Pre-Italy Trip Jitters (written July 2024)

Hey Stranger!

I’m still going through my drafts, and going through my writings about Italy, so here’s my short entry before I left for Italy.

As the title reveals, I will be in Italy a week from today. Next Monday. Earlier this year, I made a bingo card that was just all these goals I have for the year. I wanted to see how many I could knock out this year. In late January, I started looking for study abroad opportunities. Study abroad in grad school can be hard to come by, with it only being two years but it’s something I missed from undergrad. I found two for Italy I was aiming at getting one of them and well, I did! So here I am six months later, it’s a week before I go and it still doesn’t feel real. I think I’m gonna get there and I’m gonna cry (just a little bit). This has so far been my biggest opportunity of the year. My two weeks in Venice will be spent purely analyzing and losing my mind over art at the Venice Biennale and all the nearby venues hosting art events and churches as well, I’m expecting the city to be crawling with people and art. I’m bringing my nice camera as well as a disposable camera. After the academic portion of my trip is up (the 29th to august 8th) I extended my stay for 4 days so my group of friends and I can spend day trips in Rome, Milan, and Florence. We fly back on my 26th birthday, and while I’ll be stuck on a plane for 12 hours, we’re celebrating my birthday in Florence. Painter central; it’s a dream of mine and I’m BUZZING that I actually am spending my birthday in the city of so much painting history. I know so many stories of painters and their times in this city. So reader, I hope you can imagine the goosebumps I’m gonna experience walking around that city.

I’m going into this trip open to anything, with my main expectations being that I look at art that fires me up and I burn it in my memory. I have a wonderful team of interpreters coming with me and they’ve both watched my grad school journey the past year so I’m insanely grateful I made this happen. It’s the best case scenario for myself in terms of studying abroad, as it is a trip that’s going to be accessible.

My other expectation is that I talk to people, I allow myself to experience weird culture shocks ad get lost, and try new food and learn about a culture from first hand experiences. I’m curious and I want to lead with that curiosity in the drivers seat (within reason!). I also want to meet other artists, and network outside of the US. I see myself looking for international work after I graduate, at any point in my career.

I want to try new foods, look at a sunrise and a sunset, to stargaze