I think it’s tradition now.
After this summer, Melissa and I will have met up in or traveled together to Italy for the past 3 out of 4 summers. I think that means it’s tradition now, and Melissa and I have to go to Italy every summer. I bought my plane ticket to go see Melissa in Florence (she’ll be there taking law school classes) in June after I finish my exams. I’m very excited. And as I was daydreaming about Italy, I realized that we will have been in Italy together (whether for 3 weeks - Greece and Italy study abroad trip, 3 hours - sketchy train station before taking an overnight train to Austria, or 3 days - this time just for fun) 3 different times. That’s a lot of 3s. Anyway, now either she has to become a rich attorney and pay for my ticket over or I have to become a professor and bring her over with my students each summer. Or I have to own my own business that requires me to go to Italy. However, that is in the future, and it will take us a while to get there.
I have realized that after this summer, Melissa and I will both probably have no time or money for a while. I’m trying to get all my travel in while I can (going to see Ian in Hawaii with my mom and Brendan a few days after I get back this summer). Then I will be working constantly (as long as I get a job) to pay off my student loans, and Melissa will have internship-type things for law school. So I’ve come up with a back-up plan. We can travel to Rome, Georgia or Venice, Florida or Florence, Oregon or Florence, South Carolina or even Florence, Kentucky if we have to. Although I have to say, I think I would prefer the actual Italian cities. But we should definitely go somewhere to keep up the tradition.
Melissa, Christi, and I used to always talk about taking a European road trip in Kentucky with all the cities that match European cities, but then that never happened and we just backpacked across actual Europe instead. So maybe if I talk about having a tradition of visiting Italian cities in the US every summer, we’ll actually make Italy tradition some day. The three of us are good at stuff like that, the whole following through and making tradition stuff. And that’s not sarcasm. We now have a New Year’s Tradition. We get together when we say we will. We said we would study abroad, and we did (Christi to Australia, Melissa to Italy and Greece, and me, well you know). We said we would go around Europe, and we did. And each of us left college with the same plan we went there with. I made it to Oxford, Melissa is in law school, and Christi is in medical school. And they both said they would study abroad in grad school (Christi is going to be in India this summer), and I told Melissa I would come visit if she went to Italy. See, if only I could write my exams over stuff like this. I think I make a pretty good argument, examples to back it up and everything.
Okay, now I’m rambling. I need sleep. But I am very excited about Italy. Something to look forward to at the end of my exams that precedes going home. And I do think some day Italy, or at least big travel plans, may have to become tradition. As my mom would say, (even though I’m a homebody at heart), I have gypsy in me, just like my brothers. We get it from our dad.