la bella vita.

a song to set the scene // heaven can wait by dean martin

If there’s one thing I learned about the Italians it’s that they love to eat.

And if there’s one thing I know about my gem is that he lives to eat.

Me? I too love to eat.

And drink.

And shop.

And travel.

Lucky for us, Italy provided.

My gem and I just returned from the most magical trip to Italy.

As questions pour in about our vacation: how was it? what did you do? what was your favorite part? I look down at my still tanned Amalfi arms and smile.

Where does one start?

I could look through the thousand photos I took and point out the highlights: the Napoli Sottereana, pizza in the piazza, charcuterie in the streets, visiting Pompei, pasta at the Spaghetti House (mama Mia the pasta!), Monte Solaro, Blue Grotto, espresso con pannas at Andrea Pansa, walking through the film set of The Equalizer 3, the beauty of Positano, or the day spent sunning on the beach in Atrani.

Gosh, I didn’t realize how many memories were tied to food. What did I say earlier? Ah yes. “The Italians love to eat.”

I could also choose to glaze over the not so pretty stuff, but those are the stories that make for the most entertainment later. Like:

Walking through “Cat Piss Alley”, coughing up 40 euros for a glass of rose (damn that view was almost worth it though), almost getting hit by taxi, not realizing you had to press STOP on the bus, therefore missing our stop. Oh, and let’s not forget showing up to our dinner reservation only to find that the restaurant had closed the week before.. and somehow neglected to inform us.

But, like most things in life, the stuff that sticks out are the moments in between. They’re the fractions of a second I chose to close my eyes and hold on to that feeling for just a little longer.

They always say “time flies when you’re having fun”, and I felt that, deeply. There were moments in which I felt time was just fleeting; like, is this even real?

It was so magical, so dreamlike.

The food, the drink, the views, but especially the company.

There’s one distinct memory I have, where I felt that I had truly died and gone to heaven.

My gem and I were on our private boat tour of Capri. After the brief but thrilling visit to the Blue Grotto, where we were lucky enough to have the whole cave to ourselves, we laid down at the front of the Italian gozzo boat to enjoy the rest of the ride.

I was laying between his legs, the last hint of the Italian sea sun gracing me with warmth, and my gem started to give me a massage.

With the careful caress of the sea rocking me to relaxation, and his hands working magic on my shoulders, I closed my eyes, forgot everything else in the world, and just smiled.

My gem looked down at me, at the tears of joy pooling around my eyes, and knew exactly what I was doing.

“Holding on to the moment?” he asked.

I nodded, smile spreading.

I was so happy. I felt so lucky. To be here, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, with my love, on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast. It was like a scene out of a movie, and it felt so unreal that the only way I could believe it to be true was to just close my eyes and soak it in.

This is happening. This is real.

La bella vita.

To answer everyone’s question, and to answer my own, my favorite parts of the trip were in those moments, in the times I closed my eyes.

Because the thing is: I can revisit those memories, anytime, anywhere.

Every time I close my eyes, I can go back to St. Andrew’s Square and melt as I take another bite of octopus confit.

Every time I close my eyes, I can revisit Andrea Pansa and soften as the house-made Chantilly whip cream in my espresso con panna bring about feelings of love I have never felt towards coffee before.

Every time I close my eyes, I can be back on the beach in the sea-side village of Atrani. There we are, walking along the sand picking up sea tiles and glass before diving into the warmest, clear, sparkling ocean.

Every time I close my eyes, I can toast to my gem and revel in the moment in which we made it: here, and now.

Despite the struggles it took to get there, despite the painful moments of growth in our relationship, and our continued walks through Cat Piss Alley, my gem and I were truly the luckiest: in love, and living la bella vita.

And I can go back there: anytime, anywhere.

All I have to do is close my eyes.

Sunset on the sea in Capri — Our sunset cruise of the Island of Capri. Truly heaven on earth!

Steps from St Andrew’s Cathedral was this little restaurant with the most delicious octopus confit.

Andrea Pansa, located in Amalfi, was our breakfast spot during our stay on the coast. Every morning, it was *due cappuccino* and *due sfogliatella* finished with the best *espresso con panna* I had ever had.

The Napoli Sotterranea- an extensive labyrinth beneath the city of Naples that began in the third century BC when the Greeks excavated tuff blocks to build the city of Neopolis. It was then used as an aqueduct by the Romans, and later a bomb shelter during WWII.

Pizza at La Figlia del Presidente. After my fiasco at the airport, my gem took me here. It was the best margherita pizza we had in all of Italy!

Three espressos later, my gem and I pose for a photo after our coffee tour.

The Spaghetti House- diving into the Tartufo Provola plate!

*“Look! You match!”* Me and a glass of crema di pistacchi.

My gem and I decided to walk up to Anacapri, which most just take a taxi to get to. It was a haul, but the views were definitely worth it!

The Monte Solaro Chairlift, where a limoncello spritz awaits you at the top!

An essential in every Italian dinner- Caprese.

Our 5 star meal after discovering our dinner reservations were for a high class restaurant that had closed the week before. Three pizzas for 12 euro and enjoyed in bed? A far better alternative.

Prop car #1 and #2 for the film set of *The Equalizer 3.*

A moment in time: my gem hanging up our laundry.

Best meal in town? One prepared by my gem.

The Perfect Traveler.

a song to set the scene // i still haven’t found what i’m looking for by u2

It was to be our first big trip together.

Just the gem and I- 5400 miles away, vacationing for the first time together in the splendid country of Italy.

As the months counted down and we finalized the planning, I started noticing curious sorts of comments from those around me.

“Wow, first big trip! You’ll really get to see if you travel well together after this.”

“If you guys can get through this, you can get through anything!”

And so on and so forth.

Well, lucky for him, I was the perfect traveler.

Never lost a bag, never missed a flight, and I always showed up chic and stylish.

Piece of cake, I thought.

Ever heard of expectations vs reality?

Yeah, it’s a thing.

Because everything that could go wrong went wrong.

My first plane was late, so I missed all of my connecting flights. For the first time ever, I had to find an agent and reroute my entire trip.

I couldn’t get my eSIM to work, so I had to chase down someone over the phone who could help me get my phone unlocked.

Someone spilled cranberry juice on my lap.

When I did finally show up in Naples, I neglected to notice that baggage claim was before security checkpoint. So I went through security… and my bags were stuck on the other side.

Reuniting with Andrew was not like the movies. While he glowed like some big bucatini Italian man, I was instead: frazzled, smelly, sweating in my merino turtleneck sweater that seemed like a good idea when I left Alaska, and crying.

Getting my bags proved to be rather difficult. After butchering our way through explaining how yes, I walked past baggage claim and through the security checkpoint that you cannot cross back into, I was very rudely escorted back to where my bags were, suffering through the humiliation of being talked about in another language.

Retrieving my “bags” was the icing on the cake because I was only able to find one. My other bag? Not there. Gone, lost, stolen, had missed a flight somewhere, I didn’t know, but it wasn’t there. Which meant, that in my frazzled, smelly, sweating in my merino turtleneck sweater that seemed like a good idea when I left Alaska, and now emotional state, I then had to file a lost bag claim. In a foreign country. By myself.

Welcome to Italy, you so called perfect traveler.

Unfortunately, my tumultuous arrival set the scene for a very tinted trip.

Already feeling the dissapointment towards myself at how poorly this “perfect traveler” actually traveled, I started to feel somewhat self-conscious.

Surrounded by Italians, who were some of the most beautiful people in the world, I compared myself to them, feeling plain and so insignificant in their presence.

In places where I once would’ve reveled in the beauty and grace, I instead pulled at my clothes, feeling like a wrinkly, cheap, dirty napkin.

As we traveled from city to city, I felt like the laughing stock, the dumb American who traveled with way too many bags.

And whenever I felt like this, which was often, it had an effect on my gem.

Of course it did. This girl wears her heart on her sleeve.

And when this happened, in came the self-loathing.

What a failure.

What a dissapointment.

What an embarrassment.

He’ll never want to travel with you again.

I hated myself.

How could I be like this: here, in Italy?

This was supposed to be our trip. It was our salvation, our saving grace during the exhaustive summer months and here I was: ruining it.

This wasn’t the kind of thing I read about on my travel blogs.

This wasn’t the kind of scene I pictured when scrolling through Instagram reels and picture perfect posed shoots. Snotty faced and hiding in the bathroom that I paid 1 euro to use and sitting on a toilet with no seat wasn’t exactly what I had imagined.

But it seems that wherever you go, there you are.

I was sharing my trip with my counselor a couple of days ago, and he started the session with that quote.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Taken from Jon Kabat-Zinn, I found myself struck by that sentiment.

It had such simplicity and honesty to it.

See, for a good portion of my trip, I had loathed myself for not living up to this expectation of the perfect traveler I had touted myself to be. Beating myself up for “feeling that way” in Italy of all places, in what was supposed to be this perfect trip, I neglected to realize that wherever I went, there I was.

And being a different country doesn’t change the fact that I’m still in the process of learning. I’m still in the throes of growing.

Looking back now, the stage had not been set for success. Over-confident, and maybe slightly naive, things happened that were completely out of my control. I became overwhelmed, quite honestly, and totally out of my comfort zone. Resenting myself felt right because historically, that’s what I’ve always done. And that’s okay.

I just wish I had practiced some of that compassion and kindness to what I was going through, and not judged myself as harshly for feeling the way I did.

But that’s how you learn and that’s how you grow.

It seems that this so-called perfect traveler is learning exactly what it means to be a perfect traveler.

A perfect traveler does not, in fact, travel perfectly.

In actuality, what makes a perfect traveler is her ability to adapt to all things imperfect. The perfect traveler experiences all the problems, all the delayed flights, all the missed bags, and all the language barriers. She accepts the shi* on the street, navigates the vespas, and remembers to not wear wool when traveling to the south of Italy because she already made that mistake once and she is not showing up frazzled, smelly, and sweaty again.

She takes on challenges with a smirk, learns from each mistake, pays attention to and accepts how she’s feeling without judgement; and over time, becomes that perfect traveler she’s meant to be.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Baggage, and all.