A little bit about myself...
Hello, my name is Luiza Monti and I am 17 years old. In about eight days I will embark on a journey that will require me to navigate through three airports successfully. Here are a few fun facts about me:
1) I’m a bit of an audiophile. I enjoy collecting records (I’m trying to expand my jazz collection), listening to music (you’ll usually catch me working on a new playlist every week or at least adding to my several old ones), or experimenting with sounds on my guitar amp.
How you usually will find me
2) I am a coffee enthusiast, (wow I bet you’ve heard that about 100000 times before) but yes gotta love that cup O’ Joe in the morning- you can imagine my excitement to having some authentic Italian espresso.
pictured above is a beverage from one of my favorite little coffee shops, called the “espresso tonic”. This drink is perfect for the hot summers here in the valley, and more interesting than your regular iced coffee. On the contrary, iced coffee is seen as taboo in Italy, tasty as it is they might not be as thrilled by it.
3) Half of my family is from Brazil, though I speak fluent Portuguese I was born here in the states. My family has shaped my identity and one day, I wish to live in Brazil for at least a few months to immerse myself more in the culture.
From my last trip about five years ago, a view from Ipanema.
Now that we’re through introductions! let’s get into feelings, thoughts and such.
Although I’m excited for my trip it really hasn’t hit me yet that I'm going. I feel like the reality of it will come when we’re all scrambling through the airport terminals. I gotta say what I’m most looking forward to is the food. My counterpart and I talk everyday and our conversations always circle back to food. She even told me that her parents bought Nutella just for me, which apparently is a rare thing to have in her household. I’m not particularly wary of anything. I think the key to having a good experience abroad is to keep an open mind and not stress about what may happen, of course it’s good to take precautions but I don’t plan on thinking about the worst possible situation every minute.
That’s about it for my first blog post. Hopefully I didn’t scare you away, because there’s more to come!
-LM