When I posted my first blog entry the other day I was thinking of updating once a week or so, but here I am again. The reason? Well, I said that at the moment I'm not willing at all to go back to Italy, but something just happened. Something that I hadn't expected at all: I just got bitten by homesickness. Kind of.
Let me explain it properly. Before we moved closer to the centre, I used to live in a nice village with houses built of stones. A place in my memory so beautiful I couldn't possibly describe it. Between two mountains, such that in winter sun shone for just a few hours (no wonder I don't have problems in the Finnish winter), and that TV signal couldn't reach us that well and we had to use a satellite dish (but that was long before the introduction of digiboxes). There was a stream, you could actually swim in it, the water was so cold you were afraid of entering it (again, why do you think ice swimming doesn't sound that crazy to me?), and outside the village just woods. Woods everywhere, as far as the eye could see. And, believe it or not, it wasn't even that far from the city centre. The bad thing (at the time) was that there were just a couple of buses during the day and my grandmother was getting old, plus a few other accidents that I don't want to recall now, so my parents decided that we would be happier in another place and we left. But how I loved that place!
It's mostly out of everyday routes, but once in a while it becomes popular, as they have a fair. The village, in fact, is known for its camellias, there's even a place where they use them to make tea and I think that's the only one in Italy. Or maybe it isn't but anyway camellia tea isn't common in Italy, and people from Japan come to visit the place during the fair. During those days there are more buses going to and fro, as only residents can enter the village by car. And yes, that fair is taking place now. I've never been so interested in it, the place becomes too crowded, but one of my Facebook friends went there and took some pictures. I checked them through and that's when I felt the bite. And it's my first time ever since I moved to Finland in September 2009. Sh*t, it hurts.
I started wondering why it feels so bad, then I realized something. I love it for the same reason I love Finland: I had freedom, I had woods and I could walk around almost as much as I wished. And this, considering my extremely overprotective parents, was something great. I have to write it big and in bold, I would make it shine if I could. There weren't cars, basically, so they weren't worried that someone could hit or kidnap me, they left me even 20 minutes of freedom at a time! No, I'm not joking. I could go wherever I wanted but at 20 minutes interval I had to go back home, and then I could leave again. Mobile phones weren't that popular at the time (I don't even know if there was any signal there) and I was too young for one (we lived there when I was between 12 and 15 years old, I got my phone just months before we moved, and not because I wanted it but because my parents thought I would become more reachable - and perhaps that's why I hate phones). But yes, going back to my teenager past-times: it wasn't that much, but it was freedom. And for the first time.
I love it for the same reason I love Munich, it was my first trip abroad without my family, and I even got some time to visit the city alone. For the same reason I love Würzburg, this was just last year but I was exploring the place by myself the whole time. And, as I said, for the same reason I love Finland. I have changed a lot since I came here, you could say I grew up (in the sense of gaining wisdom) in Helsinki; that's why I thought I loved Finland: everyone loves the place where they grow up, don't they? But actually not, or maybe that's not just it. The reason is freedom. Pure and simple.
On the one hand, then, that's good news for someone: it means I could eventually go back to Italy, there's a place where I could live without missing anything major, and it's even in my hometown. On the other hand it raises a few worrying questions: will my thirst for freedom ever get satisfied? Will I ever feel limited by the people which are the closest to me? And what will happen then?
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