WHY I DESIRE TO TRAVEL AND YOU SHOULD TOO.

Everytime you give me the opportunity to start a discussion, I talk about traveling. There is nothing that makes me more excited than going somewhere; even better if I've never been there before and I get to discover it.


I'd travel my whole life if I could. There is a quote that goes like this "Life isn't meant to be lived in one place" but also this one "We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong" and I couldn't agree more. I feel sad thinking that I am doing the same shit everyday. Y'all know, I wake up every morning and go to school, come back and study, complain about how much stressed I am during the free time and go back to bed, in order to wake up the next day and do the same thing. 

At school you have to listen to teachers who sometimes can't teach anything at all, the only thing they can do well is talking and make their mouth going. If only teachers, at least where I live, were more passionate about their job, cared a little more about their students and instead of talking hours just because they get paid they would insterest their listeners, school wouldn't be so bad.

I want to travel because why not. Why should I stay in my home town every day? What makes it interesting? Nothing. I know by memory where everything is and what everything costs, for example. I appreciate my home town only when I am away from it for long, so at that time I miss even the little things of Milan. Now that I know what's like to live where everything is new and people don't know your story or name, I for sure want to do it, again. I want to start from zero, again. For someone that was the scary part about the exchange year, they cried when they arrived in their host countries, but I was actually really happy with my life as it was.


When I get older I want to be able to tell good stories to my family and friends, I don't want to say something like "I'm good, nothing new.." but instead I want to tell them how much fun I had on road trips, adventures, hikes and travels around the world.

When I say I want to travel I do not want necessary to spend 5 days in a hotel relaxing, but I want to get in touch with locals, find out non-targeted places which are as cool as touristic ones and not only take pictures to remember stuff but also make actual memories.

I am for sure going to Copenhagen and Budapest in the next few months, I can't wait to see where this 2016 will take me to. Where will you travel to this year?

- Cris

DEAR NEW YEAR..

... please be full of joy. Make my friends and family happy. I want to travel and live a new life again because I feel like that's what I need right now. I learnt a lot about myself this past year, I wonder how much more I can learn if I leave again..

My wishes for 2016 aren't a lot, but they are big ones. I don't ask to be rich and famous (yet), but I wish I get to see my exchange friends and family again because they are far away, and distance sucks. I also hope I will be an international student in college and that I will find my way in a foreign country.

Last year I had champagne at midnight with my american family, this time I get to celebrate New Year's Eve in my home country again. The company will be different but the situation will be the same: a bunch of people making toasts and counting down the minutes for the start of a, hopefully, wonderful year.

I read on the internet that for someone 2015 has been a crappy year. The purpose of this post is to share positive thoughts. My year has been actually pretty good, at least for the first half of it. Your year will come soon and you will get to show who you are to people. You need to work on it and to be patient, time is the key. I remember complaining about the fact that I had to wait a year before I could go on exchange: It was 2 years and a half ago, now I already came back and I've got just 6 more months of high school. There are just a few days left of 2015, live them up the best we can!


2015
- I traveled somewhere I've dreamt of visiting for years.
- I met a lot of international students.
- I went on a road trip.
- I tried new foods.
- I learnt new languages.
- I caught 17 airplanes.
- I spent the 4th of July in America.
- I went to the MTV EMAs.
...

2016 ?
- Coming soon.

Share your 2015 with me in the comments!
What would you like to achieve in 2016?

- Cris

DEPRESSION POST-EXCHANGE.

Hello guys, I'm going through a tough time, but I know I am not the only one. I see a lot of people talking about homesickness during exchange, I want to talk about the one you feel post exchange, because according to me it is the worst kind. You know you will never live the life you lived in your host country, you scroll down your camera roll and you think "Was this real? Was I there? And were they there for and with me?" yes, yes and yes. It was real, but it felt like a dream, and not even a long one, but a really short dream.


I remember when I was getting into the plane from my home country like it was 5 minutes ago. I remember crossing the gate and receiving a text message from my dad saying "Do you want to meet? Maybe if you enter this shop we can meet again". I responded "Dad, I just saw you" and I kept going forward because I was ready to go and I wanted him to be too. Even if I came back to say goodbye one more time, eventually I'd have left again and it could have been harder for him and my mom.

My adventure ended, forever. By the time everything was getting so perfect in every regard, I had to go home. It is like I paused my american life, but I know I cannot resume it.


It is hard to move forward because everything here is the same, same school, same roads, same habits, same crap. The only thing that changed is the level of difficulty of school, and it changed badly.

But we need to keep our adventurer soul alive, archive the past and live the present. I have so many plans for the future that I do not even know which one to choose. I am thinking on studying abroad again, as an international student, so basically I will be out of my home country for my whole college career. Also, I wanna try to do my internships elsewhere because my goal is to travel as much as I can while I am young and to meet amazing people from all over.

While abroad I found out who I really am and I want to keep on doing what I love. People will think you are crazy if you leave again, they will say you don't care about them. The truth is they don't fully understand you. They don't understand that you don't want to take just a vacation but traveling is your passion, you do it because you love it and maybe you need to. I feel like I can't fully express who I am at home because everyone knows me, everyone think they know my limits, the truth is they don't. I would do so many things if I could.


I'm gonna stop here, I don't want to lose the point of the post:
After exchange there is another step: depression. But after that there is you and your decisions. Make good ones and live again. Exchange was just a chapter of our book and we need to keep writing it. Remember, we left once, we can do it again. Exchange is gone, but something else is on its way.

- Cris

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN EXCHANGE STUDENT?


Of course the answer to that is TO BE, and not only because you learn a new language or because you get to spend one year abroad, but also because you get to feel emotions that are really unique and impossible to put into words. That said, these below are some of the reasons why you should consider going on exchange:

1. You get to do fun stuff (almost) all the time and while you do that you grow. 
You can do the same things you are used to do in your home country and find out that there is someone who does them differently. For example pasta for me is the main dish, I basically eat pasta everyday but when I was in the USA pasta was a once in a while deal.

2. Normality doesn't really exists.
Something that might be normal for you can be weird for someone else on the other side of the world. I saw people going to school with flip flops while I was on exchange but that would be considered weird in Milan.

3. You understand that the world isn't so huge but it can actually be "small". 
There can be differences from one country to the other but there are things that stay just the same everywhere.


4. You are a learner but also a teacher, sort of.
It is important to be an exchange student because you are not the only one who learns something, but you get to teach others as well. You will have the chance to tell people stuff about your country. As Italian I had the opportunity to tell people that we aren't all part of mafia, we don't eat always pizza, we don't know what or who Alfredo is and that Mario and Luigi are real names.

5. Fight your "fears" and be brave.
If you have the courage to leave everything that is familiar to you, for the whole time abroad you have the courage of experiencing the unknown. In Milan people considered me as a shy person, but in the U.S. I definitely tried not to be. Basically when people asked me to do something I've always said yes. I've done a lot of stuff for the first time and I am really glad I didn't waste time but I enjoyed every single moment instead.

6. If you don't take this chance, you'll regret it.
You have to be an exchange student because if you decide not to, you will regret it. It is something we have to do when we are young, when our priorities aren't numerous and we can learn how to adapt to many situations. Also, it is the time you meet your best friends, from all over the world.


Sometimes students say "What if my host family won't be nice to me? What if I won't make friends? What if..?" That's wrong. I thought the same things before leaving but you know what? I experienced a lot, I had and still have a beautiful American family and friends. I know that I have been lucky and things can also go wrong, but it is worth it to try. I am financially the same as I was 2 years before but I feel rich. Rich of the right things, rich inside.

 READ ALSO: I am not the same person I was at the beginning of my exchange year.

- Cris

WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR?


Last year I had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time. I had a turkey for lunch and I spent time with my American family. It was truly a good experience for me. At one point we all stood up and held each others' hands saying what we were thankful for.


This year's Thanksgiving is behind the corner. Even if in Italy we don't celebrate it, we all have something to be thankful for. I am thankful for having family and friends like mine. I am thankful for all the things my American family did for me, for all the people who have been always by my side and dealt with my personality no matter what.

"Thank you mom and dad for believing in me. Thank you, sister, for being a mom to me. Thanks brother for growing with me day by day. Thank you, friends, because you don't expect me to be anyone else but myself. Thank you to all the people who have been nice to me even if I was a stranger to them."

This is a North American holiday, but we all should take 5 minutes of our time to say 'thank you' to someone who deserves it. We wouldn't be the persons we are if it wasn't for the people around us. Imagine there's a person who's going through a hard period, you can change his/her day in better if you are nice to him/her.

"Be nice to everyone, always smile and appreciate things 
because it could all be gone tomorrow."
"Be nice to everyone: You never know what they are going through."

- Cris
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