Last Day of Summer

Guest Post By: Lucy Wood, a Senior studying Marketing. She studied abroad through a Foster Exchange and Direct Enroll at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, during Autumn Semester 2022.

A week and a half after my arrival in Milan, 40 hours of Crash Course Italian lessons later, and one sunny, 83ºF day, 2 friends and I decided to take a day trip to Lake Como. We woke up at 7 am to take the tram and metro to the central Milan train station to catch an early morning train to Varenna. The train was so crowded that we couldn’t find seats. This was not a problem as we were so immersed in getting to know each other better as we had only met 10 days prior. We talked a lot about what it is like to learn English as a second language growing up in their countries because English was the common language everyone conversed in. An hour later, still in conversation, we arrived in Varenna where we walked around and basked in the warm sunlight. The weather was perfect- the sun was shining high, and I was excited to be visiting a new place with new friends. After walking along the water and through the town, we decided to sit and have lunch before setting sail on our ferry ride to Como on the Lake Como. At lunch, we continued our conversation about our different backgrounds, families, and friends. From there we embarked on what we thought was a 2-hour ferry ride… 2 hours later we were still baking in the sunshine on the ferry and looked at the map- we were only halfway through the lake, another 2 hours until we would reach our destination. Fortunately, the only upsetting thing was the direct sunlight, so we went inside the boat and rested. When we arrived in Como, another friend joined us and added another perspective to our lengthy conversations about the world. We stopped for gelato and took some pictures. It was like catching up with an old friend, only we were catching up on our entire lives. The following day, classes began, but I was so grateful to have this last day of summer.