Ciao Amici!

Come stiamo tutti?

I am back to my New York routine after indulging in the flavors and colors of the other side of the pond and it was everything I wanted and everything I didn't know I needed.

My bestie and I decided to celebrate our birthdays abroad this year. It has been a while since we had a true girl's trip; she and I. A little background on how are trips come about: when L and I start thinking of a trip, we start with a wish list that we've compiled and figure out if any of those destinations are feasible. We take things like vacation days, climate, flying time, terrorism (which is sad) into consideration. We tend to start very conservatively. We figure what city in the U.S. we'd like to hit up. Then, as we whittle down the list, a few international cities may pop up. While researching fares we may come upon a flash sale and then what usually happens is that we'll randomly put in a city and see that THAT city is much less expensive than the city we wanted to visit and BOOM we're now booking a trip to Milan when we thought we would be going to New Orleans. It's just a thing. We try to be "not extra" and end up being VERY extra.

Between giggles and squeals we built an incredible itinerary: Milan, Venice, Switzerland and depart Milan.

Just some snaps...

I can't say enough about Italy. To date, it is my favorite country to visit. One of the easiest as well, as you can get away with some Spanish over there. Furthermore, my dad always says: "Flour never sours around you". If there is a carb around, I will partake. So you KNOW Italy is a gastronomical dream for me. Pasta, bread, wine, butter, olive oil, cheese and ice cream, these are the things I need to survive and Italy excels in all categories.

The destination was phenomenal. However, the real highlight of this trip was my travel companion. L and I have been traveling together for years now and every time I travel with a group that does not include her, I remember why she and I are such friends. She lets me be exactly who I am. She knows who I am and accepts that. Find yourself a companion that accepts all the parts of you. She can take in the sights of an ancient church and turn up at a discotheque. She is good with five star restaurant but will try a hole in the wall. The one trait that blows them all out of the water though? Is her level headedness in a crisis. We have been lost without maps, missed trains, bumped from planes, fallen ill and faced racism all abroad. We both know we can fall apart when we get home but right now we gotta solutionze!

We problem solve. We've been up 36 hours straight trying to find a flight and we didn't turn on each other. I think that's the most important thing in a travel companion: loyalty. Even if it's just until you get home; stay loyal to your travel companion because you are trusting each other with your well being far from home. I know it may sound dramatic but I've been in situations where I've been in medical crisis and my "friends" stopped talking to me because to them "I was acting different". Acting different was me being in discomfort; maybe I didn't articulate that how they deemed appropriately, but I was ostracized.

You know yourself best. If you know you are impatient and are ready to just take off on your own in a crisis, group/companion travel isn't for you.

I'm not saying you can't have disagreements, those happen and you should embrace those. Give each other space to do your own thing for a few hours if necessary but always talk. I get hangry and L can go so much longer than me without food. So we travel with snacks; little things like that make it work. When planning a trip, you have to understand that not only are your best qualities going to shine through but your worst ones as well when there's a hiccup in the plans.