Italian is like English with prepositions: appartamento in affitto, flat for rent, but German dispenses with the preposition and efficiently squishes together the nouns: Mietwohnung.
“Oh, how nice,” my landlord says when I tell him I’m moving to Europe. “What city are you going to live in?”
“All of them,” I reply.
It used to be so easy, upping and going to wherever I’d set my mind on going. I just upped and went and the details sorted themselves out after I got there. This time, I decided to be sensible and to go about it like an adult would, preparing, getting everything in place, being all responsible and grown-up, and now it feels so tenuous, as though I might never get there, as though it’ll all fall apart and I’ll be stuck here, where my life has run beyond its natural course. I should have just upped and gone.
I know it’s probably better this way, the sensible way, but I’m really beginning to wonder. I can’t get a visa anyway, so what was the point of waiting? The only two significant benefits of taking a year to prepare have been learning Italian (and chancing to take sporadic lessons from an Italian teacher who is also incredibly generously helpful), and disposing of my paltry belongings with thought and care: selling those that are saleable (the drum kit was the big one; and that wasn’t even a very high-dollar item) and sorting through everything else — donating, packing for storage, giving to friends; throwing away what’s left.
And, of course, consciously spending time with close friends, true friends. I don’t plan to come back to the U.S., if I can help it.
The drum kit in use 
Zildjian ride for sale…