#exchangestuden

[gaiaflower]

you have to leave your country in order to fall in love with it

I love Italy: I love the food, I love the people, I love the culture, the art.. there are so many amazing things about my country. Now, if you met me six months ago, when I was still living Italy, you’d know that I would never ever see myself saying that sentence. Actually, I used to think bad things about those who said they loved Italy- I thought that they were ignorant, very patriotic and that they had a really closed and old mindset. Turns out that it was me who had the wrong way of thinking instead. 

When living at home, I used to take everything for granted, staring from friends and family, to food, traditions and culture in general; and I didn’t feel lucky to have those things- I just had eyes for those things about my life that were not so great and all I did was complain. For all my life i spitted on my hometown, describing it as worst place one could ever be, and I used to idolize the rest of the world, north America in particular. Well, coming here has thought me many things and one of the most important is that there is no perfect place to be- the only thing that changes it’s your mindset: you can be happy or sad regardless the place that you are in. You can travel as far as you want, but it is only when you get out of certain places inside of your mind, that your life can change.

That said, I still do not define myself as a patriotic person and I still think that Italy has many problems. Now I just learnt that the medal has two faces and I should look at both of them and appreciate the good side of the country that I come from.

Out of the thousands of reasons that one should travel, I think that one should travel for experiencing what it means to be homesick. What it means to crave your food, to miss the days spent laughing with your friends. To be immersed in a culture that  is so immense that other people will never fully understand. One should be homesick, in order love his/her hometown as it deserves to be loved.

being away made me realize that everything I have neglected my whole life is actually worth loving and worrying for.

[komaljain23]

Travel Diaries.  Jaffa, Israel 2018 

[gabriellabendt]

CHICAGO BABY!

Today was finally the day we left for Chicago.

  We were all ready and packed in the morning so we were pretty fast out of continental and on our way to Chicago.  Konnor was the only one who didn’t come, because he had a camping trip thing on his dirt bike.

  On our way to Chicago we stopped at a restaurant to get some breakfast, their cinnamon-rolls were not that good but I ate it anyway.

  Since it’s about a 4 hour ride to Chicago in a car, I had to entertain myself. So some of the things were hear music while reading “The Fault In Our Stars” and sleeping.

  After about 3 and a half hours, we were finally in Chicago. You could see the high buildings and all the traffic! It really felt like a bigger town that Continental!

We were trying to find a place to park since we arrived at a friends house, but it was nearly

impossible! It was funny because Travis was saying how he hated big towns.

  After a long time we finally found a parking spot. We walked over to the frind’s house and met up with everyone.

  Everyone:

Cole

Cole’s mom Crystal

Cole’s dad Nathan

Cole’s sisters Delaine and Annika (about 9-10 years)

Cole’s brothers (I cant remember their names :/ 2 brothers about 5-7)

Crystal’s brother (Brandon) and his ex girlfriend (Stacy).

And then us Kenna, Travis, Kieu and me.

  We all decided to go down to the beach, since there was goanna be a airplane show. We spited up and went in 2 cars. Again it was hard to find a parking spot, so Stacy and Brandon took the cars while we jumped of.

Walking down towards the water was complicated since there were a lot of people. We spread out a beach towel and waited for the different airplanes to come. 

It was a beautiful but warm day! We were all sweating while watching the jets flying around with so much speed we first could hear them about 30 seconds after we saw them. They were SO LOUD!

    We started a grill and made some hotdogs. They were really good.

  After the show was over we drove to our hotel we were staying at. It was a nice hotel with a pretty view to the indoors pool (haha). But from the bar you could see almost all of Chicago.

    Me, Kenna, Travis and Kieu went to our room to get ready to go eating with the others.

After getting ready we still had some time so we decided on going out shopping a bit. I went to this HUGE store named “American Doll” OMG! I have never seen anything like that, the dolls coasted about $100, If your doll broke you could go to their “hospital” they could get their hair done and you could buy everything to them. It was so weird!

We went to forever 21 and just looked around in Victoria’s secret for a perfume.

  We finally met up at the restaurant. This is the finniest thing I have ever tried; all the workers at the restaurant were mean and didn’t really care that u were there. They gave you these ugly hats you had to have on and, they just threw napkins at u if you asked for something.  

  Since it was Cole’s birthday, Kenna, Delaine and Annika asked the workers if they could sing happy birthday to him so they ended up singing themselves. It was so cute :’)

  After we ate the kids wanted to come to our hotel to swim in the pool, so we were supposed to go back to the hotel to wait for them, but they called and told us they were to tired so we just went to bed instead.