I spent most of my summer traveling, studying abroad, and visiting family in Italy.

When she was my age, my beautiful cousin Diana decided to study abroad because (just like me) she wanted to travel the world, meet new people, see new things, and just get the hell out of normalcy. She fell in love with the culture, environment, people, places, food, wine… and a handsome young Italian man named "Stefano." Now, they are happily married living together in Italy and she has spent the past 11 years teaching English in the commune of Forlí. What a fairy tale, am I right?

Once I found out that East Carolina was offering a similar program only two hours away from where she lives, I knew I had to go. Although, I had quite a different experience.

I fought through the jet lag and dove right in to spend my first two weeks completely immersed in the Italian culture, while in Forlí visiting my cousin. We journeyed around the unreal-looking countryside of hills while seeing castles, old landmarks, and ruins while also partaking in wine tastings, shopping, spa days, and more along the way. It was a complete fantasy and dream come true for the both of us.

To make it even more memorable, I built lasting and strong connections with her adorable friends. All married to Italian men, the diverse group of remarkable ladies had come from all over to stay and then become best friends by sharing the common bond of having the same taste in men.

Try keeping up the conversation while in a room with Italian, American, Irish, German, and etc. accents surrounding you… what an experience. Getting to meet her friends and see the marvelous woman my cousin had become within her own natural habitat was more than significant. We made conversations, memories, and bonds like no other- ones in which couldn't be formed over her short occasional visits to America.

Once it was my time to venture over to my assigned purpose, I was reluctant to leave her, seeing that I was having so much fun with my newly made friends. I also knew though that the following part of my trip would create an even greater chapter in my life.

Getting over to meet them was the hard part- I should add that I had never studied a single bit of Italian in my entire life and since I was in a non-touristy area, not a single person knew a lick of English. Imagine a helpless little blonde-haired blue-eyed white American girl roaming lost through a shaky train while straddling her bulky carry-on bags and speaking the little bit of Spanish (a similar language) learned in grade school. The Italians wanted nothing to do with me and I just needed to find out when to even get off. I went from Forlí to Bologna and then had less than 10 minutes to catch my train to Naples. Then I had to take a bus to the airport where I would wait for the driver to then take me to the hotel where the rest of the students were already… good times.

In all honesty, some days were long, hard, and absolutely exhausting full of blisters, sweat, and even tears. I remember having substantially high pre-expectations for some occasions that instead turned out to be seemingly-never-ending days weaving through a plethora of muffled foreign languages and presumably immobile, and obnoxious, tourists. It became very apparent that people are extremely capable of hiding any hard moments while traveling, on their social media pages- including myself. The moments I always found to be so great were the ones which I didn't expect. I discovered the beauty in reality by simply living in the moment and appreciating everything as is.

No, I did not meet my prince charming and traveling abroad is not all sunshine and rainbows, to say the least. There is a culture shock, jet lag, language barriers, and many other unexpected factors involved. It was full of challenges and hardships that forced me completely out of my comfort zone- but the adversity I faced brought me back to reality and gave me one of the most astonishing experiences I could have possibly fathomed.

I learned not only about others, but also myself. It opened my mind to many things that you have to actually visit, in order to fully grasp. Those two months completely changed my life and made me a better, more-experienced, cultured, and knowledgeable individual.

If you ever get the chance to travel or study abroad, go see for yourself.