated in May 2010.

Dallas and me on graduation day

So my studies of Italian were done.  It had been eighteen months since that tearful Alitalia flight.  And all I wanted was still… to go back to Italy.

What next?

TO BE CONTINUED…