Missing Italy

We all know that there are positives and negatives to every country, but after 6 years in Italy, this is my first summer in the States, and summer is definitely one of the positives of living in Italy. Italians just change in the summer time, and that feeling washes over the country. A beach is never too far away, and the days seem to last forever. Nights become... special.

Luckily I will be going back for about 5 weeks, a bit in Puglia, a bit in Venice, and a bit in Positano, so I will not miss out completely on l'estate, but one of the major drawbacks to moving back to the USA would be knowing that I would have such limited time in Italy. How could I do it? 2 weeks a year would not suffice. I was so lucky with my job in Venice--I was able to take so much vacation time to come back to the states, but working here would not give me that opportunity. I'm considering teaching so that I know I could have summers off, but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to make such a career change!