Nice Semi-Summation One of my friends got me thinking: they asked me if this had been a goodexperience, this whole Nice trip. Images that flashed in my head immediately were of Ross getting robbed at gunpoint, the guy on the moto snagging that lady's bag on the Promenade des Anglais, paying 9� for a mediocre spaghetti bolagnaise, seeing things raised in price steadily every day for 2 weeks as tourist season approached. These were not good experiences, things that did not reflect well on my time here. Seeing my hesitation, my friend offered 'Valuable experience, perhaps?' Perhaps. My french has improved drastically; I have met absolute quality people; my understanding of French civilization has changed a bit (and no, despite my complaining, it's not all negative); I've had time to read inordinate amounts of books that I had always meant to read; I've seen Venice and San Remo and crossed northern Italy by train; I've been in 3 countries in under a week, when at home if I'm in 3 states in a week, that's a record; I was here for an election that very well might change the nature of the French Republic. These have been valuable, positive experiences, in fact magnified and put in perspective by the previously mentioned negative ones. I am a better, more interesting person for having been through them, and that was the whole goal of this trip. But I'd still prefer it if all my clothes didn't smell like smoke. Two Minds I've been of two minds lately. The one mind is unbelievably psyched for the next phase of this trip, and with good reason. I don't know if I'll be able to see everything I want to see (Italy itself might have to wait for the dedicated trip it deserves), but the trip itself will, undoubtedly, be well worth the trouble. The other mind, which has been gaining ground in my internal civil war, is the one that intensely misses home. I'm hesitant to even write about it because it depresses me, but I'll be with friends in a few minutes, my mood inevitably lightened. This second mind, called to the fore at the most random moments, like when it's just rained (as it just did) and there's this pure bit of mingling white light in the clouds that takes me instantly to Kaitlin's eyes last summer (oh how things have changed), makes me want to just say 'screw it to the whole rest of the trip and go home and be around people I love again. That's really what it is, what it always is, the ongoing war between emotion and rational thought. Heart and mind. My mind knows, objectively, that this is one of the greatest opportunities i'm ever going to have, and not only that but few otehr people, comparitively, are as blessed as I am in this and many regards. Logically, that should be the end of it. Emotionally, all I'm able to imagine is little league games down at Fargnoli, my sister singing constantly through the house, Mom gardening with Clancy always at her side. My mind counters with images of O'Connell St., the spires of Prague, buzzing diesel engines around the Colisseum in Rome. I have an intellectual attachment to these things, but I have an emotional attachment to home and its people. This trans-Atlantic, intra-corps battle is with me every waking moment. No rest for the bless-ed.