Spring break is one of the things I'm really missing this year. It was bad enough that over winter break we had homework as the semester didnt end before had as it did at OSU. But for spring, we dont get a break. nada. We have several long weekends in a row, but not an entire week off at once.

This hasn't stopped most of my friends from taking a week off however. Numbers at school have dwindled. On any given day only about half my class is there. So I decided to join in the fun and take a little break, although I'll do it on the weekend instead of skipping class. While I'm not heading to Sardegna, Holland, London, or France like some of my other friends, I'm going somewhere else, which for me is just as good. Macerata.

I always got weird looks from friends at home when I would take a vacation to Italy, and my response to their question of where I went was Macerata. Where?!? would be their response, to which I'd reply, 'you know, that town i used to live in.' This was then greeted by questions of well what did you do? and even stranger looks when my answer was 'oh, just hang out, watch tv, wander around town, see freinds. For me a trip to Italy isn't about running around from Florence to Rome to Venice, taking photos of leaning towers (which, btw, I've yet to go to Pisa) or 'funny' signs written in Italian. A trip to Italy is a chance to relax, visit friends who I havent seen in a long time, and just hang out. It just happens to be in another country.

Now that I live in Italy the looks arent quite as weird when I say that I'm heading to Macerata, although I still get the questions of "where's that?" So this weekend I'm taking myself a mini break and heading down Saturday, and coming home Tuesday. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing the whole time, plans with various friends are slowly falling into place. Sunday is still a day without any plans. If it stays that way, and the weather is nice (which it's supposed to be!) then I may head to one of the nearby towns that I visited oh so long ago as a newbie in Italy. The towns are just blurs in my memory, parts of long days of waking up early to take a bus ride, then walking around all day in a heard while hearing a lecture on art history. Still, I have some nice memories of the towns. Since my computer was stolen and I lost all my photos (8 months in europe all gone!) I've lost track of which memories belong to which towns. Slowly and surely though with the help of google I'm giving names to the images in my head. I think it would be interesting to go back to one of these towns and see how i react to it now that I'm a bit more familar with Italy.

Will my eyes still open as wide as they once did? We'll soon find out.