Rylin McArthur: AU Business — Fast Track Business Major Core Program in Rome, Italy and Madrid, Spain, Summer 2022
During the Italy portion of my summer abroad, my friends and I chose to take a trip to Sorrento during our first free-travel weekend. I had already visited Sorrento when I went on a school trip to Italy my sophomore year of high school, but I was very excited to return and explore the city independently with my group of friends.
It took 2 train rides to get to Sorrento, but once we were there, all of us were ready to soak in all that Sorrento had to offer. We started by walking around the city, stopping in some shops and making some necessary purchases. We eventually found ourselves at a spot overlooking the water, and we were all taken aback with how beautiful it was. We took a few pictures here and found a spot to enjoy some delicious Italian food for dinner.
After dinner, we started on our journey to find our Airbnb. We knew the place was not within the city center, so we figured out what bus we had to take to get there and hopped on. After getting off the bus, things started to go downhill (or literally uphill, as I should say). The directions to get to the Airbnb weren’t very clear and kept taking us to random spots that seemed to be at the very top of several hills, which we all had to walk up. Eventually, we called the owner and figured out how to get to the right location. Once we got there, again, we were mind blown by our view of the scenery and water.
The next day, we ventured back into the city to take a ferry to the Island of Capri for the boat tour we booked. Capri was insanely beautiful, and thankfully we had a couple hours to walk around and explore before getting on the boat. The highlight of this weekend trip was definitely the boat tour. My 9 friends and I hopped on this boat (we pretty much took up the whole thing) and were able to ride around the island for 3 hours, stopping by a cave to swim an hour into the tour. It was amazing to be able to experience the dark blue water and towering caves with all of my best friends in the program.
Unfortunately this was only a weekend trip, so we had to train home the following day. It was definitely challenging at times traveling around Sorrento and Capri with such a big group, but the memories and experiences definitely made it worth it. My friends and I became extremely close during this beginning portion of the program, which I believe set us up to become the best of friends throughout the whole summer. This is only a snippet of my experience while studying abroad this summer, and I have nothing but good things to say about going abroad. If you are interested, even in the slightest, about going abroad, I highly recommend looking into some options. It was the best decision I’ve ever made, I promise you won’t regret it!