By jahdaimoriah
The first time I went to Italy I was sixteen going on seventeen. I went with my high school, for our choral group went on tour every spring break to a different country (I went to boarding school). During our Italian tour we stayed in a small town known as Faiccio. At the hotel we stayed in, I became friends with the owners daughter. Although she was three years older than me, we bonded over our love of Facebook and Rihanna. Gaia and I stayed in contact through Facebook periodically checking up on each other. Fast forward more than four years later, I am back in Italy and Gaia is in college in a small town called Viterbo.
She messaged me a few weekends prior, insisting that I come stay with her for a weekend. I finally booked tickets and went to see her this weekend. It was over a four hour train commute, but I am glad I made it. Gaia is what I will categorize as someone I see being a life long friend. Although my Italian is not the best and neither is her English we both made it work speaking a mix of my favorite Splitalian (spanglish and Italian . Gaia definitely made it clear that I was a guest. She took care and paid for everything even though I continuously insisted that she let me pay for something, anything but my insists fell on deaf ears. Gaia showed me around Viterbo and another surrounding town, introduced me to her friends and roommates took me to a disco and even cooked me dinner. We talked as old friends; laughing about normal young adult girl stuff. Its amazing to me that even though we are an ocean apart and yet we were able to stay in contact and be such good friends. I can not wait to for her to come to the states where it will be my turf and I can treat her with the same hospitality as she did me.