Days 26-27

Hello, again! Currently on the bus back from hiking in the Alps. By some miracle I’m not exhausted after our 6 hour hike, so I might as well get in the habit of writing while the memories are still fresh. I cannot believe how much was packed into the past 40 hours.

Our alarms went off at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM yesterday morning, long before the sun even considered gracing us with its presence. We trudged our way to the train station to meet our school chaperones at the bus. Luckily I’ve gotten very good at sleeping on public transportation, so I caught up on some sleep and the ride went by in a breeze.

The first stop was Sirmione. We got there a little after 10:00 AM and were told to meet back at the buses at 11:30 AM. Spoiler alert: we did not make it back on time. Honestly, I don’t even know what the point of making this stop was if we only had a little over an hour. The entrance of the town was a beautiful castle, which sparked the explorer inside all of us and we started walking down the coast to the Roman ruins that were supposedly at the end. We were then going to walk back through the town in order to see everything in the short time we had, but after all of our picture-taking and dog-petting stops, we ended up having to race back to the bus without seeing any of the town. The only complaint I have from the whole weekend is wishing we had more time in Sirmione.

But never fear! My grievances were soon forgotten when we arrived at Verona. Since this city is the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet it is absolutely bursting with romance. On every railing or fence there is at least one lock with initials on it signifying the everlasting love of every freaking couple that has ever been to Verona, but nothing compares to Juliet’s house. From writings on the walls, to locks, to bandaids, to notes stuck on the stone with gum, people do whatever they can to put some mark of their relationship on the legendary house. People come from all over the world and leave notes in almost every language to represent same thing. Love.

On a day to day basis, hate and negativity are at the forefront of current events, and therefore most of our thoughts. It’s almost impossible to see all of the horrible things that humans do to other humans and not feel completely defeated. Because of this, all of the beautiful selfless moments of humanity get thrown on the back burner. My favorite thing about Juliet’s House is that for the first time in a long time, unconditional love was plastered everywhere I looked. This was one of the rare moments when I could genuinely feel love’s transcendence; that despite what you may see and hear, the good in the world does outweigh the bad.

The positive energy from the day continued through dinner, which was full of great people and a ton of laughs. It also didn’t hurt that the meal was included in the trip so we didn’t have to hand over a penny. We got back to our hotel (which was called Hotel America… Figures) and fell asleep after being awake for almost 20 hours.

We made sure to get up early enough to eat a hearty breakfast the next morning, because it was time to hike in the Alps! The bus ride alone was so breathtaking that I would have been satisfied with just turning around and going home from there, but the second we got off the bus and felt the cool sweet air we were ready to freaking GO!

It’s a good thing we were so motivated because the hike ended up taking 6 hours total. We walked 45 minutes to the first waterfall with water so pure we were apparently allowed to drink from it. During the walks barely anyone spoke. I don’t know whether it was the endorphin rush from so much walking or the aesthetically pleasing views, but it truly felt like there were no problems in the world up there. Once we got back to the bus I felt like I had done a 5 hour mediation.

I’ve had a few amazing weekends spent in Italy, but I’m really excited for a change of pace in a different European country. Be sure to check back next week to hear my thoughts on Munich and Oktoberfest! Until then…