Everyone has things they are afraid of.

I am definitely not excluded from this. I have always been afraid or nervous about change, whether it was in my daily routine, my environment, or the people I was with. Going into college, I knew I wanted to challenge these fears that have been holding me back for so long. I knew that breaking this habit would be hard and signing up for the Joseph S. Bruno Trip to Italy would be one of the things to get me past this roadblock in personal growth. It turns out, I was definitely right.

Before I arrived in Italy, I was definitely feeling the negative emotions of change. I was scared, and that is completely normal. It is okay to be scared. It is okay to feel nervous. It is okay to not know what to expect. Doing something out of your comfort zone is challenging and in no way should that make you doubtful of your abilities to face your fears or take that big step. With this, I learned to not be so hard on myself for feeling these things because 20 other girls were feeling the same way as me.

My experience in Italy has helped me learn to take everything one step at a time. Even though not every day is going to be perfect, my time in Italy so far has been a dream. Even though I have only been here a little over a week, I have fallen in love with every inch of Italy. The food, the culture, the atmosphere, the nature, the history have all shown me that there is more to life than what I am accustomed to and that change is a good thing rather than a bad thing.

With love,

Alex