Growing up just north of Kokomo, most of my vacations until I was an adult were to Florida, and I loved every minute of it. I didn’t study abroad in college and didn’t travel outside of the U.S. until I was in my early 30s, and I attribute some of that to my tagline: “Love to travel, hate to fly.” Whenever I’ve landed in a new destination, the first question from each member of my family is typically, “How was the turbulence?”
But recently, for my sister’s 40th birthday, we went to Tuscany, Italy, and stayed in the small village of Cortona, which happens to be the namesake of Cortona’s Italian Cuisine & Wine Bar, a wonderful restaurant in Fortville that is run by Simone Lucarini, who grew up there. The turbulence was minimal and the time with family in the Italian countryside is a memory I’ll have forever, topped off with an unexpected night in Milan attending a Taylor Swift concert.
As I was sitting at a neighborhood wine bar with my mom on Friday evening in Rome, ready to fly home the next morning at 9 a.m., I received a text from my cousin, who was coincidentally in Milan with his wife and sister: “Are you still in Italy? Do you want to go to Taylor Swift in Milan tomorrow? It’s a long story but we have an extra ticket.”
My mind was quickly made up that I would not be getting on my flight home the next morning, but would instead be on a train to Milan, three hours away. There’s something exhilarating about last-minute decisions that are made in seconds, especially as a chronic over-thinker. I didn’t think about how long it would take, how far the train stop was from my cousin’s hotel, or if I even had clean clothes left. I just said yes and had the absolute time of my life. It was such a cool experience seeing passionate fans and the more casual fans, like myself, singing at the top of their lungs for three hours straight on a Saturday night in Milan.
So I came home and decided to think less and do more.
Who knows where it will take me – or you!
