I spent the past semester studying abroad in Rome, exploring Europe, and soaking up the Italian sun. The last four months taught me several lessons for successful travel that I’d like to share with you.

1.  Always check current events.  My friends and I learned this the hard way.  After only two weeks of being abroad, we decided to take a weekend trip to the town of Atrani on the Amalfi Coast.  Only a train and a bus away, the trip seemed anything but daunting until various Italians, tourist information booth attendants, and ticket counter clerks openly laughed at us when we said that Atrani was our intended destination.  Cryptic warnings such as “the water is not in the river,” and “the garden came down the mountain” should have alerted us, but it was not until we arrived in Atrani that we finally realized a mudslide had flooded the town.  Apparently, the mudslide was breaking news all over the Italian media.  But vacationing in a disaster area was not as terrible as we expected, and this brings me to my second point.

2.  Be fun and flexible.  Sometimes the best situations arise when plans fall through or things go wrong.  One weekend we planned a trip to a sculpture garden called Sacrobosco, only an hour away by train.   When we arrived, however, we discovered that we had to walk 7 kilometers down a highway from the train station to reach the garden.  Walking down an Italian highway in search of an elusive garden had not been on my bucket list, but what started as a fiasco became a fun adventure. When we finally reached the garden, we felt as though we had won the Olympics.         

3.  Talk to strangers— with discretion.  While traveling on a train one weekend, my friends and I met a man named Ferdinando, who was convinced that he could improve our Italian by conversing with us.  But we came to find that Ferdinando’s lessons were not limited only to language. He also shared his intriguing opinions about the musical abilities of his supposedly Julliard-bound niece and how Steve Martin made white hair look cool.  Thanks to Ferdinando, the 7-hour train ride went by like a flash. 

4.  Try new foods (even if they sound weird).  The squid-ink pasta I tried in Venice is definitely not on my list of favorite foods.  Even so, just as travel glitches are transformed into legendary tales, menu mistakes turn into memories.  And there are some foods that just never fail, like gelato.     

5.  Take “too many” pictures.  Pictures, unlike postcards, are free and you remember a place so much better if you photograph it yourself.  If you’re worried about looking like a tourist, your American accent probably gave your identity away already.      

            It was hard to end my adventure abroad but I like to think that I have come back to Notre Dame a little wiser (or at least a little more interesting).  Whether you’re planning on studying abroad, traveling for fun, or just living your life, I hope these lessons come in handy.  Perhaps the best thing I learned abroad is that every day can be a great day to be alive. 

            Stephanie House majors in underwater basket weaving.  Contact her at shouse1@nd.edu.