About 10 months ago, I was sitting at my department meeting and the topic every year of studying abroad in Italy came up. I knew that this was something I was to do, but if I was being honest I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t think I was the person with the passion to go to this amazing trip. My professor then said that a new opportunity would be open for Audience Engagement.
Now let’s back track, what is Audience Engagement? To be simple, it is marketing for the Troy Theatre and Dance Department. To be real, it is the way to attract audiences to your content. It is the constant question of what are the trends? How do we get people to notice theatre and dance content? How do we get people to come to our show? It is basically just marketing but in a different style because it is for art. It is capturing the art for the eye.
So going back to the meeting, ideas were constantly moving in my head. During this time, I was manager of audience engagement for the Troy Theatre and Dance department, so I knew I had a year to prepare for the trip. I immediately emailed my interest and that was that. It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I heard back and found out I had gotten accepted. I honestly couldn’t wait.
Here we are now in Italy, and I am here to tell you my experience of the traveling to Italy. The do’s and don’ts, what to pack, all the nitty gritty that everyone loves but hates doing. Or maybe it is just me who loves talking about it but truly procrastinates it to the last moment possibly (I’m working on it).
The Start of Traveling- Driving to Atlanta
Now, that morning I woke up pretty sluggish and definitely took my time. I was tired, I couldn’t sleep the night before and was moving around all night honestly. Excited and nervous at the same time. I woke up that morning, showered and prepared myself for a long day but little did I know how crazy it would be. Mom and Dad offered to drive me to Atlanta so I didn’t have to drive myself but also didn’t have to pay for two and a half weeks of parking. We got on the road at about 7:35 (I made us 5 minutes late for the road) and we drove on. DO leave with plenty of time before your flight. International flights are normally in the afternoon and TSA is crazy. My flight was at 4:30pm that day and also Atlanta is an hour ahead so we had to plan for that as well.
As soon as we got in the car, I slept the entire time until we were passing Six Flags over Georgia. The entire group needed to be there are about 1:30pm, but we made it around 12:45 but about 15 minutes was taken up for trying to find a parking spot. We finally found a spot and went on our way to check in. When I got inside, I went and exchanged some US dollars for Euros. My teacher recommended we get some Euros before leaving just in case everything goes wrong.
Atlanta to Paris
Our first flight was from ATL to Paris. It was about 8 and a half hours so I knew I needed to prepare. When we got through TSA, I went and got some lunch and snacks because
- I am a picky eater and I knew if I didn’t like the food on the plane, I wouldn’t eat it.
- If I don’t drink enough water in a day, I will feel lightheaded and have a headache a majority of the day.
- I honestly wasn’t sure of what to expect so I over-prepared in case.
Now, what I did do was bring a giant book bag on the flight. It was huge and I could fit a puppy in there. There was even a little suitcase packing style area to where I put two extra outfits in case my luggage was lost. In this backpack, I packed everything you could ever think of probably. My computer and charger, 2 extra outfits, all my chargers(portable included), my glasses, notebook + pens, jewelry, extra toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, makeup remover + cotton pads), skincare, towelettes in case I didn’t want to use ones in bathrooms or hotels, my little medicine pack (mostly for headaches), wipes, hand sanitizer, a tote bag, my kindle, water bottle, wallet (with everything including license, passport, covid vaccination, insurance, all the things in case of emergency), an envelope with extra copies of important documentations and my itinerary. I probably left something out but that was the basis.
The flight was interesting. I watched the tracker the entire flight. It was like once I got on, I couldn’t wait to get off. I downloaded some tv shows and movies before. I highly recommend doing this in case the plane doesn’t provide entertainment. Now during the flight, I was my antsy than normal. I normally can sleep super easy on flights, but this one did not happen. I had my neck pillow and I tried but it honestly didn’t work. So, I tried different things. I watched tv shows, I watched the flight tracker, I played games on the airplane screen, but the sleep wasn’t hitting me. When it was sundown on the flight, I finally was able to sleep for about 2ish hours. But when the sun was up (which it comes up earlier because of the time change) I woke up. We probably had about an hour left of flight so I was able to distract myself.
Paris to Florence
We land in Paris and we maybe had time to run to the bathroom and then we boarded. The second flight wasn’t as bad but I could tell I was exhausted. At this point, I was fighting myself to try and get sleep. So two things I wish I brought are
- A sleeping mask
- Melatonin or Tylenol p.m.
Normally, I don’t use either of these things ever in daily life, but things change when you are sitting in the not most comfortable chair for hours at a time. Luckily, the Paris flight wasn’t as long. It was about 2 and a half hours. If you are flying into Paris, be prepared because the landing was ROUGH. Like jerked back, hit my head on the seat rough. When we got off the plane, everyone’s luggage made it back and we got to our driver and got on an hour and a half bus ride to the hotel. As soon as we got on that bus, I clocked out. I felt I was finally able to get a little nap in. I was hungry, I felt disgusting, all I wanted was a nap and a shower. I was woken up when we got the the hotel and felt so relived. When we made it to the hotel, we were probably hitting the 24 hour mark. it had been a longggg day. We immediately through our stuff down, and walked to dinner. We rented bikes and called it a night. I struggled to sleep that night because of the 7 hour time difference but we had made it.
So, in shorts, it was a very very long day. What throws you off is the time change. Maybe 3 hours of darkness before there is light again and it has felt like the day never ended. My biggest advice is try to sleep. At any moment. Adjusting to the time change is difficult. I have been here over a week and feel like I still am struggling to adjust to this time change. Traveling can take a lot out of you, even if you don’t think it will. Your butt will go numb, you can’t sleep, you feel weird using the bathroom AND worst of all, you don’t realize that 24 hours goes by and you smell bad and want a shower.
Just keeping it real here. To all of that, hydrate, bring deodorant, wear light clothes and be prepared for a long day. It’s worth it though. Traveling can be a lot but constantly be prepared for things to changed, always have your IDs on hand and just be ready to move for the next step. A little rush can’t hurt anyone! 🙂
