Arrivaderci, NY.

A view of Manhattan from the Whitestone Bridge from my most recent trip to NYC.

I received countless emails questioning my whereabouts because I confused all of you, my loyal followers. I could not announce it here before personally delivering the message to my friends, family and colleagues. On my last trip to New York I saw the skyline for what might be awhile. It is true: I am staying in Italia indefinitely. Indefinitely, meaning the period of time the consulate decides to grant me my visa. Indefinitely, until I get sick of the bureaucracy and what I will refer to as "Italianisms," those little things that are oh-so-charming-and-Italian, until you actually live here. Indefinitely, until I decide there are other places in Europe that I want to explore and call home...

Many of you have also asked me what I miss about New York. On the top of the list: places that are open 24 hours. There are a couple of farmacie that are open 24 hours, but by "a couple" I literally mean two. One is in the train station, and the other might be somewhere on the other side of town. In other words, I'd prefer to suffer in my apartment until sunrise to avoid venturing to those parts only to arrive at a farmacia that might or might not decide to actually be open for 24 hours on the day that I need it to be open. Those of you from NY understand the comfort of having at least three 24-hour stores within walking distance from your apartment so I know you can empathize. It is a ghost town here after midnight, but like everything else, you get used to it, and then are frightened at the sight of movement in the middle of the night when you return to a place like NYC.

I miss black and white cookies but after experimenting with conversions and substitutions a couple of times (they do not have buttermilk here and think I'm crazy when I ask for latte di burro) I finally mastered the recipe so now I'm set. Oh, and big, fat, juicy, cheeseburgers with cheddar. Preferably Corner Bistro. I am going to attempt to bring the real American Hamburger to Italy next week... I'll let you all know if I succeed. And last but not least - chocolate covered gummy bears. I know they sound gross but you are not allowed to judge until you've tried them at least twice. I went a little overboard at the candy shop on West 3rd when I was home so I am pretty sure I can wait another year without having them.

I recently found the following quotation by George Bernard Shaw on a blog that I frequent (thank you, the impossible cool) that describes perfectly the path I've chosen to take. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”