Delightful

When you wake up to the sound of church bells and (gently) throw open the shutters and the sun is shining and a little kid is running across the piazzetta below, laughing, and you can hear accordion music coming from somewhere (I love accordian music!) and it smells like summer and it is still the weekend, life is good. This type of thing is what makes it seem so impossible to leave Italy, in fact.

Sometimes in the winter, when you have a day with five boring lessons in a row, and there is fog and rain and that weird damp cold, you might look up at the pervasive grey of the sky and think, "meh. I could just as well be at home (in America, I mean), finished with work at 5pm and curled up on the sofa with a book from the library, and I wouldn't be particularly sad about missing out on this." But when summer comes... then it's different.

The cafes put their tables and chairs outside again, so you can have an aperitivo in the piazza, sipping a spritz and looking up at the Duomo, all lit up against that intense blue of the sky at dusk, and you can stroll around in the soft air of the evening, eating gelato (and maybe getting bitten by mosquitoes, but, hey, life's not meant to be perfect, right?).

I really just am a sucker for accordian music. I'll come back feeling a bit less gooey at a later time.