Fall quarter 2007. It was 4 o’clock in the morning and I was up to my neck in Aristotle. I paused for a moment, averting my eyes from that hateful, hateful text, and took a sip of a warm, restoring sustenance.
We all remember the lessons from elementary school: the videos, workbook activities and guest speakers that continually told us that smoking, drugs and alcohol were bad.
It’s hard to say what my expectations were when I set out for Italy. Looking back now, I guess I was expecting the quintessential Italy trip: daily walks on cobblestone streets, gelato slowly melting in the warm glow of the sun, lounging on a green grassy hill while overlooking the Tuscan landscape and eating a picnic of various meats, cheeses and bread … basically everything you see in the movies.