This past summer I traveled to Trento, Italy with 6 students for a Summer Abroad Program. I met each one of them through this trip and as a result, we became friends, uniquely bonded by our travels together. I never had the opportunity to thank them for the many ways they supported me during this wonderful adventure.

To my Study Abroad friends,

Thank you.

Thank you for being kind. I went into this trip blindly, and looking back I am not sure what I expected to take away from the experience. I cautiously went to our first meeting together expecting to feel all alone. But, the conversations that we started within the first five minutes made me feel comfortable, and I knew that I didn't need to pack my feelings of loneliness, I could leave them at home.

Thank you for your companionship. We crossed the Atlantic Ocean and traveled to a foreign country. We all left family and friends at the airport. For me, it was leaving behind my mom and my family, who I had gone to Italy with exactly 10 years earlier. As we navigated our way from Milan to Trento: planes, trains, buses, and cabs, we instinctively became companions. Traveling together and looking out for each other, I am certain that because of this fellowship, it turned out to be an amazing adventure.

Thank you for being understanding. Although the trip was only for one short month, it didn't feel that way in the moment. Many of us went through times of feeling homesick, or we just missed comforts of life in the States. No one had anything mean to say when those times were upon us, because we recognized the shared connection. We understood the feeling without naming it, and we respected it in each other.

Thank you for being considerate. We never hurt one another. We treated each other carefully, mindful of the existing stress that we each carried: stress from traveling, stress from studying, just stress. We all made the best of our time there together and for that I thank you.

There were certainly many amazing memories from our time abroad. The food, the day trips, the amazing experience of life in Italy. My summer in Italy may have been my best summer to date. To all my friends on the trip, you made it that way, and although we haven't seen each other since, for that one month, we were as close as anyone could be!

I worried about that trip endlessly. I was afraid to leave and lose the new connections that I had made during my first-year in college. I was afraid that I would be homesick for the entire month. The truth of the matter is, I was homesick, I admit that. But during the times when we were all together, I forgot about that feeling. I was able to be in the moment with you all and fully enjoy our time together in Italy.

Every one of you will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Ciao, amici. And Grazie!