My SO and I saw each other again for the third time, this was my second time visiting him. Only this time, I got to stay with him for an entire month. =)

Shout out to my job and bosses for allowing me that amount of time! Proof that you do get rewarded for hard work

This time it was a surprise visit, well he knew I was coming, but I came a week earlier than what I had told him.
Anyway, he was happily shocked. That look on his face was priceless, the biggest smile ever.
Thank goodness his sister recorded it. Shout out to her too!!
That trip was absolutely wonderful. The whole family was wonderful. I fell in love with the nonna. She made it especially hard to leave, with her constant questions of "Why are you leaving?" and "When are you coming back?". Man that was heart-breaking.
The mother was nothing but kind and overwhelmingly generous. She is the sweetest and most thoughtful person ever, same goes to his sister. The father is funny, kind, and thoughtful as well. Very helpful with picking me up at the airport and taking me to their home.

Seriously people, Italians can throw down a meal. I have never eaten so much food before in my 23 years combined. lol
I shouldn't be complaining, but i did have a constant feeling of my stomach nearly exploding.
I love how you can walk 5 minutes to a nearby cafe and get some tea and my favorite breakfast pastry, the croissant with apricot jam inside.
UGH, man I miss those!!!
Constant pastries and chocolate everywhere all the time. My kind of place.

SO and I traveled to Rome this time =) Three days. Honestly, not my cup of tea. EXTREMELY touristy. But what can you expect? Everyone and their mommas around the world wants to be there. So many people, and I hardly heard Italian being spoken. English, Spanish, French, German, and other languages, but not much Italian. That tells you how touristy the place is.
Oh, and that's where I got to see an authentic Italian fued go down, on a public bus. Unfortunately, the SO was apart of it.
I wanted to laugh, but he-was-SO mad lol. "Romana di merda!" That's all I kept hearing him say out loud and then called his sister and then I heard it again.lol
You always hear people in the movies talk about how breathtaking the Sistine Chapel is and you kind of just sit there thinking, "okay, sure I believe them".
But my goodness, are those people right. Standing there in the middle of hundreds of people, should-to-shoulder, and staring up at the ceiling kind of made me want to cry. The entire thing. So detailed and so much work that was put into this. And to think painting wasn't Michelangelo's favorite. (At least that's what I heard) He was sure damn good at it.

We also went to this beautiful garden/park and rented bikes to go through the entire thing, because this place is huge. and did I mention beautiful?
We stopped at a marble bench and had our packed lunch there, where i set my purse down on some bird sh*t....... only me.... and of course he was kind enough to record it on his phone.

Oh!! So I'm this huge fan of ancient Egyptian history and culture. Love it.
Sooooo, he took me the second largest Egyptian museum outside of Egypt in Torino. Gosh he is awesome. I got to see a lot over there.
Since we were so close already, we stayed overnight at a hotel through this package his parents got for him as a gift, and took a train to Milan.
That is where I saw that stunning cathedral there.

A week later, him and I left his town to head up north to the Dolomiti, to their holiday home. For an entire week it was him and I, hiking up mountains, going on this "fun bob" thing, eating awesome pizza, going to a cow festival lol. That is one of my favorite places to go. Waking up at 6 am and walking out on the old wooden balcony to see fog covering the mountains and the soft light shining through. That is priceless.

We went out dancing, we went to the movies, to the beach, walking around downtown Verona, and saw an opera in the Verona Arena.
I ate amazing food. I met and got close to amazing people.

Besides all that fun stuff, there were also not so fun stuff. But I do take that stuff as a good thing since I got to learn my SO's habits and personality. We eventually got annoyed with one another or angry lol. What can you do?

Then came the day.
That sad sad oh so sad day we all on here know and dread: Departure day.

The latest flight I could book was 1:30 pm, but you have to leave early to get there early.
Anyway
It all was difficult. From the beginning until the end when I finally laid in my own bed.
The nonna didn't want me to leave.
She even stepped out to the balcony to see me leave. I had to take a photo of that.
Waiting in the airport to go past security is torture. Sitting next to him in silence and waiting it out.
I've talked about this before in my previous blog about my first visit, so it's not much different that the first or second time.
Nonetheless, it hurts. It hurts like hell. Only this time it was worse, since this time we didn't have a set date to countdown to the next visit.
We don't have a date and we don't have a Closing the Distance date.

We agreed to save money and wait about a year to make a final decision. He still has to graduate, which will be soon, then get a job, and I'm still looking for a job.

At this point, both of us are continuing this blindly almost. It hurts, but it's been two and a half months.

At this point, I can't say anymore plans that we have.
But man I won't ever forget that trip and I will forever be grateful to his family for taking me in and treating me as their own family.