I settle into a chair at a round table occupied with unfamiliar faces, other than my best friend from school who had joined me on this wild ride of a semester. Everyone makes polite small talk, all in awe of where we are. As I sit in the dining room of The Grand Hotel Baglioni my first morning in Florence, eating my flavorless cereal and oddly enough, an assortment of cheeses, hundreds of thoughts roll around in my head. The room is filled with enthusiastic eyes and warm smiles of those I have never met before. Large glass windows cover the back wall, making me feel as though I could reach out and grab the red-orange Florentine rooftops. I hold up my phone, attempting to capture my first monumental moment abroad, unsure of what the next few months will bring. As I stand on the edge of a cliff in Positano, Italy, I am more than a little nervous about the fall. I never put myself in situations like this. Every slight breeze that passes feels as though it could knock me off the staggering rocks beneath my bare feet. The beating sun is seemingly at eye-level and my whole body is trembling. All I need in this moment is to drown out the screaming voices of my friends in the boat below and gain a burst of courage that people do so effortlessly in the movies. The fear I feel has completely taken over, but I know this is something I want to be able to say I did.
My left hand turns white because of the tight grip I have on my GoPro. After much hesitation, I take a leap forward on the count of three. I smack against the overpowering, salty water, which quickly flows through my mouth and up my nose, despite all efforts to avoid it. As I tread through the ocean, attempting to catch my breath, I feel accomplished. I am proud of how far I have come. I only have two more nights left in my apartment in Florence. I repeat that to myself and I cannot believe that it is true. I look back on these past few months and realize that time has never flown by faster. It has been said that traveling changes people. The experiences I have had, the places I have seen, and the people I have met along the way have changed me. I can see the slight differences in myself and the others in my position. The foreign has quickly become the familiar and Florence is now another home. It is because of this that I am inordinately sad about leaving the life I have created here. Yes, I am looking forward to seeing my friends and family. I am excited about being able to use my iPhone wherever I choose to do so. And I cannot wait to have access to my closet full of clothes I left behind. Although these things hold a fair amount of relevance in my life, I have learned to live quite comfortably without them. But there is not going to be anything to fill the void Europe is going to leave me with. This experience will forever be unmatched. This semester I was enrolled in Travel Writing. It was probably my favorite college class I have ever taken. The course consisted of writing about my own adventures as well as reading about the travels of others. Many of the short stories were exceptionally relatable, considering being in a new country almost every weekend was my normal at the time. There was one story by author Charles Finch with a particular quote that stood out to me. It simply says, "I guess the lesson is you can't go everywhere. You should still go everywhere you can." See the Eiffel Tower at night. Ride a donkey in Greece. Take a picture in a telephone booth in London. Smoke weed for the first time in Amsterdam. Lay on the beach in Barcelona. Gamble at Monte Carlo. Ride a gondola in Venice. Study abroad in Florence. These are all things I want to be able to say I did. And now I can.
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