GROW WITH SARAH GRACE

Study Abroad – a time where forever memories are made, the good and even the bad. Now I don’t mean bad in a literal sense here. I mean yes the familiar things but besides those downs, you can have memories that are stressful and chaotic but make your stories in a few years, amazing. My trip to Verona, Italy was just that. 

I’m going to be honest, I was secretly hoping for a trip from hell like the one I had in Verona. I mean the stress at the moment was a little much at times but I knew it was a trip I would never forget. Before I came to Italy, I was chatting with my Uncle Chris about his study abroad experience in Denmark and he told me stories of how he ran out of money and was stranded in countries and all that jazz and I kind of wanted my own version of that to tell for years to come. 

My story begins at the very beginning. My friends and I decided to spend half the weekend in Milan and take a train to Verona to spend the second half of the weekend. Our first half in Milan was perfect so I guess we had what happened, coming. 

As soon as we stepped foot out of the train station in Verona, our stress began. It reminded me an awful lot of the moment Hannah Montana stepped outside of her plane into Tennessee instead of New York. We stepped into the sunlight and saw a bus station full of teenagers and a few buildings meaning we were in the middle of nowhere. 

At this point, we discovered that one of the members of our group didn’t really want to come on this leg of the trip so it was a bonus to all the stuff happening. We read signs, google translated to drivers and did a lot of running around until we finally figured out what bus we needed and what direction. We sat our butts in some seats and waited for a few stops to get off for our Airbnb.

We kept saying “This isn’t what Verona is. It’s almost like Rome, we’ll see it in a few stops.” A few stops later, it was the end of the line and the stop we needed for our villa. We step off the bus and realize we are still in the middle of nowhere. So if the city of Verona isn’t a four-minute walk from that bus station, we are stuck in the suburbs of Verona.

We walk the four minutes and find our villa. It is in fact not in downtown Verona and in the middle of a suburb. Now it’s not awful. I mean our villa is a cute little place and it is nice and cozy. We even had donkeys for neighbors so it was quiet and relaxing, in a sense. Of course, to get to downtown Verona, where the action was and what we really wanted – the house of Juliet, we had to take a bus for 30 minutes. 

We asked our BnB host what we should do and he handed us a paper map and said bus 90. Yes, you read that correctly, a paper map. We opened it up and stared at it for a few minutes before looking at each other and said “okay so, what do we do?” We decided to walk to the bus stop we got off on and figure it out there. Waiting for us at the bus stop was an abandoned bus. Great, another confusing obstacle for us. 

We whipped out the paper map and forgot about the abandoned bus. Let’s just make a note that if you don’t want to look like a tourist in Italy, don’t pull out a paper map and stare at it for ten plus minutes. Finally, we got somewhere. A bus driver came and got in the abandoned bus and started it. We waited for the number of the bus to appear on the back and before we could notice a number, the driver drove off. 

Perfect. So we laughed and lowkey cried that failure off and before we knew it, another bus pulled up to the stop. This time, I decided we should have a little chat with the driver to clear some things up. Of course, they didn’t speak much English so I muscled through and spit some basic words I knew in Italian out to explain we were trying to get downtown and needed the 90 bus. 

He then explained in the best English he could that in eight minutes, the bus he was driving was going to head downtown and would take us where we needed to. I had a lot of faith in this man because, well, I was tired of looking at a paper map and I was hungry. We got on the bus and waited eight minutes before we started moving. For all we know, we could be headed to France but I didn’t care, we were going away from that dreaded bus stop. 

After some research, one of the girls in our group downloaded a bus tracking app and found out that the bus we were on was going the right way and in about 20 minutes, we should be by the house of Juliet. Perfect! Our night was turning around… but with all stories, there has to be a turning point. Yeah, we haven’t even gotten to the worse part yet. 

We got downtown, had some dinner, got our gelato and even picked up a bottle of wine to drink once we got back to our villa to have a nice relaxing night after so much stress. Little did we know, our stress wasn’t even at its peak yet. Let’s skip a few hours and now we have to get back to the villa.

At this point, our story is taking place at a gelato shop that is a 20-minute walk away from all the action downtown. We aren’t in the middle of nowhere necessarily but also not in a good place for transportation. To save money, we decided we should take the bus. We are experts at this thing now, right? 

I mean we know the number we just have to follow our paper map. We whipped it out and after twirling ourselves around with the map to figure out which way we were facing. The final verdict? We were lost, again.

I walked into a nearby pizza shop and asked if the 90 bus was near us and the worker said no. Okay great, another dead end. That’s fine, I believe in myself so we walked to where I’m 85% there is a bus stop. Turns out, it was the right stop but the bus was going the wrong way. 

At this point, we are all slightly starting to freak out. We knew we had to find a taxi and just spend the money. Uber isn’t a thing in such a small city so we had to find a taxi station. (In Italy, you can’t just wave down a taxi as you can in New York. There are designated stations for them around popular areas.) Of course, these populated areas are a 20-minute walk from us. 

We started walking and eventually found our way to the Arena and found a taxi. We gave him the address and were on our way. Phew! A good ending to our story… well not yet. The taxi driver takes us to a parking lot. We said this isn’t our destination and had to direct him the right way using our google maps. That wasn’t horrible, just a bonus to the adventure. 

We enjoy our bottle of wine and relax at the villa for the night and the next morning, we catch a bus to downtown without an issue. Yay! Our trip ended quite alright but we did have a slight hiccup at the end. As we were finding a taxi (because the bus system was running too late), one of the girls lost her vaccine card. We calmed down and realized that a copy of it was enough for us back to Rome and we could deal with it there.

Our story ended happily, we saw the house of Juliet and got back to Rome on time. I guess the moral of the story is to get an Airbnb in downtown Verona, never rely on the bus system and most importantly, breathe! It will all work out in the end. So to anyone out there just enjoy the hiccups and remember them greatly because they will be the best stories you tell your kids (or nieces!).