Rome, the Eternal City, as they call it--it didn’t take long after moving here to earn a bachelor's degree to fall in love with it! Just one warm cappuccino and a friendly smile on the Italian barista’s face and I knew this city would soon feel like home. Here, cobblestone streets lead to ancient ruins full of old stories that tell us about who we were and who we are today. The live music of street performers resonates in the ears of friends hanging out at a local café. Italian grandmothers hang their family's clothes on an extended laundry line outside their windows.
Then there's us John Cabot students: young, wide-eyed world travelers, willing to try and learn everything we can. After getting lost in Rome’s winding streets, we accept the fact that we won’t always find our way, even with the assistance of Siri. So we find new piazzas to eat our gelato in and more hidden coffee shops where to drink our cappuccinos. We enjoy ourselves, and we laugh a lot. But through it all, we build resilience and a willingness to attempt the things we never thought we could.
That’s what life is like here. If I could fit it into a sentence, life as a student at John Cabot University is la bella vita, or the beautiful life. You’ll see with time, the world bella becomes a common word in your daily vocabulary--subtle, and yet it defines all forms of beauty. In Rome, beauty is in everything, and everything is beautiful.
As I watch the city transition through the semesters from hot summer days to chilly autumn afternoons, from rainy winter nights to warm spring mornings, Rome continues to make me cry, laugh, dance, and sing. And through all of its transitions, I am still as in love with it as I was the first time I came here as a 16-year-old tourist.
The pursuit of happiness lies in la bella vita. For me, pursuing happiness meant choosing to overcome my fear of travelling alone and to reconnect with my European roots by studying at an American university in Italy. So if you must, pursue happiness with everything you have--because you might just find it, too.
Everyone's road to Rome is different - Watch Kehisha's story
Kehisha Johnson
Class of 2022
Major in International Business
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia