A couple years ago I had a crush on a man who was about to bikepack from Amsterdam to Berlin, stopping in Ghent, Belgium. I bought a round trip plane ticket to see him in Ghent because “it would make a good story”, and I wanted to start doing things “for the plot”. What followed was a series of decisions I stumbled through with him that were “for the plot”. I couldn’t be happier, but it also made me terribly sad.
I am an immigrant, and I’m proud to call myself one. Typically, white people call themselves “expats”. I’m not an expat. I did not move to Europe for work, I moved here for love. I do not intend to move back to the United States, but that doesn’t mean I ever will.
I remember watching the election results with my partner in the United States. If Kamala won, he would move to Colorado. If Trump won… Well, Trump wouldn’t win, right? We sat in a LGBTQIA+ brewery in Denver, Colorado watching the election results. The air of disappointment made it hard to breathe.
From that day forward I was getting rid of all of my things, packing up my life into two plastic containers, packing up my animals. Those things you collect by owning homes, by living life, ended up in the trash. I left my home I had recently purchased, my car, and my life.
Immigrant Instagram talks about mourning family events, missing home, food. No one prepared me for the loss of my identity, the frustration of feeling unaccepted in the only country you’ve known as home, and the new identity you’re forced into as a new immigrant.
I used to hear people say, “When you know, you know”. I understand what they mean now, and they’re right.
Lesson One: Everyone tells you can buy new things in Europe, and it is too expensive to move things. This is true, bringing beds, furniture, kitchen items, is silly. However, I wish I had brought one more box of things from my home. You’re already grieving, bring items that help you feel normal.
We moved to the Netherlands, but it became quickly apparent that the Netherlands was not the right fit for us. An older woman slapping me, a man throwing a water bottle at my golden retriever. Landlords that rented us a luxury apartment full of mold, near constant construction. Another country that didn’t work for us.
So within ten months of living in Italy, we were packing up again, this time Italy bound. My husband told me that Northern Italy resembled closely to Colorado, and I would love it there. We found a house with a yard, a landlord that seemed amazing, and things were looking up. I am lucky to have found a spouse that encourages us to do the hard things to find happiness.
But, when we got to our home in Italy I had exhausted all my reserves for fear. I was so petrified of deportation, something that is done so inhumanely in America, I would try to not leave the house. I would research laws to see what my rights were in between visa changes.
I would watch other Americans travel around Europe and break visa laws so carefree, why couldn’t I be like them?
During this time our ex-landlords would threaten to revoke my visa in the Netherlands, which is a pain to contest. It broke me. When we would go out grocery shopping I would make sure my husband was next to me. He would watch as I struggled to learn the fourth language in a year, getting terrible headaches from it. The constant changes in our lives had led me to only want comfort, which I found in bed, on my phone. I told myself I just needed to rest.
I had lost myself and it brought me into a pretty brutal depression.
The conversation that followed this image, taken about four to five months after our move to the Netherlands, was a “do we move to America now”. We sat at a British bar drinking beers as we discussed the pros and cons of returning. These types of changes aren’t linear, it’s okay to have doubts and even go back. Also, fuck mold.
Lesson Two: There are “core value” lists everywhere online. Pick three to five of them that you identify for yourself. Adhere yourselves to these. This is who you are, as an immigrant, as a native. This is all you have.
Somewhere along the way I started being scared of being wrong, of looking dumb, of failing. I cared about what other people thought, about how dumb I look when I respond in a mixture of Dutch/Swedish/German - and how I hate looking like a tourist in a town where I live. Being seen or acting like an “American” was shameful and embarrassing.
My head was full of “What Ifs” from my anxiety - the “what if you can’t talk to someone”, “what if you get scammed”, “what if someone laughs at you”
I have always been big into movements like “Seek Discomfort” and “Love over Fear”. Years ago when I had chosen my core values with my therapist, we pointed our “courage”, “critical thinking”, and “adventure”. I had given up on these values, and chosen “fear” and “comfort”. By not sticking to my core values I became depressed.
“I’m not myself” I would tell my husband. I had done the cool things for the plot, I moved to two countries in under a year, navigated different governments, driving on the Autobahn, cycled in Amsterdam, got married in Denmark. In under a year I had done so many things that distance me from who I used to be, I was unrecognizable to myself.
I did what any rational person would do to find myself. I borrowed my husband’s bikepacking gear, and decided to bike down the EuroVelo 7 of Italy for as long as I could during an unprecedented heat wave. I started to try and be more critical to my anxiety, and ask myself “what if I have fun”.
I have a ‘racing bike’, or a road bike with a cassette that is basically microscopic. It is not meant for hills, mountains or climbs - it is meant for the flat roads of Austin, Texas. Before I started this bike tour, I could barely run 3km - and I had not been working out.
The plan was to go all the way to Bolzano (85km) and camp. I started at noon, with my bike packed with an additional 10lbs of gear that I wasn’t used to carrying. I ended up pushing my bike up inclines that my thighs refused to help me up. By 4PM I was in Brixen (45km) at a brewery and I called the day to the end. I stayed at a hotel off the EV7, with a discounted rate. A German man saw me searching aimlessly for the entrance of the hotel and immediately helped me. People asked me what I was doing, and why, with genuine curiosity and excitement. I started to smile more, and I begun to believe what I was doing was cool. Maybe, even I was cool.
I walked around Brixen as a tourist, even though it is less than an hour drive away from my home.
In a pale orange building, on the second floor, with the windows open was an apartment lined with religious ornaments and books. I watched an old Italian man walk into that room, in a full suit, and open a beer. It felt like a scene from a movie. I found an appreciation for the blue of the river that runs through Brixen, which looks like it was dyed with some strange cancer causing American food chemical. I found amazement for myself, that I live here, in Italy.
Baja Blast River looks more Baja Blast-y in person, you’ll just have to trust me.
Lesson Three: Be a tourist in your town, in your new country. You’ll never fit in, you’re not native. That is okay.
On day two, from Brixen to Trento (113km), I rode through some of the most amazing tunnels in a downhill that felt never ending. An old train line was rebuilt to be a dedicated bike path - going in between tunnels to see the mountains and hear the river flowing was invigorating.
I made a friend. German Steven is a software engineer writing C# that bike tours yearly to “find himself”. We biked for hours, talking about vacations, families, our spouses. Normally I would be weary of men trying to bike with me. But I ended up really enjoying his company, as he made miles fly by.
Around noon, the heat eventually came to fight me. I told German Steve goodbye as I went to throw up all the water and food I had eaten next to five construction workers. The construction workers quickly ran to me with water, fanning me, encouraging me to sit down. Other cycles rode asking if I was okay. Normally, a gaggle of construction workers would be a bit intimidating for me. But these men offered me all they could to make sure this woman who just jumped off her bike to puke off the side of the road was okay.
It was a pretty nice view to throw up at.
There was a train station nearby. I carried my bike up the train station stairs, hopped on to realize I was only 30 minutes bike to my destination in Trento. I looked so rough that a woman with a stroller got up and offered me her seat.
When I had cooled off in Trento I walked around the city, which is as romantic as all Italian cities. They played ABBA in the streets as I devoured an entire pizza in seconds. No matter how difficult my days were on the bike, it was the city centers that filled me with so much gratitude.
How am I living a life where I am seeing this?
Lesson Four: You did this. You did the scary thing. Appreciate yourself.
Day three I started early. At 6:30AM my best friend texts me that she sees my Garmin LiveTrack starting, and I am excited that she even cares to notice. The shade from leaving Trento to go to Cisano, next to Lake Garda, makes the first 30 miles incredibly easy. I stop at yet another bike cafe along the EV7.
Italy’s biking infrastructure is insane. Not only lining the EV7 are there cafes, but bed and breakfasts, water stations, and shaded areas.
I had my bike computer stolen in Berlin a year ago, so I am using my phone to navigate all of this. This means stopping every now and again to make sure Komoot knows where the hell I am. I stopped on a bridge, and a runner came up to help me. She barely speaks English, I barely speak Italian. When she realized she was pointing at me in the wrong way she laughs, tells me I’m strong, and good luck.
As I bike through vineyards other cyclists say “Ciao!” - or give me a wave. It’s this friendliness I have missed for awhile.
As I near Cisano, there are incredible climbs in full sun heat. I feel like I’m dying and take stops under the shade I can find, run into cafes to pour water on my face, and try to push through. I realized that Komoot had decided to add a Waypoint to take me down the wrong way, this added an additional 10km to my ride. I take a wrong turn down a steep hill, a German couple helps me push my bike back up. About 1km out from my camping spot I breakdown - doing yet another unplanned climb. I call my husband, who guides me down the road to the camping spot as I sob about how this is stupid and how tired I am.
“Just go set up camp, and get an Aperol. You’ll be okay. Call me when you are set up.”
A tent in full sun with limited electricity, but I was only a small walk from the beach. A group of Italian men made a comment about an American eating a hamburger, but when I mentioned to the server that I had biked 90km today the same men gave me high fives. “She biked 90km today!” they told another couple.
Huge shoutout to the ant hill I was on
I swam in the lake, and I drew in a notebook. I felt strong and so unbelievably weak at the same time. I told my husband I may come home tomorrow, “This heat is insane, it’s 35C and it’s 10PM”.
The nice thing about cycling this much is that when you go into your tent for the nice you just pass out.
Lake Garda is exactly what you need in a heat wave
Day four, I woke up with the sun. At 5:30AM it was 65% humidity and 28C out. As I packed up my tent I was already dripping with sweat. I knew it was time to call it, so I biked down to Verona (25km) and took the 5 hour train back home.
A hair tie and my Colorado buff to keep the brakes tight on the bike so she doesn’t roll around
A nonna on the train let me sit next to her. We couldn’t understand each other, but she gave me a smile and a reassuring tap on the leg. She flexed her arm at me, and said “Bella!”. I waved goodbye to her. I wonder if she knew how much she helped me feel better about my belly rolls that I was desperately trying to hide in my bike outfit.
Lesson Five: Embrace Failure. Look stupid, say the wrong thing. Change course, do the hard thing. This is your story, make it so you’re proud of yourself.
Day five, and I cycled from my home to the Austrian border to complete the map from the entrance of the EV7 in Italy all the way down to Cisano. I attempted to communicate to some Germans on where to find food, they laughed about how I needed a pizza and they need a salad.
This lake near my house was so beautiful I cried.
Courage and Critical Thinking
I don’t have an electric bicycle, because I want to prove to myself I can do difficult things. Knowing that this body was able to go 186mi, up 5.5k of incline, in five days - this body that couldn’t run 3km, it is an achievement. It gives me confidence, it gives me courage. Doing hard things helps me find gratitude for the world, for the things I have done. Doing difficult things and failing or achieving helps me build trust in myself.
Every blog post has to end with some comment about AI - as it has come to be such a sticking point in our day to day right now. I wonder what has led so many people astray.
I thought about how we are entering a period of time where people are paying to not think, to do difficult things. I wonder why we are seeing more people letting tools speak for them - is it fear of being wrong, or laziness? What happens when we stop doing difficult things?
I always think back to a talk I saw Kelsey Hightower give about how AI is leading us to stop questioning things. We have stopped asking “why”, we have stopped being curious.
When I chose discomfort, and when I chose to be courageous, I found more happiness and gratitude than I thought could ever be possible.
I want to be wrong, and I want to fail. I want to live a life full of stories for the plot.
And, I’m now more scared of an 18% incline than an 18% decline.