nearing the end

One week from today I'll be back stateside, enjoying the comforts of home and trying to make sense of everything that has happened over the last few months. I stay awake thinking about how I dont want this trip to be over and how it feels as though I just left yesterday and now I'm already headed back. Being on the go all the time makes the time fly, but when I really think about all the places I've seen, and look through my pictures, I realize that indeed it has been a while that I've been over here.
I'm now writing this from Simon and Susies lovely apartment in Berlin, which I arrived to yesterday. They've done a nice job with their place, which is nice and open and sunny (or it would be sunny, I can tell, without all the clouds in the sky). They seem more happy and in love than ever, and I'm really really happy to see them both. I have yet to get out and explore this city at all but Susies dad, Remi, is going to take us out on a driving tour of the city later today, which I'm excited for.
The last two weeks in Italy were quite lovely, with lots of great memories in the making. I have to say, though, that I'm glad to be away not so much from the country itself but rather its inhabitants. Italians in general did not make a very good impression on me, and seemed rather pushy and arrogant on the whole. I realize I had a very limited experience with them, but I have a new appreciation for the general courtesy that most people grant to others in the states, and in lots of other European countries, too, but which seemed to be missing in Italy. Mom and I ended up losing track of what day it was in Venice, where we had an apartment bed and breakfast booked for 6 days, and we went back to Rome a day early, which we did not realize until we tried to check in to our hotel there, and the receptionist told us that we were not scheduled to arrive until the following day. Needless to say, we ended up with an extra day in Rome, which was great because we had not really seen all we wanted to in the day and a half that we had at the beginning of the trip. We went to see the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, but were appalled by the lines snaking their way back for what seemed like eternity (we literally could not see the beginning of the line), so we decided to go for a walkabout and come back later to see if the madness had dissipated. We wandered into the square in front of Saint Peters Basilica and lo and behold, who's there but the pope himself, doing is weekly public address.. we could hardly believe our eyes, and were amazed at the fact that we had no intention of attending, as the thousand-or-so other people in the square had, but instead just happened upon him by accident. Pretty cool. When we went back to the line for the Sistine Chapel, we found that the entire line had disappeared and we bought our tickets and joined the throngs inside, but loved it regardless, and were left amazed, like at many other points in our time in Italy, at the power and influence of the church in Italian culture.
Soo.... this could perhaps be my last post for this chapter of my adventures. When I get down about the fact that I'm going home and that the trip is nearly over, I remind myself that not only are the comforts of home going to be delicious, but also that looming in the distance is a perhaps even greater adventure in Costa Rica and Peru, which I have hardly had time to plan or think about, but which I am certain will be wonderful. Lots of good things to look forward to and to reflect upon and to experience here and now... lucky lucky lucky....