The sweet surprise of the semester was Verona, Italy. This little town just an hour outside of Milan gave me one of the best experiences of my life, and it was so unexpected. My roommate Lynnsey and I decided to travel to Verona on somewhat of a whim for a weekend. All of our previous knowledge of the small city revolved merely around Shakespeare’s story of Romeo and Juliet, but instead of a tragedy (slight Shakespeare humor) we ended up having an amazing time.

First and foremost, Lynnsey and I are not on the planning committee. The planning committee consists of my other roommate and two of our friends. Their job is to book a place to stay, decide on train tickets, and plan particular activities to do. It worked well in Florence and Pisa, but this time Lynnsey and I were without them. Needless to say, I was quite worried. After only getting an hour of sleep, we finally ventured on our own to Verona early on a Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. Once our quick layover in Bologna (a place I must come back to!) ended, we were off to Verona traveling through some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. When we arrived, we quickly walked straight to the arena, which looks like a miniature Colosseum. Although I didn’t get my gladiator on, it still felt incredible to be there. It was crazy to see how this structure was still standing even after being built nearly 2,000 years ago.

After the arena, we ended up at the most notorious spot in Verona: Juliet’s balcony. Lovers, hopeless romantics, and people from all over the world overran the patio below. To get to the balcony you first have to walk through a tunnel of love notes. People stick these notes all over the walls in hopes of finding true love. Of course Lynnsey just wrote “#SingleAsAPringle,” and for me I wrote a heart warming letter to Juliet: “help a sista out!” Once you make it through the tunnel the next step to finding true love is apparently rubbing the statue of Juliet’s right breast. In my opinion that’s more sexually violating than a sign of good luck, but it’s tradition and we participated. The most entertaining part was watching a group of British elementary school boys fight over who would get to touch the breast. One boy in particular, the one who fought the hardest and won, had a wide grin on his face while groping the young Juliet. The adults who were overseeing the boys took their photo while onlookers spent their time pointing and laughing. I must admit it was hilarious, but I’m also slightly concerned for that boy’s future…let us pray.

Location: Verona, Italy