Today

So I leave today at 7 pm and I'm really ready to be in Italy. Tonight Mom and Dad made cheeseburgers and French fries - delicious, and I'm still awake right now watching The Perfect Man with Hilary Duff. Why? I have no idea. It was on TV and I need an excuse to stay awake though, I must say, this isn't a very good one. It's about a teenage girl whose mother keeps dating losers, men who either break her heart or are just plain obnoxious. She comes up with a plan to invent a secret admirer, "the perfect man," who will prevent her from being so desperate. I don't really even know why I'm taking time to explain the plot line.
Maybe this movie isn't so bad though. I mean, it's not stellar, but I think we all need a healthy amount of cheesiness in our lives. The things we see in the movies rarely happen. Will I get to ride around Rome on a Vespa Roman Holiday style with a Gregory Peck-like journalist? Probably not. Will my roommate and I find attractive best friends to hang out with in Florence like Mary Kate and Ashley did in...every single one of their movies? - not that I've seen all of them, of course. It's easy to be cynical about this movie: a girl creates a fictional secret admirer to make her mother happy, and the man she models him after turns out to be her mother's soulmate. Meanwhile, a boy she met the first day of high school falls in love with her and teaches her that love exists. Why are we taught that things like this can never happen? I think we should see these moments as possible, and when they come up in life, recognize the cheesiness, but also the rarity.
I'm going to Italy tomorrow, and as much as I try to avoid doing cliché, "cheesy," things, I think I'm going to try and soak in as much as possible over there - especially the moments that seem too overdone. I guess they're overdone for a reason.
And on that note, I leave you with a clip from Roman Holiday. It's one of my favorite parts - Audrey and Gregory are touring around Rome hitting up the typical spots. A typical tourist spot...and a moment in the movie which is, appropriately, unplanned, spontaneous, and genuine.