"Mambo Italiano..." or "I'm coming home via Chicago..." or "I was born with an American heart..."

I met up with my mom and Alyssa in Rome with no problems, and we spent the last 10 days having a wonderful time in Italy. I’m not going to go into much detail about what we did, because there’s a lot. Really, that’s sort of the nature of Italy: there’s almost too much to do and see and experience there. From Venice to Florence to Rome to the Amalfi Coast; from the Colosseum to the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Michelangelo’s David; from the Alps to the beaches to the hills of Tuscany; from world-class pasta to world-class wines and lemon liqueurs… we made a dent in these sights and more, but attacking them all in one trip is damn near impossible. When it comes to travel destinations, Italy packs a serious punch. It has it all: art, scenery, culture, food, wine, nightlife, fashion, history, and more. Nothing in Italy particularly surprised me, but the sheer amount of sights and attractions is enough to make anyone dizzy. I definitely felt this while we were there. This, coupled with the fact that I’m in an airport and am extremely tired, is why I’m not going to go into tons of detail.

We started in Rome: the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the endless piazzas and Italian restaurants. We also visited Vatican City, which was one of my favorite sights of the entire trip, and it half-cheatingly allowed me to add another to my list of visited countries. Here are some photos:

Spanish Steps.

Trevi Fountain.

Pantheon.

Colosseum. 

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

JP II at the Vatican... leftover from the ceremony to name him an official saint, I think.

Bridge in Rome.

 After Rome, we headed to Florence. I enjoyed Florence in the same way that I enjoyed Paris. There are loads of tourists, but it all seems well deserved. You don’t get the sense that Florence has somehow been spoiled by all of the travelers in the city, and the medieval town has a lot of charm. We spent most of our time there just wandering around the city, and I did a lot of waiting on curbsides while mom and Alyssa visited the high fashion stores in the city center. We also did a half-day wine tour in the Chianti region of Tuscany, which was, as you can imagine, beautiful.

Florence.

The Duomo.

Not the original "David," but the replica where the original was until the 19th century.

Florence from a hilltop.

Again.

Tuscany.

 Finally, we went south to the Amalfi Coast to the resort-ish town of Positano. I don’t really know what to say about Positano that isn’t an understatement. The town is basically just a jumble of colorful hotels, restaurants, and homes scattered across the green, wooded, coastal mountainside. I have no idea who settled there, when, or how they managed to build a community. However, I definitely understand why they’d do it. The Amalfi Coast is every bit as amazing as the countless posters and postcards and photographs would have you believe. Here are a couple of photos:

Mom and I outside our hotel.

Pretty evening on the beach.

Positano.

After one last night in Rome, mom and Alyssa took off on a morning flight. My flight itinerary is pretty screwy, so I am forced to kill hours upon hours in airports until I arrive home on Saturday. With that, my 6-month jaunt around the world comes to an end. I am not going to sum everything up in this entry, so I will save that for a final post that will come soon after I return home.

For now, I’m just very excited to return to the United States. Don’t get me wrong: I am definitely going to miss the thrill of traveling. Traveling really is like an addiction. You’re need for a fix never fully goes away, so I’m sure that this won’t be the last time I leave the United States. There are always more things to do, more places to see, more people to meet, and more passport stamps to collect.

However, the United States is home, and it always will be.

I often get the feeling that certain people back home conceive of my travels as somehow running away from something, avoiding something—namely, America. I think the misconception arises because of my love of other places and my generally negative political attitude toward the United States. Whatever the reason, though, nothing could be further from the truth. People often ask me if I get homesick being gone from home and on the move for so long. No, I don’t, but that’s not because I’m callous and don’t like America. It’s because there’s never any doubt in my mind that I will return there.

I fully intend to live abroad at some point in my life (probably sometime in the not-so-distant future). But whether I end up in England (master’s program), Nepal (teaching English/learning Nepali), sub-Saharan Africa (Peace Corps), or some other unforeseen destination, it’s only a temporary place to work, explore, and hang my hat. Odd as it might sound to some of you, I love America—not all of it, sure, but I’m a sucker for Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson and Thomas Jefferson. I like America so much that I call it home even when I hate the things we do as a nation. One of my favorite Jefferson quotes is, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” and that’s the best way I can possibly explain how I can love America while simultaneously disagreeing with so many things about it. For further sentiments, just listen to the full version of Guthrie’s classic “This Land is Your Land,” socialistic verses and all (There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me / A sign was painted, it said “Private Property” / But on the back side, it didn’t say nothin’ / This land was made for you and me).

There’s another quote I like a lot, and I’m going to paraphrase it here: “Travel isn’t about seeing new places, it’s about coming home with new eyes.” I believe that whole-heartedly, even if I might have just made up that quote (I really can’t remember how it actually goes). When I arrive in Chicago, then catch my connecting flight to Indianapolis, then make the drive back into Carmel, there’s no way that I will see it all the same way. How can the suburbs look the same after Bangkok or Kathmandu or Dubai or Florence? Nevertheless, I will finally be at home, and there’s a lot to be said for that for its own sake.

I’m rambling now (again), but here’s the point: it never even occurs to me to become homesick because I know full well that America will always be there when I come home. There have been a lot of attempts to describe American-ness over the years, and I’m not going to offer a definition. All you have to do is look at the four people I mentioned above. If Woody Guthrie, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, and Thomas Jefferson don’t say something about the American character in its most admirable form, then I don’t know what does. Those are some of my True American Heroes, and they couldn’t have been reared anywhere else. I’m landing in Chicago tomorrow. See you soon.

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

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