It wasn’t always like that though. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and apart from the yearly vacation my family took every year to places in the states, I had never left the little suburb I grew up in. I was laser focused on my grades, my studies in music and dance, and my love for fitness.
You can imagine how drastically my life changed when I moved to Vicenza, Italy. Vicenza is a BEAUTIFUL little town in the Veneto region of Northern Italy. Read more about Vicenza in my post on my Favorite Small Italian Towns!
I found joy in every aspect of Italian life – the serenity of trekking through the quiet winding narrow streets of rustic hill towns, the buzz of life while enjoying aperitivo with my classmates in the bustling piazzas after class, or the thrill of watching the Tuscan countryside race by from a train car window seat.
Ever since my time in Italy, a desire to seek more of this immersion in culture, history, and new way of life has been my “why?”
I have jumped at every opportunity to continuing discovering our big, beautiful world and am always going back for more.
After all – life is WAY too short to not experience all the incredible, people, places, and stories out there. I have floated in Peter Zumthor’s thermal baths in Vals, I have sunbathed on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin, I have celebrated a Bastille Day watching fireworks from a bridge in Lyon, I have sped down the streets of Barcelona on the back of a moped, and I have wandered through Lisbon’s Bairro Alto at midnight.