& loving every last second of it

Mountains or beach?

Mountains. Always mountains.

When I first arrived to the train station in Arezzo, Will was there to pick me up and we walked to his apartment. As we are walking there, he says “what they never mention about those rolling Tuscan hills is that that’s all there is in Tuscany. It is literally just a bunch of rolling hills.”

After lugging a semester’s worth of stuff up a 70-degree hill, I very quickly understood what he meant.

Italy was my last stop on my Europe tour and I must say a lovely stop at that. I spent Sunday morning exploring what little bit of Florence I could get to before my 2 p.m. train, and went to mass at the cathedral, a few markets and a few open-air art exhibits. Also got to meet up with my Sevilla pal Carrie so that was pretty sweet.

Probably going to get some backlash for this, but Florence was not as great as I thought it was going to be. Sure it was beautiful, but the entire place was crawling with what felt like 300 class field trips, 60 scout troops, 400 young families and 8 million young college kids like myself constantly stopping in the middle of the path to take a picture. I also didn’t have much sleep the night before therefore a bit cranky. Needless to say, I will have to go back one day and experience when there is a bit more time.

Anyways, I caught the train and headed on my way. “Why Arezzo?” many have asked, and the short answer is to visit a super awesome individual named Will. Will and I met at the Fine Arts Center when I was a wee freshman and he and my brother were the acclaimed seniors at school and, to me, coolest

people in the world. What was even cooler was that they had no problem letting me, a 14-year-old, tag along everywhere they went. So needless to say it was a pretty cool visit.

Will is currently living/working in Arezzo as the Technical Director of an MFA theatre program, while also creating beautiful art of his own. He also happens to know pretty much everyone in town, so walking around with him was what I imagine following a celebrity around must feel like.

A couple of cool things about Arezzo the town:

• Jousting

• One of the things they are known for is jousting, like one a horse, with a joust jousting. In the plaza the riders run through on their horses, turn around, then come back and try to hit the target (they no longer joust with other people thanks be to God). Each corner of the city has a team and the flags were put up while I was there. Neat experience of medieval fun without the death part.

• Pizza game strong

• My last night I requested pizza as I had yet to try Italian pizza, so the gang insisted we go to this pizza place. I got a parmigiano pizza, which had eggplant on top and crusts stuffed with ricotta. I may not have been able to finish it all, but I was happier than a clam while eating it.

• Gelato game stronger

• There are two gelato places in town that we tried, one was supposedly a bit better with fruit flavors, Sunflower, and

the other better with sweet flavors, Violetta. The majority of my money on this trip was spent on gelato. I have no shame.

During the weekdays, I had some free time during the day and had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted. If you had asked me two months ago what I was going to do with that time, I would have given you a full itinerary of all of the things I was going to manage to squeeze into these three days and sleep was not going to be one of them. My mentality was go-go-go all of the time, and sleep when you’re dead or get home from your trip, whichever comes first.

This trip was more on the relaxed end. I would sleep in a bit, get a nice breakfast, go to the park, go on a run, eat gelato multiple times a day and hang out with Will and friends in the evenings keeping my tradition of always coming in last place in Mario Smash Brothers – and it was exactly what I needed.

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Over these four months I’ve been gone I’ve learned a lot of things about others and myself, but one thing specifically I’ve learned from the “travel all of the time” mentality is that while you’re learning where you are, you also end up missing something. I love

travel, but during this trip what I realized what I love more than travel is people, and relationships, and community. Investing in a place and the people there is what I enjoy doing, and that is why this summer I have decided to return to Tennessee to work for Smoky Mountain Resort Ministries as a Communications and Fundraising Intern. Investing in people while using my degree. I’m pumped.

By the time I post this I’ll be back in America. Currently, I am on the 8-hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean in order to be back in time for my cousin’s wedding on Saturday. Getting on a flight that was going to America this morning was really odd, and it is going to be interesting to see how I adjust to being back. I am going to give myself some time to really reflect on everything that I’ve done in the last semester in a few days after I’ve acclimated to being home, or at least started to get over jetlag. Basically saying, more reflection to come.

Thank you for the constant prayers and check-ins, they truly mean the world to me. My phone number will go back to my American number when I return, but that does not mean I don’t still love little sweet messages every now and then.

I may be on the plane, but rest is not coming for awhile. I have miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

Peace and Blessings.