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[sierrawritesabouteuropesurp-blog]

The lessons you learn from sleeping in train stations

As I’m quite sure everyone in the whole world knows by now, in the fall of 2016 I spent my semester in Bologna, Italy. I’m not typically one for writing blogs myself, (although I do thoroughly enjoy reading travel bloggers) but, as it is nearing a year since I set off for this journey and I still don’t feel like I’ve quite learned how to put the experience into words, I’ve decided to give it a shot. 

Last summer, I was nervous and excited for my trip from the day classes ended. I packed my bag about two and a half months before it was time to leave, and literally lived out of my suitcase for the entire summer. Life was carefree and nothing seemed to matter too much because in two months i was MOVING TO ITALY. 

While the excitement was real and overwhelming, I was also terrified. Could I survive on my own? What if I didn’t make friends? What if I hated it and was stuck there for three whole months? What if the taxi driver at the airport couldn’t understand me? and the list of what ifs goes on. On September 4th, I set off from Mobile Regional Airport alone, leaving all of my friends and the people I cared about waving behind the glass window. No turning back now.

I could happily sit here and give a play by play account of everything that happend while I was in Europe (and trust me, if you ever want to hear it I will be ready with pictures and maps), but that isn’t the point of this particular post. 

See, life in Bologna was a unique, and almost dream-like. For three and a half months, a bunch of strangers from all over the states were thrown into a tiny campus where the staff spoke solo Italiano and we were about a 15 minute slightly sketchy walk from the rest of the city. There was a huge time difference between us and the rest of our family and friends, so we had to rely on each other. Let me tell you, trying to speak broken italian and get yourself on the right train or flight is a bonding experience in itself. 

My favorite thing about living in Bologna was the quality of life. You see, Bologna was absolutely beautiful. But not at first glance. Not really. It took days of getting up way too early and struggling along in the cold to the center of the city for an Art History class to really notice the cobblestone streets and the beauty of the orange and red buildings. It took many nights of wandering home wine drunk from dinner and finding the piazza and the towers lit up and the streets buzzing with nightlife to truly recognize the magnificence of the city. Bologna was gentle, easy, and welcoming. Nights were spent seeing how much wine we could drink at the bars and still get up for class in the morning, and days were filled with truly interesting classes, pizza verde, city wanderings, and as much gelato as you could imagine. Even running on the treadmill in the gym was less painful, because from the window you could always see San Luca on it’s hilltop, glittering in the sunset. 

Life in those 3 ½ months was fast moving, full of joy and confusion, and full of adventure. I remember sitting at dinner one night while everyone was talking about where they were traveling for the weekend. Paris, London, Vienna, Barcelona. One of the girls looks at me and says “How crazy is it that we have these discussions every weekend? And it’s just normal for us.” Crazy indeed. We had the whole world at our hands. (or at least, Europe.) For minimal money, we were on trains and planes every weekend. Beautiful cities such as Florence and Venice were less than an hour away. A trip to London cost 12 euro and two hours of my time. It was liberating. I saw so much of the world. I walked through Auschwitz and saw the darkest side of humanity. I missed trains and slept in freezing cold train stations just to catch an over crowded 3 AM train back to Bologna. I spent many a night in airports and taxi cabs and ferries. On Thanksgiving night I watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle from the windows of Musee D’orsay. I watched as my classmates went off and had equally  amazing/crazy adventures. Every weekend was a new challenge, a new place, and new piece of myself discovered. What a life?

What a life it was indeed. I came home from Europe with empty pockets, a full heart, and a desire to go out and live a full life. However, transitioning back to Alabama was not as easy as planned. I quickly found myself hating where I was. I constantly thought of ways to leave. I lived in day dreams of my former european life. I became negative. I could not see any potential for life here to ever be as good or as exciting as life in Italy. I looked at pictures of myself from Europe compared to today, and I noticed that my smile is not nearly as big. I just did not look as happy. What I have come to realize though, is that by behaving in such a way, all of my time spent in Bologna was futile. See, in Bologna, I told myself every day to live life to the fullest. To go out into the city every day. To spend time with those around me every day. Because soon, much too soon, I would not have that opportunity anymore. What I have come to learn is that life is made up of Bolognas. No, they are not always in Italy, and sadly they do not always include chocolate chip cannolis and Creameria Mascarella. But each phase of life has its time and its place. For each phase, you have the opportunity to live that particular life for just a moment, and then it is gone. It is different. No way to get it back. Realizing this has helped me to try to take the lessons Bologna gave me, and apply them to the rest of my life. I was full of life, full of love for myself, full of compassion for others, and full of a desire to see and understand the world. Whether I am doing that from the cobblestone streets of Italy or from my bedroom in Alabama, it requires the same love for life. To move forward from this expereince without continuing to strive for the complete happiness that I learned to have Bologna, would be a horrible waste.

It’s hard to miss a place so much. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that never again in my life will Bologna be my Bologna. Even if I go back and visit at some point in my life (which I plan to do) I will never live there again. I will never run into a classmate on the street. I will never head out to the wine bar with that group of people. I can never have it back. However, instead of being bitter, I am learning to be thankful. I am thankful to have lived in a place with a group of people who taught me what it means to be happy, what it means to love life, and what it means to be different, but ultimately the same. 

On my last night in Bologna, I went on a hike with my best friend who had flown over to visit. We hiked up to the cathedral of San Luca, which is 666 porticos high. It took us about two hours just to get from camplus to the top, and when we got there it was so foggy you couldn’t even see the view of the city that I had taken her up there to see. Instead, the most beautiful sunset was setting over the fog, and we were at the perfect place to watch it. Life does not always go as expected. The view is not always what you planned to see. But, if you let yourself be open to life in all of its forms and phases, you can find beauty in every place you find yourself. I hope to live my life the way I lived in Bologna. I hope to truly take it all in and really live in it. I hope to love just as fiercely for the rest of my life, and to never not have an abundance of red wine. I hope that at the end of my time I look back and see the places I’ve been and the people I’ve encountered dripping in golden light and drenched with memories and happiness. 

From here on out, I will try my best to let Bologna have its place in the past, and to let it keep me grounded and remind me of who I became. But for one last time let me say, Bologna you have my heart and always will. Grazie a mille for the laughs, the confusion, the pain, and the joy. May every person who finds themselves within your beautiful walls find joy and peace in the same way I did. 

Ti amo.