In one hour, Steve will take me to the airport. I'm going to Italy. So, in less than twelve months, I will have gone to both Europe and Asia when before I had only ever been on the North American Continent.

My very dear friend, Amy (Maine), and I got to be very close with an Italian exchange student our senior year of high school. Emanuela introduced us suburban girls the joys of cafes. She made us polenta (which was the first time I ever heard of it). She gave me my first sketch book. We went to see Like Water for Chocolate, and I found that I enjoyed foreign films more than ones made in the U.S. We went to Washington DC to the galleries as often as we could and I came to be a fan of Egon Schiele. She gave me the courage to at least befriend and hang out with my four year cursh (J1mmy Hs1ao) even if I never gathered the courage to ask him out.

There are certain people in your life who influence you in more ways than you can count, who introduce you to things that make you who you are. There are about four or five of those people in my life - whose fingerprints I see on my life every day. Emanuela was, of course, one of those people.

So, here I am, eleven years later, getting ready to go to her wedding. Amy and I will see Emanuela for the first time since we took her to the airport in June 1994. I wonder how it will be. I wonder if we will talk as easily as we did back then. I can't wait to see her. I wish we hadn't waited so long to go visit.

Ciao!