--- <RECOVERY LOG 05 — status: partial> header-loss_detected… timestamp_estimate: Dec 27, 2009 From: ??? To: papa bear@??? Subject: chri— miss you --- Dad, I know you said I’d get used to being away, but the holidays hit harder than I thought they would. Italy is… beautiful, I guess. The kind of beautiful that feels a little unreal. The streets here smell like roasted chestnuts and cold stone, and the lights they hang above the alleys look like they’re floating. I keep thinking about home. The way the snow piles up on the fence. The way you’d burn the cinnamon rolls every year and pretend it was “tradition.” I tried finding something here that felt familiar. Ordered hot chocolate from a café near the piazza. It tasted different — darker, thicker — almost like you could stand a spoon straight up in it. I laughed because I remembered how you’d complain mine was “too sugary,” and now I think yours might’ve been better after all. Anyway… I’m doing okay. Just lonely, I think. Everyone else on the program went home. Flights were too expensive for me, and I didn’t want to ask you again. So I’m here, wandering around cobblestone streets with my scarf mom knitted, pretending it doesn’t feel strange to celebrate Christmas alone. I miss you. More than I thought I would. Tell the dog I said hi. And maybe save me one of the cinnamon rolls, burnt or not. Love, -j --- [END OF FILE — corruption at offset 47:cc — footer unrecoverable] ---