Italy did not go as planned...

For those of you following this here blog (and I know there are a few), I am saddened to say, that I had to cut my trip in Italy short. In a nutshell, I was too heartbroken and homesick to travel around Italy all by myself for two weeks, and just a few days after getting there I knew I wasn't in the right place to deal with the depression I have been feeling over the breakup with Ashley. The hotel I was at had no internet, no phones, no TV (except one in the lobby) and I had way too much time to just sit around and get sadder and sadder and lonelier. A very good friend of mine said that sometimes when you are sad, being alone in a beautiful place doesn't really help, and just amplifies the loneliness, and indeed that's what happened. Worse part is, I feel more depressed now than before I left. On the plus-side, I had an excellent time in NYC before I left for Europe with my old friend Nina, I did see Herculaneum (I still need to dump photos to some photo hosting website and link to it) which was amazing and I was in Italy when Italy won the World cup last Sunday night - the partying was amazing - even in a smaller city like Pompei. I didn't have my camera that night when I went out on the town, but I'll never forget the fireworks: not only did the city and the citizens of Pompei each have a variety of fireworks displays, but the whole valley at the foot of Vesuvius, each little village/town, seemed to compete with one another with fireworks displays. In the Pompei town square, cars, trailing Italian flags, ceaselessly paraded through throngs of people, horns blasting, music playing, people shouting, "Italia" or "Azurri!" ("Blue!" The name for the Italian National Soccer team). The partying went on for hours. And it was a family affair. Parents and their children milled through the square with couples, shirtless young men and groups of old men nodding in approval. From the balconies, old women, who were obviously not going to get any sleep due to the noise, looked down on the madness in the streets with more of an air of memory than resentment, as if they remembered a time decades back where they might have (or did) join in such festivities. The drunken jock mentality that seems to manifest itself at similar events in the US and the heavy police presence that also seems to come with such celebrations in the US (consider that when the Patriot won the Superbowl and the Red Sox beat the Yankees to advance to the World Series, the partying was so insane that on both occasions, someone died) seemed mostly absent at the celebration in Pompei. The police were very laid back, and parents felt completely comfortable taking even infants out into the madness. It was a remarkable night.

But, unfortunately, despite moments like these, insomnia, sadness and loneliness overtook me and by Wednesday, I decided that spending another week alone in a country where I knew no one and could barely speak the language, while having no way to just call a friend while I was feeling down, was too much to bear. I exchanged my ticket and flew home. I have been home a few days now, and I am feeling a bit better. I did finally see Ashley this past weekend so we could exchange some things we still had of each other's - it's the first time she and i have seen each other in months and that was tough - lots and lots of mixed emotions. And that's what I'm dealing with - so many emotions right now. My time in Boston is coming to an end, my relationship with Ashley will never be the same again, and I need to get my shit together to embark on the next part of this journey called life.

Hopefully in the next few days, I'll post a link to some photos of Herculaneum and Pompeii and start filling people in on things not pertaining to sadness.