Traveling With a R

There is an art to traveling that I’d never really known about until I was thrust into this sudden phase of my life characterized by wandering. Lately, I rarely stay in the same place for longer than a month or two at a time. I’ve been flying back and forth between Italy and Arizona simply due to a quirk in bureaucracy. Without a visa to study in Italy, language schools notwithstanding, I can’t stay for longer than ninety days. Safe to say, I’ve learned a thing or two about living out of a suitcase.

One of the things I discuss on Optio Instagram captions is the importance of a routine. I can’t stress enough how crucial it is to your mental health. Without one, everything feels chaotic and far off without a means of orienting yourself to new surroundings. To keep from free-falling, treat your routine like camping equipment. You have an assortment of gear that can be arranged and rearranged according to the terrain, climate, flora, and fauna of wherever you may find yourself. Those are the building blocks for you to maintain a sense of normalcy in exotic locales.

Personally, one example I would use is the sanctity of my morning. I need it like an American teenage girl needs her Starbucks Frappuccino to have extra whip and no condensation. Perhaps a better example is the itch that can’t be scratched: customer’s need to explain to an employee how to do their job as they sit down for their lunch break, exhausted. Or Jeff Bezos’ need to deduct bathroom breaks from paychecks.

In the morning, I typically eat breakfast after taking an age just to slink out from beneath the blankets. My choice is always a pastry of some kind and some coffee, after which I workout and then go about my day from there. At home, my tendency was to grab a blueberry scone and a Mocha Frappuccino from the Starbucks drive-thru. That’s right, I was the basic bitch all along. And yes, I do ask for extra whip and wipe down condensation with a napkin. In Italy, I was thrilled to find out that native Italians have a similar routine of something sweet and bitter. Though there’s nothing bitter about a Frappuccino, I was baptized into coffee culture by the humbly elegant cappuccino. Had with a ‘cornetta’ in Italian, though everyone reading should picture a croissant, it births the most delicious pairing I’ve ever had. I opt for the ‘ cornetta di marmellata’ in most cases.

For working out, I was lucky to find a local gym that is set up in an abandoned Anglican church complete with frescoes and wooden rafters that filter sunlight through what once were stained glass windows. Truly an amazing place. There’s something about having a saint gaze down upon you while you pump iron that induces the religiosity of exercise, framing it in a whole new light that somehow makes sense. I like it, a lot.

When you travel, be sure to keep some of these ideas in mind when it comes to a routine, and hopefully my anecdotes are witty and entertaining enough to subtly get my point across while making you laugh a little.

Buona fortuna a tutti! Ciao!