There are two sides when traveling. Tourist places, where everything looks nice and is packed with many people, and then there’s the back roads where not everything looks happy and insta-worthy. In my trip to Italy, I experienced both worlds, and this was the first time that made me re-think that not everything is what you see in the internet and social media.

My sister and I went to visit our aunt, who was born in Ecuador, but has been living in Italy for almost 28 years. She doesn’t have the Italian lifestyle you see in the internet of living lavish in cute apartments/places with fancy clothes. There are people that, just like everywhere else in the world, is living within their means.

Not to mention the fact that she, as a non-Italian has to live in a place where there are people who will look at her and treat her differently by the color of her skin or the language she is speaking. At least she knows the basics of the Italian language and can speak in sentences, but people don’t see that and will take advantage of it at times.

I remember this day vividly, in Positano, while waiting for the bus to take us to the airbnb we had to smuggle ourselves into the bus as people were crowding and the bus was reaching capacity. We could have waited for the next bus, but then this would be the third bus we would be waiting for since in the first one everyone else pushed their way in and we had to wait. There was this person who came after us waiting for the bus and didn’t like that they couldn’t push us off getting in the bus. Now, I’m not sure exactly what they murmured but once they heard my aunt talking back to them in Italian, they were shocked and held back a bit.

It was at this moment where I took off my tourist goggles off and saw that Italy is just a place with regular people that can sometimes be mean because they think they don’t belong. Moving to a the most crucial part of living: work, they won’t give a good paying job to people who don’t speak much of the language and have little to no work or study experience. Therefore, their only way of working is by cleaning houses, and if you don’t already know this, they can severely underpay these workers.

To not make this a long rant blog, I am glad I was able to experience the side that many don’t see or know. It has given me a sense of gratitude of what I do have, and the opportunities I can receive as a citizen with a degree. This trip has also showed me that it doesn’t matter where anyone comes from, they are just like us, human, who are trying to make a living.