Becoming an Italy fanatic

I can't even begin to describe the last few days.

I morphed from a detached student who still hasn't truly realized that she's going abroad to another country for a semester, to a complete Italy fanatic who can't stop for a moment thinking about Florence and Italy and traveling.
(I only wish I was kidding. To put it in perspective, by day 3 of this obsession, my brother says to me, "Can we go one day without hearing about Italy? I'm getting tired of hearing about it." Yes, he's a teenager whose immature mind can't help but have such horrendous thoughts, but seriously. I haven't even gone there yet!)

It started with casual research on the Internet.
Then it went to the next level -- the library.



Then the dreams came. Good dreams, really. I would wake up feeling nostalgic and announced to my parents yesterday morning -- "I'm so excited!! I don't how I'm going to be able to leave! Maybe I'll come back to live in Florence or do my clinical rotations here… "

Just from all this planning, I feel like I know Italy so much better. I feel ready, more prepared, and independent. I began to start self-learning Italian with a whiteboard and the bilingual dictionary you see in the photo. I taught myself endings, gender associations, pronouns, conjugations. And I finally went back to the Duolingo app. [If you don't know what that is, you must try it!! It's so interactive and fun - you speak, you listen, you spell, you translate.]

As a result of my friend recommending that app, this is what my phone screen looks like now.

Huntington (money is key to going to Italy), CASPA (my grad school application), Blogger for this, Dreamdays counts down how many days left till Italy. Did you notice the background? Pretty sure that's Venice. :)

If you wanted a picture of my brain right now, this post sums it up. 

How proficient do I feel? Not very proficient. But I can recognize words, speak Italian to myself and my phone, and have basic phrases down. :)))

I also have most of my packing figured out -- it is EPIC. Pinterest-worthy. Beautiful. Minimalistic. And just downright genius. To give you an idea, my suitcase comes up to my knees.

I can't wait to share - might even do a video.

19 Days Left.