things you learn when you stay home and have a great night with your florentine family

1. your host parents, although they appear extremely young and beautiful, are actually normally-aged parents who were married at age 33. 

2. your twin bros, although they only weighed 4 pounds each at birth, somehow managed to be uber chubby and adorable as babies.

3. your host parents honeymooned for 25 days.

4. at which point, upon sitting down on the plane, your host mother starts feeling ill and realizes she is pregnant.

5. and then after the 25 days of san diego, san francisco, santa barbara, las vegas, los angeles and fiji, realizes she is a) pregnant with twins

6. and b) has been pregnant for about 2.5 months

7. your host dad was incredibly handsome and rugged as a 25 year-old.

8. your host mom, although gorgeous now, was stunningly gorgeous 15 years ago.

9. your little brothers, at the age of 4, used to be upset about the size of their penises and didn't understand why they were so different.

10. and your little brothers are still embarrassed about this and alude to the unfairness infront of 7 other people, not all family members.

11. and then you realize that you really missed your host family over christmas and you will really, really miss them when you leave in 4 months......

12. and therefore it is time to stop being so shy and embrace all of this wonderful experience for all its worth. starting right now. no more being timid with speaking italian, and no more hiding in your room working all day long.

[13. also nice to mention that before this grand evening, perhaps you left allllllll of your art history materials that you needed to study A LOT this weekend at the smith center and therefore will just have to deal with studying on monday.]

14. finalmente. it is important to realize that sometimes, even when you are sad because no one will come out to aperitivo with you and your best friend because they are lame and "over-stressed," things work out for a reason and those pesky friends allowed you to have a PERFECT night at home with your host family who you love.

15. you get to go to spain for a week at easter. 

16. you will probably, after retuning from sicily, easily get to see milano for a concert, venice for carnivale, pisa with your best friend from home, livorno and cortona with your boyfriend, and hopefully some natural hot springs in there somewhere!! not to mention how you will face said best friend from home in london and will hopefully go to bruges and vienna before you leave in may!

17. and then you learn that you are a huge nerd and should never write another blog in this weird 2nd person narration ever again.

i miss you all, and i love you all, and thank you all for being so supportive and putting up with me when i was sick and had bedbugs and was stressed and homesick. i owe each and every one of you. i should just give a very profound and moving oscars speech..... speaking of which did anyone watch the concert for haiti tonight on mtv? it was great....... wyclef jean, who is from haiti, was incredible. maybe i will go donate some money right now...... 

baci e abbracci a tutti!! a dopo! 

p.s. amazing risotto con spumante tonight aka risotto made with literally an entire bottle of sparkling wine. plus spumante to drink with dinner. and dessert spumante. and not to mention the little fried bits of dough we ate, which were actually a little stale but i understood how delicious they could have been, with that cheese, stracchino, and some delicious prosciutto. FINALLY, and maybe the best part aside from the delicious spumante (a rare occurrence because my host dad has horrendous taste in vile red wine) was the dessert. orange soufflé!  delicious. served still steaming, fresh out of the oven, with the zest of three sicilian oranges in it! buon appetito!