The first step

I guess the hardest thing for me to do is to actually start writing this blog . . . I'm not sure how to begin, so I suppose I'll just have to plunge in headfirst!

First of all, who am I? A 40-something American woman, married to an Italian and living in southern Italy (on the Adriatic coast) for the past 14 years. A teacher of English as a Foreign Language at the local university (and that's a long story all in itself . . . which will have to wait for another post, perhaps when I'm in a particularly bad mood!). And mother to two dear and exasperating boys, ages 6 and almost 9.

Secondly, why am I here? Good question, that. The answer is somewhat lost in the mists of time, but if I squint my eyes tightly and peer dimly through the fog that my memory has become, I seem to remember some vague idea of it being a rather romantic, adventurous sort of thing to do, to run off to Italy and marry an Italian . . . What was I thinking? Silly girl! No, but seriously, it was wildly romantic back then . . . I was in love (well, of course I still am, but it's that steady, married kind of love now, not that swept-off-my-feet new kind of love) . . . we lived in the medieval part of town in what used to be a Benedictine monastery . . . people were speaking this incredibly beautiful language, saying God knows what mysterious and exotic things . . . Only time, habit and language acquisition skills have rendered it all completely normal, everyday life. Not that I would trade it in for any other completely, normal life anywhere else - though we all have our days when we would like to just run away from it all, don't we? But, that happens everywhere to everyone, I imagine. From Peoria to Peking. Sorry to crush your romantic illusions, if you had any, but after travelling here and there and living in a few different countries I've realised that "wherever you go, there you are." Same old you with your same old hangups and your same old face staring back at you in the mirror - can't escape yourself, can you? :)

Well, there you go, I've written my first post and it wasn't all that difficult, was it?