Farewell, Finally

I guess it's about time to finish this once and for all. The start of a new semester is just a few weeks away, and I wonder whether I have been putting off this final entry because I don't want to admit that it is over or because it is so over I can't mentally take myself back. I knew this would happen, but I am still surprised by how much Parma and Europe have faded. It seems like a blip - a wonderful, amazing, life changing blip - in the EKG of my life. I still have dreams about being in Europe. Lost in Parma, trying to catch a train in Berlin. But, in my waking life, I am back, and life is back to normal.

To conclude my European loop I returned to Parma. British Airways strikers granted me the gift of a few additional days, and I made it a point to eat gelato at least once every single day. On my last day I couldn't resist and had a second right after my first, and discovered a new flavor I wished I had tried long before. I almost wanted to get a third to make up for it, but two would have to be enough. I went to Torino on my own, which was the last doable place on my to-visit list, and I simultaneously discovered the pleasures of traveling alone as well as a profound gratefulness for the company I had had during the preceding month. I spoke twice the entire day. I relished my final moments in Parma, retracing my steps and revisiting my favorite places, but also finally getting to all those places I had meant to see all along. Better late than not at all, right?

Now that I am home, my ears are thirsting for Italian, my mouth is salivating for its cuisine (one set of memories that refuse to fade), and my heart is pondering the next destination.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
- St.  Augustine 

I think I can now say that I have turned enough pages to make several chapters, but much of this book remains to be read.