missing florence

When I started college I knew that there was one experience I couldn’t miss out on; studying abroad. One day on campus they had a study abroad fair and I spent the afternoon walking around from table to table browsing brochures for adventures all around the world. My imagination went wild thinking about the experiences, sights, sounds and people that I would meet. I was happily day dreaming until I stopped at one of the last booths at the fair. It was for the company Cultural Experiences Abroad and I paused to pick up a booklet on living in Italy. I flipped the pages from Rome, then Venice, then Milan, then Firenze. In that moment my entire life changed. Studying abroad in Florence was to become the single most defining moment of my young adult life.

I remember that my parents drove me to the airport early one August morning and as I stepped out of the car, feeling nervous and anxious, my mother hugged and kissed me, looked me straight in the eyes and told me that “your adventure starts now”. I’ll never forget that moment and the months that followed.

I am having a week where I am deserately missing Florence and when my roomate from living abroad emailed me Jasmine Star’s blog with photos from her recent trip there…well it made my day that much better.

Honestly, could there be a more magnificent city in the world? To me…absolutely not.

{Via}