A little anniversary present

Many of you have never seen the face pictured above with me.

But many of you have heard about her.

Look carefully, she is one of the reasons I came back to Italy.

She is the one person that I have ever felt super connected to without even speaking the same language.

Everyone, meet Marina.
My Marina.
We met 3 years ago.
We knew each other for one month and cried when I had to leave.
She gave me a coffee pot.

And since I got here we have been trying to meet.
Text messages have been very frustrating.
I actually called her one time, feeling very confident in my language ability.
That was a funny phone call.
I was quickly humbled and we've stuck to texting ever since.

When I was assinged to the Architecture faculty team, the first thing I thought of was Marina.
She's an architecture major.

So the other day--my one month anniversary of being in Florence,
I was sitting in the cafe with my two teammates,
and guess what....

Marina just waltzed on in.
We were both speechless.
It was a combination of being so suprised and having no Italian words to express my joy!
What a great way to finish one month!

We had lunch and she told me I got prettier since the last time I was here.
She's so my favorite Italian.

Divine appointments really make my day.