Man, this quarantine thing has really been getting me down.

If you know me, you know that I have a passion for going until I'm out of steam. I am always on the move. Being told that I can't use my steam and keeping my cooped up inside my four-walled bedroom is not ideal.

Yet, I've been attempting to make the best of it, but there are so many things I miss.

My friends, my life in Lexington, going out for coffee, and most importantly: TRAVEL.

I have traveled since I was 18 months old and have gobbled up every second I have been blessed to have abroad. Every place has been magical. I sit around my room and glance through the pictures I have of me and my family on our many trips. Que the single tear rolling down my cheek when I realize I won't be standing in the customs line of any country for quite some time.

So, I have decided that I want to do something about that. I'm gonna write about it.

Now maybe you've never been abroad or you've been to more countries that can stand on one finger, but this is simply memories and places that I love. I hope they find you in great spirits and hope of traveling one day soon when it is safe again.

To start, I think it is only fitting to speak on the beauty I experienced in the one and the only:

Italy.

I traveled to Italy for the first time in the fall of 2018. I was 17 years old and a girl who had been dying to see the Italian skyline for her entire life. My parents enjoyed their honeymoon in Belliago exactly twenty years previously and the photographs and polaroids had graced our living room shelves my whole life.

Our trip began in Verona, Italy.

After two planes, a train and a small, Fiat taxicab, we arrived in the pinnacle city of love. The home of the Capulets and the Montagues, as written by playwright William Shakespeare just centuries beforehand.

Our stay in Verona was breathtaking. The inner-city was placed on a river that twisted through the downtown and into the Tuscan countryside. On the first afternoon was had in the city, we came upon a grocer that was a sort of picnic starter-pack. My mom, being the artistic foodie she is, picked out the most divine meats and cheese and a nice bottle of wine to share with my dad. Together, we hiked up the hillside that overlooked the main square. The best meal I have ever had. Orange juice from the tangerine I enjoyed ran down my face.

It was heaven.

In the next few days, we enjoyed seeing the sights until we decided to pack up and see another town. Bologna, Italy, just down the river from where we had been. The train whisked by until we stopped in a town, unlike anything I have ever seen.

Bologna is very much a working-class city. The buildings are rough and worn and people move slowly through the heat, on to the next task. The streets reminded me of art drawn in paintings and in books. We stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of town but quickly walked all around. The downtown contained a large square, made within the midst of the ruins of a castle.

A found, full to the bring with fresh water from the river, sprayed as we walked by.

My brother and I enjoyed the freshest pasta, the richest bread, and the most bomb grapefruit gelato. I still have dreams about it. Spending days as a family, laughing and eating our way through a magical place in central Italy. More glimpses of heaven.

Now, my most inspired portion of these adventures. The place you will probably find my mother as an older, southern woman one day, head to toe in white linen clothes.

Venice, Italy. Venezia, Italia.

The only word I have to describe Venice is unreal.

Growing up, I feel people talk about Venice and they talk about how there are no roads. How it is all water and the only form of transportation is by boat or over footbridges. It makes sense.

Yet, once you see it for the first time, you begin to ask if it is even real.

Getting off the train and emerging into the main square. I felt as though it was a city I painted on a canvas back in my bedroom. Pure, unchanged astonishment. I could barely fathom it.

We stayed in a small, AirBnB on San Stae, one of the islands within the city on water. The taxi came as a boat and the owner of the apartment met us at the dock to meet us and help us find the door, hidden amongst canal bridges and overflowing flowerbeds. The water rushing beneath our feet glistened.

A sound I will never forget as long as I live.

The apartment had been owned by the wife's late mother, a native Venetian who grew up in the city. The interior was covered in white and the windows streamed with light as the draped billowed in the wind.

In the next few days, we simply explored. Eating plenty of melon and prosciutto to suffocated a large, Italian man. The Rialto Bridge, the fish market, and the gorgeous San Marcos Square. Each corner with its own stories.

If I close my eyes, I can still feel it all.

The heat, steaming off the clay roads in Verona. The wind blowing fast through the towers, 300 feet above the bustling city of Bologna. Saltwater and fresh mozzarella coming from within each establishment on the canal in Venice.

Memories I cherish and hope to see again soon.

Sydney Kuester

Sydney Kuester

Sydney Kuester

Sydney Kuester

Sydney Kuester