whoa.

Ok, it's been taking me FOREVER to copy down the MASSIVE entries I've written about my fall break into this damn thing, and it's been preventing me from updating you guys on what's been going on in more recent news. And there's been a LOT. So I've decided to just go ahead and post the more recent stuff and you'll just have to backtrack a little once I get my fall break entires up. Mi dispiace.

So ANYWAY..... holy shit. What the hell just happened. I just got back from Barcelona yesterday afternoon and was planning on taking it easy, unpacking, getting re-settled back in Florence, resting up before my birthday... but I somehow managed to go out until 3:30am and, where I received a profession of love, more or less. What the fuck.

Ok, let me back up a little. So I was chilling back home, recovering from my whirlwind traveling, and I see that my friend Nicole is online and I realize that she is home, as is Danny and all the boys that I traveled with in Vienna. Nicole and I have been wanting to just chill out and watch movies and order takeout with them for WEEKS, so we decide that this is a perfect night to do that because everyone is excited to see each other again but we're all tired from traveling and will jsut want to take it easy.

So we get our takeout and head over to the boys' place, and after we eat they are like, um... lets go watch the Patriots game at a bar downtown. Which - I'm not gonna lie - sounded really appealing to me for some reason. I've been scorning all the super-American bars like the one we were heading to ever since I got here, but for some reason, after all that traveling and sight-seeing and language confusion, nothing sounded better than a bar full of American kids watching some good ol' football americano.

The place is packed so I ended up squeezed on a bench next to Danny, kinda separated from the rest of our group, but it was really fun; I'm dying to go back to Barcelona this weekend and was showing him pictures of the trip and was like let's go! And he was like, no seriously, I'm down. He's never seen it and it's basically an architect's dream; we'll see if it actually happens but that would be so fun.

Then all of the sudden, midnight rolls around and we all realize, oh wait, Alex is 21... I had totally planned to take it easy that night to save up for partying tonight and tomorrow night with the rest of my friends who are trickling in over the next couple days from their various trips, but when everyone started buying me shots and singing "Happy Birthday", what am I supposed to do, say no?

So we're all having a great time, but it's getting late, and everyone's remembering that we actually have class tomorrow for the first time in over a week, so everybody starts making their way back to Piazza Savonarola, the central meeting point where most of the apartment-dwelling Syracusers live, and where I usually call a cab from. Me and Danny are talking and then all of the sudden we realize that everyone else is gone (they most likely stopped to get a kebab a few blocks back at their favorite late-night munchie spot, Mesopotamia), so we just keep heading back towards Savonarola and figure they'll catch up.

Me and this kid are so weird - I know that he likes me, he's told me before and I can just tell, and it totally intrigues me, because I can tell that it's not in an "ooh she's hot" kind of way, but in a much more sincere, "she's really cool" kind of way, but it's weird because we don't ever really get the chance to talk one-on-one and he still seems to be vaguely involved with that girl he was with before, Tamar - they are still broken up but they are doing that "maybe-I-still-like-you" flirtation thing, so I have just assumed that whatever crush he thinks he has on me is not any big thing.

But that was before last night. I don't even know how the converstaion turned, but all the sudden it got super serious. I know I won't be able to do justice to what was said, but more or less, it came up that he still really cares about me and feels that there is some weird, inexplicable connection between us, which I definitely think is true and equally strange, but that I have such a guard up all the time that he almost feels like pursuing me in any way is pointless, but that regardless of if anything romantic ever comes out of the relationship, he just wants to know me, to understand where I am coming from, to be there for me even if it's just as a friend. It was really moving and kind of disorienting because I have never met a guy who was able to - or wanted to - care about me like that, without any expectations. It totally overwhelmed me, because he hit the nail so precisely on the head, about me being guarded and not really trusting the male race in general and not believing in their ability to ever be sincere, especially in expressing their emotions and particularly their feelings towards me. I don't even know what more to say about the whole experience, it was just really intense and overwhelming and incredibly comforting and relieving at the same time and now I have absolutely no idea what is going on in my life at all. I feel like this is a person who would do anything to make me feel safe and loved, and for that I am totally attracted to him and feel like I should let myself be taken care of for a little bit. But I'm worried that I may not actually be attracted to him otherwise, which would not be fair to him at all. Oh man this is so damn confusing. But the very most exciting kind of confusion ever. I am so excited for the coming weeks.