(Photo by Niles Rooker)

I finally made it to Bologna, Italy. The land of all things food, perfume, and architecture. It’s been a wild 72 hours. I’m currently travelling this month with 20 other kids my age. In my little friend group, I’m the only one who can understand and speak a little Italian. It’s surprising how quickly you can pick up a language when you suddenly have to depend on yourself to communicate for everyone. The first day we woke up and climbed to the top of San Luca- which felt like a lifetime because we were so jetlagged. We climbed 113 stair cases - I counted. According to my friends pedometer app we walked 15,000 steps. Even though my legs felt like noodles it was 110% worth every step. The view from the top was breathtaking.

On the plane ride over, I met a photographer from Colorado, Niles Rooker. I was so impressed by his natural ability to capture people and places. He’s been travelling with me and my friends, and we enjoy doing shoots together when we go out. I love working with him because he’s so passionate about his art, and he’s a perfectionist- two qualities we have in common. He also plays guitar. We’re on a mission to find a guitar to travel with this month. I’ll let you know if we find one, but either way we’ll write when we have a free moment.

In the evening we went to a cooking school, Salotto di Penelope. There, we met two older women that taught us how to make homemade cavelli, flatbread, and tagliatella pasta. It’s tough to fathom the amount of time and effort that goes into preparing each meal. In America I feel like we’re always in such a rush to eat and keep going on with our day, but here eating is an event. You take time making it, and you take even more time eating it. It was fascinating to watch the process. We hand rolled. Every. Single. Noodle. Then we ate a massive four course meal consisting of prosciutto, various cheeses, flatbreads, two types of pasta, and an almond chocolate brownie.

We leave for Venice in the morning. I’ll check back soon.

Xo,

L I V

PS. To see more of Niles’ work follow him on Instagram @NilesRooker!