My Experience: Italy
Written by Payton Paull
The month and a half I spent abroad in Italy felt unreal. It was just amazing to be living in another country and to travel around with students from Mizzou. It’s a trip where you have to be uncomfortable to become comfortable. You had to go out of your comfort zone to experience life over there. There were language barriers, strange foods, currency differences, and cultural misunderstandings. But I can strongly say those aren’t a big deal and it is worth being over there!
The trip I went on was in Bergamo, Italy through the Trulaske College of Business at Mizzou. I stayed in a hostel with around 65 students who were taking the same classes as me. We got to take those classes and do projects with the Italian students at the school! We had one class with a Mizzou teacher and another class with a teacher from the Bergamo college. She was very good at speaking English though. Then on the weekends, we got to travel to wherever you wanted to go. Little scary, but once you just think the whole plan through you got it.
Living in Italy was great. We stayed at a very safe hostel where the employees were very helpful and would order us food (not a lot of food delivery there). The food was great and the people were great. Might have gotten some weird stares for wearing shorts but they were very accepting and nice to us.
My favorite weekend trip I went to Barcelona, Spain and this was one of my favorite weekends. We went to the beach and the water was literally so clear and beautiful! They have the dish called Paella that might be one of my favorite dishes now. We saw the Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, which was really cool to see. The architecture and designs were just stunning.
My favorite day trip was in Lake Como, Italy. I went there with a bunch of the girls on the trip, we had a cute little breakfast overseeing the lake. We had rented a boat beforehand so we got on that next. It was the cutest little boat with a very nice driver who drove us around the lake and showed us this waterfall and George Clooney lake house there. Lake Como was just breathtaking, and if there was just one day I could go back to, it would be this one.
After the program, I traveled around with 2 other girls to France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, which was just amazing as well. This trip was the best experience I have been on. It just honestly seems crazy to look back and think about how I was in Europe to study/travel. I am home with family and friends now, but I really do wish I could be back in Italy right now just eating stracciatella gelato!
