Eight Days’ Bliss

In my few but arguably experience-rich years, there are scarce times I have been as excited as I was on December 25^th, 2014. My teachers and classmates had been planning the annual 8^th grade school trip to Italy for months and my parents, much to my despair, had informed me that I wouldn’t be able to travel due to financial issues. Of course I was miserably despondent, but I was well aware of the severity of the problem (or so I thought) so I didn’t argue much. As it turns out and as I found out on Christmas day last year, my parents had been secretly planning to send me all along! I was beyond myself with exhilaration. After what seemed like a million conversations with my friends about how much fun they were going to have, who they were going to room with, and how excited they were, I could finally, finally join in their happiness. In what felt like days but was actually five months, I was packing my bags and kissing my aunt goodbye.

I’m very lucky to be blessed with amazing friends who shared my excitement with me. I was auspiciously sat next to two of them on the airplane ride to Rome. I could barely sit still as we eagerly anticipated the trip’s events. After the plane touched down the first thing I did was inhale the fresh, crisp air. I love Egypt and all, but I read once that living in its capital as we do is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Frankly, I don’t find it hard to believe. You could just feel the difference between Cairo Int. Airport and Fiumicino Airport. Not just in the cleanliness of the air, but in the vitality. Something that my mother has influenced me in is the belief in spiritual energy. As much as I love my home country, the dynamism there becomes really exhausting after a while. In Italy it was as if there’s an aura of elegance, grace, and the abundant buzz of excitement, which probably came from my classmates. We eventually got on a bus to Florence and sat through the next few hours looking forward to the next week’s happenings. We got to sightseeing right away and stopped by a marvelous marble statue that overlooks what seems to be the entire city. It was absolutely gorgeous, to say the least. As I paused for ice cream with my friends and looked out over the mossy green of endearing Italian streets and various churches and monuments, I could tell in that moment that this was going to be one of the best trips of my life.

Over the next few days we saw numerous testimonials to Italy’s timeless beauty and charm. We were hardly in the same city for more than a day or two, so it was like we were constantly on the move to a new, exciting place. We visited Rome, Florence, Pisa, Naples, Vatican City, and Sorrento. Personally I think traveling is one of, if not the best, life’s greatest gifts to offer, so I didn’t mind being to so many places in a short period of time. I’ve been to quite a few places with my family before but I’d never been to Italy. My first time there exceeded my expectations by miles, and I knew I had high standards. We saw breathtaking places like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, and of course Vatican City and its museums and the Sistine Chapel. The Isle of Capri was probably my favorite place just because the view was so gorgeous. We swam and laughed a lot that day, and I couldn’t have imagined it working out better. I’m not much of a tourist per say (I enjoy people-watching and appreciating the modern culture more than visiting historical monuments) but I thoroughly enjoyed literally every single place we had the pleasure of visiting.

As most people notice right away, I am a very quiet person. I genuinely don’t like that word; I prefer the term observant. Quiet implies that I have nothing to say. Au contraire, I have many things to say about the things I feel passionate about, one of which is listening. As ironic as it sounds, I could write an essay about how much I love to listen to people. Especially when I’m in a foreign place, one of my favorite pastimes is sitting somewhere full of people, opening my journal to a blank page, and just listening. I’m not much of an artist but I like to doodle when I hear people speak, so I allow my thoughts to lead my hand and draw whatever comes to mind. Strangely, on this trip my sketches were a bit different than usual. I happen to be a dark character: usually my drawings are found gruesome to my mother and disturbingly negative to my sisters. However in Italy I found myself drawing things that genuinely made me feel happy. Flowers, dogs, cups of coffee, families, and books are some of the things I discovered I had drawn. I think this means that I was more content and satisfied with my week in Italy than I am most of the time at home, which is kind of sad but at the same time opened my eyes to new opportunities and possibilities. That’s exactly what I love about traveling; it expands your horizon to things you weren’t aware you could even do. I do very much enjoy being alone but as far as the people I traveled with, they were all great. There was some drama (much less than the previous years, thankfully) but for the most part everyone got along and had an amazing time. I truthfully couldn’t have asked for better companions on this journey.

Overall, this trip has been one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my life. I know this is not simply one of those things that you appreciate in the moment then forget about later; I know this trip to Italy will stick with me until I grow old. On this trip we’ve laughed, we’ve learned, we’ve cried, and we’ve matured. I think that was the most important thing for us in the long run. We’ve all learned much not just from the tour guides and our chaperones, but also from each other and from ourselves. It’s been a journey of self-exploration and development, of laughter and song, of love and hate. I’m rarely at a loss for words when I write, but this trip simply cannot be summed up in a few paragraphs. Luckily we took photos that are still nowhere near capturing the essence of Italy’s gifts to us, but are close enough that we can try to remember later on when we look back at this trip. Already I have a Polaroid of my friends and I in Capri placed in my wallet so I can keep it in my memory forever. It’s been less than a week and my friends and I are already nostalgic, which I think really shows how much of an impact this trip has had on us. We’ve definitely changed for the better, and I am beyond grateful for being able to travel on this trip. I know I will always hold this memory dear to my heart because it has changed me as a person. As Miriam Beard once said, “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”