Ciao from Firenze! It’s been an amazing first week here and it truly feels like time is flying. I started my Italian curse and immediately extended the three-week session to four; the little geek inside of me is shouting with top volume: “I love being back in school!! Grammar is the best!”

First of all, I feel so at home here in Florence. The city is charming, surprisingly small and “overseeable” – full of culture and food, the people are friendly and the general vibe is good! Going to school and really starting to systematically tackle the secrets of the Italian language has clearly lowered some invisible bar that I had been carrying around with me, and I am filled with a new kind of ease and confidence. I can calmly listen to the language and make my simple sentences to be understood and don’t feel like an intruder all the time – even if I need to explain stuff in English at times. I assume that part of this new ease comes also from slowly finding peace within me; having spent all my time focusing solely on my wellbeing and self-care, granting my mind, body and spirit what they have been asking for. 

Last week was my birthday #29! It’s lovely to notice how your people are your people, no matter of your physical whereabouts and receiving all the birthday love was as heart-warming as ever; it was an unforgettable day. Do you feel extra special on your birthdays? When I was young, I used to feel taller when getting up from bed on my birthday. I don’t have that sensation anymore, but do feel extra sparkly and amazing. I believe people can be categorized into two groups; those who get an age crisis and those who don’t. I belong to the second group - I love getting older. I believe I just get better and better every year, like a good wine and I can’t wait to see what life has in stall for me in the upcoming years!

I’ve made such lovely new friends in school whom I also spent my birthday with – a wonderful night with delicious food (and cake!), exotic drinks and excellent conversation and company. ❤️

Views of beautiful Florence and Cass’ birthday night and crew

My language school is called “Parola” (https://www.parola.it/) and so far, it’s been a great experience! We have a brilliant little group with people from all ages and countries and a lovely (often in the afternoon also rather hysterical) learning atmosphere. The mornings we spend by squeezing new bits of Italian grammar into our brains (my favorite part!) and in the afternoons it’s time for conversation class with another teacher. The teachers are competent, very friendly and all in all the entire school has a positive vibe. About three times a week the school organizes afternoon activities for free for all the students to participate in, such as city tours, restaurant outings or special classes (this week I will attend a class about the differences between North and South Italy). If anyone ever plans to come to Florence to do a language course, I can warmly recommend Parola as a school – it’s also conveniently located in the heart of the city! 

I had forgotten how much fun it is to learn a new language. It’s exciting to understand things properly and having things explained. It can also get pretty frustrating at times… Did you know the Italian language has A LOT of exceptions and irregularities? I didn’t either. Having a class of beginners engage in conversation in Italian is just the funniest - the quality of the content that we are able to produce is ridiculous and we were laughing so hard when doing en excercise giving each other instructions on the map of Florence to get to places. Learning is exhilarating and I am super motivated to continue and to hopefully achieve some results :)

Yesterday in conversation class we read a story about someone who shared their biggest dream in life. This is when our teacher asked us, what our dreams are; what we want to have, do or achieve some day in life. “Qual è il tuo sogno nel cassetto?" (It literally means ‘what is your dream in the drawer’? So cute! The Italian language is full of funny phrases like this.) It used to feel difficult to me to be specific with this type of descriptions of aspirations in the past. During this journey of mine, I’ve actually had time to properly stop and start getting an idea about what I want in different areas of this life - yet the things I’ve so far figured out feel like particular, life area-specific aspirations, or fractions of a bigger dream. One thing, however, I realized in this moment in class was that this here is one of them – I am currently, at this very moment, fulfilling one of my dreams. It made me feel ecstatic and grateful. How cool is this?

In midst of everything that has been going on (amongst others, trying to find inner balance and get used to this new life phase, adjusting to the calmness after the madness that took place at home before the departure, getting over the fact that I am free to do whatever I want without even me having to judge the activities or non-activities I decide to engage in, or setting expectations for my life choices. Healing, fighting the language and cultural barriers and trying to fit in, coping with the driving craziness and all sort of every-day situations and getting used to being alone. Starting to carve out new routines and finding inspiration and motivation to dig deeper into my soul etc...) I had overseen, or perhaps even forgotten, this little fact.

Today, I am actively grateful. I’m grateful for being courageous enough to have made reality out of my dream, even if I sometimes feel like crapping my pants, crying into my pillow or eating an entire jar of chocolate spread with a spoon in one go. Not every day is fabulous, but now that I have found my flow, many of them actually are. Never before have I realised being in the middle of fulfilling a dream - it’s a powerful feeling!

I’ve had such great revelations about my life and the way I want to live it, bigger and smaller aha-moments, epiphanies and realizations that I could only have had with this distance and time I’ve taken for myself. I feel free and well. I’m filled with curiosity and can create my days from start to finish with things that light me up: Italian grammar (bring it on!), fancy palazzos with lush, way over-the-top interior design and sparkly, old jewelry and oh so many more interesting treasures in the never-ending museums and churches, cooking, having conscious meals, talks and wine with new friends, writing, reading books, doing intuitive workouts, sleeping enough on a daily bass, engaging in my self-development work and shouting my lungs out while singing in the car. 

One of the good parts is that I am not only curious and inspired about the current life I lead in Italy, as I also have started to figure out what it is that I want to fill my days with in general – now and in the future. After all, why should we live trhough a dream only in pursuit of the next one? A trip to Japan and a gold medal in the heavy-weight league boxing championship seven years later are sweet dreams, but I wonder, if the life we lead inbetween could be one big dream itself; or at least something made out of dream fractions? It’s like that special birthday feeling I get on 6th February; why only feel extra sparkly one day a year, when I could celebrate being alive every day in some way or format? 

Anyone can stop, create dreams and fulfill them. And we should. Each and everyone of us is able and capable to reach anything we desire, but we need to be prepared to do the work to get there - both on physical and spiritual levels I believe.

I love being exactly where I am right now. I think this little Italian adventure is the best thing I have ever done. I’m so excited to see what the rest of this journey will gift me with, starting from tomorrow.

Qual è il tuo sogno nel cassetto? What are the dreams in your drawer made of? Are you on the path to fulfill these? As it turns out, I have an overflowing drawer of dreams. One by one, they ought to be grabbed out of there and be set free into the world to float about, like little soap bubbles. Let’s go and get on with it!

Stay well & bacio! 💋 Cass