Buon Giorno, Milano!

I know I've been slacking in my posting lately, but I'm hoping that will be changing now. So as you've perhaps discerned from the title, I'm in Italy! I got to Milan yesterday morning, although it feels like forever ago that I was on my beloved Kibbutz Revivim in Israel. Saying goodbye to everyone there was so difficult and sad, especially because I know I won't see most of them anytime soon. I miss them already. They are some of the closest and most wondeful friends I've met.

I arrived in Milan at 1am, and the airport was entirely deserted. I managed to find an ATM so I could take out enough Euros for a taxi (the buses and trains don't run that late). My taxi driver was a hilarious Italian man with a bald head and a bushy goatee. He picked up my bag to put it in his taxi and said "Wow, this is heavy! Is your boyfriend in here?" I laughed and replied "Ken!" ( which means yes in Hebrew). Then I realized my mistake and said "Wait... I mean, Si!" It's going to take a LONG time for that reflex to go away...

Trying to remember my year of Italian is proving difficult. Everytime I try to think of the Italian word for something, the Hebrew one pops into my head instead.

I think: How do you say to eat in Italian?
My Brain: Le'echol!
Me: Right! No, wait, that's Hebrew. What is it in Italian??
Brain: Le'echol! In Hebrew it's Le'echol! LE'ECHOL! LE'ECHOL!!!!!!
Me: Please stop saying the Hebrew! I can't think of the Italian... Wait, maybe it starts with an m....
5 minutes later.... Mangiare!

But it's coming back, slowly but surely. I don't remember how to conjugate in any tense, even the present. Which is silly because I used to know about 10 tenses! Anyway, I can order pizza at a restaurant and ask for a table for three, so I'm getting by.

It's so nice to see my mom and brother. I haven't seen my brother since he left for college, and he seems so much more confident and just overall seems happy. We've been hanging out and talking a ton. It's nice that with family, you can sometimes just pick up where you've left off!

On a side note, remember my creepy stalker ex? The guy who I dated for about a month and a half, over a month of which I was on my kibbutz and didn't really see him? The one who stalked me? Yeah, still stalking me. He actually facebook messaged my brother a while ago. My brother decided that the best course of action was to completely forget and never respond (which in fact was what I would have told him to do). I cannot express how glad I am that I am no longer in Israel where I have to be worried that he'll show up unexpectedly and refuse to leave. That was probably the only good thing about leaving Israel...

That's it for me right now. One more month of abroad-ness and then I'll be home!