After traveling far away from my familiar everyday life, meeting new extraordinary people, discovering a mere fraction of what the world has to offer, I feel like a completely changed person. Now being back in my home, with familiar streets, sounds, and people, everything looks brighter. Being in Florence for the semester taught me so much about myself, my own culture, personality, and most of all it taught me about my aspirations. Now that I am back home, it all has come rushing to me, everything I learned abroad, experiences that have not only changed me forever, but have made me look at my familiar world with a pair of new eyes. I realized that being home can very easily become monotonous, after all everybody loves travel and experiencing new things. However, it has occurred to me that new things simply can mean making an effort to see the potential of new things that already exist in one’s everyday life.
The past four months easily became the best time of my life thus far. Italy filled me with inspiration, love, aspiration, and excitement, all of which I have now brought back home with me. The “Italian Way” taught me to slow life down. No meeting, no dinner-date, no appointment is too important that you cannot take time to enjoy your coffee at home or at a cafe. Its not about leading a slow or lazy life, but about planning ahead so that each individual takes time for themselves. Only you take care of you, and only you can deter-main the direction of your life, and how you seize each and every opportunity your are presented with.
As I walked the streets of Italy, whether it be Rome, Venice, Sorrento , or Florence, everybody was living in the moment, they were living THEIR moment. Even just that, seeing the bright faces of children riding on the back of their father’s bicycle, or the artisans preparing their leather goods for that days sale, or the way the local waiters greeted you no matter what day or time you went in for a cappuccino. Every Italian lives and enjoys the moment. That was the best souvenir, that was Italy’s gift to me.
Florence is now a piece of me, it has played a huge part in shaping me as I start my adulthood. I plan to go back, and relive the best four months of my life.
– Maday, Parsons The New School of Design
