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This is what I came here for #viadeglidei #hikingitaly (at Emilia-Romagna)

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You don't know how much you love the silence until you hear it. #hikingitaly

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Ok Bella #hikingitaly (at Monte Adone)

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Yo good morning #hikingitaly

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Goodbye Bologna! Rn I sit in piazza maggiore for the last time, the starting point of the 120km walk to Florence, because how else could I leave an adventure like this without starting another one? 6 months of my life, it's been my absolute dream, I cannot believe how unbelievably blessed I've been to have this experience. So, onto the next adventure, 7 days walking through Emilia-romagna then Tuscany, before flying to Copenhagen to trek around the north for a month. Two months ago I phoned mum and said I wasn't unhappy, but knew I could be happier. And 6 months after leaving England, I never could have imagined this joy. Thank you for this life and everyone in it✌️ see u in England!! 💕 (at Bologna Centro)

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Things I’ve learned 5 months in Italy

-how to live on pizza and gelato

-how to travel

-how to make friends

-how to chill tfo

-how to speak italian

-that i can do whatever i want in life, its what we prioritise, and my priorities are different now

-that life is a dream

-that it can also be normal

-how to move countries

-how much i prefer hotter climates

-how hard it is to live in 37 degrees every day

-how beautiful rain and thunder are

-to eat a lot more fruit

-to go to backpack around the national parks in denmark, sweden and norway

-to realise my dreams

-to climb volcanos- probably the best part of the entire trip

-that the next biggest lesson is how to be okay with this being over

-how amazing life can be

-how thankful i am to be alive

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5 months in Italy

I cannot quite belive I’ve lived here for 5 months, and importantly, thats its going to be over soon. I have enjoyed it so much, and learned so much about myself, and the world we live in. I’ve became a completely different person, I’m more confident and happy and know how to relate to the world better. I’m excited because I can speak a lot of italian, and I look forward to speaking with my italian friend marco, from bristol, who is visiting and travelling with me on sunday. Tomorrow I’m going to Milan again for a weekend of drawing for my summer project for uwe, and then I will go to lake garda and a beach nearby, and also travel to rome and naples again. after that, i will send my things home and move out of this flat, and then i will stay with friends, before walking from bologna to florence to start training for my next trip. after florence i will get the train to milano and fly to copenhagen to take an adventure around denmark, sweden and norway, flying back to the uk from oslo in late august. i would like to spend a couple of days in london then, then go back to sherborne, and then again bristol. I had no idea, 5 months ago, who i was going to be. but i knew i would change. i have experienced joy and pleasure i had no comprehension of, you really are living the life when pizza and gelato are part of your every day experience. I have travelled extensively, italian friends complimenting me on the fact i’ve seen more of italy in this time than they have seen in their whole lives. I feel that because of the quality of the education at Aboba, this has been much more of a travel experience for me than an educational one, however I have got a+ in both illustration and life drawing, and i will do my fashion exam next week too. i have however learned how to work in a way that is more relaxed, a fascinating concept to me that you can be a wonderful artist, designer, without the stress that britain imposes. I’ve really changed my mind about the way the world works, and I no longer want to do a lot of the things I used to, because I’ve had more time to reconsider this life and my choices. 

I feel I’m dragging this out, there basically arent words for an experience of growth like this, other than the fact that its been unbelievable and I will always hold this time so close to my heart.

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Venice biennale and Damien hirst

As I'm coming to the end of my Erasmus, which I can hardly believe it's gone so fast, I'm basically doing all the trips away I can to see Italy before I go on my next adventure (more in another post) so this weekend I went to Venice. I visited in April too which of your going for Venice itself, go then because this trip was peak tourist season and it really changes the way you perceive Venice, but the reason I went again now was because I had the luck of doing my Erasmus during the biennale, the biggest art festival in the world. It waaas amazing. The them was 'viva arte viva' and it deal with a huge range of subjects but of course, and as if should, most discussed issues of race, gender, feminism, environment and politics. It stimulated a lot of thought around the subjects and the most exciting thing was making me think about the spaces in which we create and also helped me contextualise, or rather, justify, the need to procrastinate or be unproductive. It mentions in the giardini main pavilion, and this is not particularly in keeping with capitalism, but that we need rest to let our subconscious minds do the work. I found this a really inspiring concept seeing as I feel it's something I've really been able to learn whilst on Erasmus, to allow things to come and go as they will, because I can trust the course of life to give us the things we most need. It's largely installation, film and sculpture, and it also inspired me with how I can turn my fashion more into art, as I feel that is the direction I'm going in because I've learned now for sure I don't want to promote capitalism or materialism, but instead promote and environmentally and ethically sound approach to fashion using high quality materials and cut, with simple colours, in keeping with minimalism because I think this better promotes a spiritual and humanistic experience of life. Cannot reccomend the biennale more, and in fact I certainly intend to return for it when it's next on in 2019, and hopefully go to the second biggest one which is in Germany! I also learned that when I return to the U.K. That I must visit more exhibitions because my soul literally thrives on time taken to appreciate art for itself. Notes on Venice: The first time I went to Venice I was disappointed and this time it just hurt. This city has 50 years before it's underwater, no longer accessible for even our children, yet it is so geared towards to consumerism of tourists, selfie sticks everywhere and bottles of coke and polystyrene blaring out chart music, masses of energy used and fuel burned, the water is filthy from all the boats. I just find it ironic that so many flock to this city, but the consumerism they go with is what is destroying it, and doing much worse things all over. I also find it upsetting seeing the ignorance of people, who seem to go just for the Instagram pictures. I ask you when you go to be conscious of how you treat this city and allow it to make you respect the world more, not take it for granted. Damien hirst: Treasures from the wreck of the unbelievable. I found the pieces gorgeous but somehow not particularly compelling. I feel almost like he missed something with this project and although they feature the extravagant materials and uninhibited approach he's known for, I left feeling somewhat unastounded. Also the most amazing piece is in the middle of the first room you enter and I think it picks up your expectations. Don't travel for this show, but if your in Venice I would reccomend looking because it was still worth the €15 student ticket. ✌️

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What did I do this morning? Book flights to Copenhagen to travel around scandinavia solo for a month after my last month in Italy. See you in September England! What an amazing life 💕🙌🌸 #travelbug

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What I’ve learned Month 4

-How strong you are

-How to have a home inside myself, not external to me

-To be so so much more comfortable with people than ever before

-To not feel so threatened by people either, everyone has good intentions.

-How good life gets!

-That you can tick two things off your bucket list in one month.

-How to get back in touch with myself and my joys and how this influences my work for the better

-That I actually really like illustration

-That the italian men literally love me

-How deeply lucky I am to have met some of the people I have here

-The deep, deep love you can have for your friends

-What it feels like to have friendships with guys where they are your brothers, you don’t just have female friends

-That travelling alone is wonderful

-That travelling with people is wonderful

-That parting from that group feels like leaving your family

The most important thing I have learned this month though is, my capacity to feel joy. Up until now, I never knew actually how happy I could possibly be, I knew I could be happier, but I had no concept of just how deeply I can feel joy. This life is so so spectacular, it started when I was in Vienna, I likened it not to living the dream, but instead, waking up to a truer sense of the world and my relation to it and myself than ever before. 

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May Part 2

So I move out of my flat on the 23rd, after an emotional goodbye to marco, a very good friend that I enjoyed knowing a lot, he was like a brother to me. I brought all my things to tomimmas because I could not move into my new house yet and then left hers and went to Muhterems to get up and go to sicily at 3am.

We left for the airport, and when arriving with an hour to get through security to our gate, we were confronted by the biggest queue of people ever, there must have been 1000 waiting to get through. Luckily, this moved quite quickly, tho we had something like 15 mins to get to the gate. I had my perfume, conditioner, hair oil and suncream taken from me tho because the bottles were too big! So we board the plane, sit for 30 mins, I actually fallen asleep. Then the pilot tells us we must get off because they have technical problems. We wait 5 hours for our next flight. Tho we were fed and we also will be reimbursed for the flight. We arrive in Palermo, drop our stuff and go to the beach. The following day we wonder around the city, the heat is intense and we stay in the shade a lot. At this point, I did not feel like touring another city, as so far I have now been to

Sienna, Florence, Naples, Rimini, Ravenna, Venice, Palermo, Catania, Rome and Padova. I want to see the countryside now.

The following day we head to a natural reserve, hiking along the cliff edges with our backpacks, beautiful view of the ocean. We arrive and although we’re not supposed to, we pitch tents at the beach, get into our sleeping bags and lay by a fire, the stars spilled across the sky like salt on a black table. The following day we wake up at 7am, are sunbathing on the beach at 8, we have a stretch of one of the worlds most beautiful coastlines to ourselves. We hike back and start an intensive journey to Palermo, after swimming, sunbathing and generally luxuriating in the heat. Travelling back was hard because we got trains and buses rather than a taxi, and it taken us about 5 hours, and several times almost missed our trains.

The following day we got up and got the train at 7am to go to Catania, the other side of sicily. I slept on the way there, but the others said it was beautiful, so on our way back to Palermo I stayed awake to watch. We travelled around Catania for the day and then thought about where to camp.

The plan was to get a bus up mount etna early in the morning the following day, but it suddenly occured to me that it would cost us just as much to get this bus to the refuge point as it would to go there tonight by taxi and just camp up the volcano. 1000 meters above sea level. This way we can hike it properly not just get a cable car up. So we arrive, at 11pm, its freeeeeezing up there and we have to find somewhere to camp. We walk around a bit and theres a load of wild dogs howling, and we come across a spot to camp that is flat, but literally on the side of a crater. As we walked along we could hear the sounds of the little explosions happening underneath our feet. We pitched the tents, really scared but very excited. We started seeings lots of police cars driving around with their blue lights on, like they were searching for someone. They came past us a few times, for all we knew it could have been for a missing person. Anyway, it was a strange, strange night.

In the morning, we got up, went to the hotel for a coffee and started our ascension. We’re carrying our 10k backpacks, not properly equipped and there isn’t even a proper path. Its literally just scaling up the steep sides of a mountain of powdery dust. Every step you take up, you slide back 5 inches, and its so steep at points you have to crawl. You fall a lot as well because of this, though luckily there is a lot of space between you and any sheer drops, unlike mountains. I cried when we reached the second refuge point, 500m from the top, because I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer strength it taken, it was the physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and I was also very frightened, by the intensity of climbing europe’s biggest, most active volcano. We reached the top and there was steam coming from the crevices, and ice, and then just a thick cloud engulfing us and the mountain, and all the landscape was firey black, a very surreal view, like being on mars. We climbed down, got the couch back to Catania and slept (on one of the french boys shoulders!!!!!) We went to find a beach to camp on, with bottles of lovely sicilian wine, we lay by the ocean, again under the stars, discussing astrology and philosophy. It was wonderful. The following day, Robin said he could see a small eruption from the mountain that happens occasionally. We went to Palermo, spent some of the day there with one of our friends, a sicilian named Matteo who shown us around the city. Muhterem known him from another exchange when she was younger. We went to the beach again. Then we went and slept at the airport before our flight home.

So i’ve been back in Bologna 5 days, went to Ravenna to go to the beach because I’m not ready for life without beaches again yet, and moved into a house with 8 italians, they are crazy!! We have a little kitten and theres a dog too, and a garden and it must be 10 minutes from uni. Like I go very much at all anyway. Tomorrow I’m back to fashion. And I’m applying for internships in Paris to take a gap year in between second and third year, I’m not ready for this part of the adventure to end.

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May Part 1

I haven’t written anything in ages because I’ve been having such an amazing time having the time of my life!

So to be clear, I left Bologna to go to Ravenna for a day on the 5th of May from there I travelled to Vienna in a blah blah car. The driver spoken no english, and I was alone with him over night, driving through the italian alps, as the temperature dropped, no one else on the roads at 2am. The signs start turning to German, and we’ve crossed the borders. I literally just felt like I had woken up. About a month prior to this, on a very low day I wrote down things I needed to do, one was ‘travel alone’. The list was things I said I would regret doing if I didn’t push myself. So there I was. In hindsight I feel like this was the actualisation of some pretty serious growth I did in March and April, which were really tough months until my family visited. Anyway.

So i saw Klimt, The Kiss, and as this was a mission I’d been wanting to do since I was 17, Klimt represented a lot to me (my first fashion project) and things I had been through since that age, and finally seeing it was life totally coming right back round full circle, that everything that had happened had finally been laid to rest and built back upon. I was travelling Europe alone basically. The rest of the trip I also seen Schiele, Kadinsky, Paul McCartney, Yoko, Monet, The Feminischt Avantgarde exhibition and I went to a design museum which included Helmut Lang which was endlessly inspiring me to get back towards fashion. Another thing visiting Vienna did was remind me how much I LOVE FASHION and need to pursue it. I befriended the locals, and the students whose air bnb room I stayed in, I ate cuisine that wasn’t italian and I loved it. Vienna was exactly the adventure I needed to really realise where I’m at in life and how proud of myself I should be. I also bought a book on existentialism there too so I’m getting to come back to my passions in philosophy and ethics. I was supposed to get a blah blah car back at 7am which lol, i didn’t wake up for, so I was charged 50 euros for and was suddenly stranded in austria. So the cheapest and most sensible thing to do was to get a train home, which was 14 hours to Milan overnight. It was great because the view of Austria throughout sunrise was so so so stunning, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I arrived in Milan at 9am, and went to an exhibition and walked around the city. I then got a lift home to Bologna with my friend, Simone. 

I tried to focus in school the next few days but I was also looking for a new apartment to move into, as my place finished on the 31st of May, but I was leaving for Palermo on the 24th so had to move out before then. I went to most of my classes, but also went out and had a lot of fun in the nights too. One time I lost my bag, and the police emailed me to tell me they had found it, they then delivered it to me and afterwards I received an email from the one that gave it to me asking me out for a drink. Be aware of being blond in italy. 

Look at next post for part 2

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Last night cookin #bologna #friends #lasagne

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Ciao sicilia 🌞 #Sicily #Italy #travel #holiday #erasmus