So....

here were are in Siena.  I’m starting to think I should have studied up on the language or at least learned, say, a word of Italian.  What exactly was I thinking?  I’m not a stupid person in general but I just can’t imaging what was going on in my mind all summer as my Italian Language Guide sat unopened on the floor next to my bed.  Sure, I got a bunch of Italian stickers and I stuck them all over my room.  “La Porta” on my door.  “La Luce” on my lamp.  Now that I’m here in the train station I can tell anyone that the bright thing overhead is “La Luce”.  What I can’t do is ask how to get a cab to take me to the place that will be my home for the next five months. 

A bit about the book....

"An Accidental Italian" began, as many of my books seem to, as a series of journal entries written, in no small part, to keep me sane; this time during my time in Siena, Italy.  I decided, on a whim to embark on a fully-immersive Italian program in spite of the fact that I didn't speak a word of Italian.  I ended up staying with a family who loathed Americans and I learned Italian through rough translations of nightly insults at the dinner table.  In spite of a somewhat rocky start to my adventure, I found that being fully immersed in a place that forced me to be my authentic self at a time in my life when I wanted to be anything but authentic (or to spend time with myself) was fodder, not just for an interesting book, but also for life-changing growth.