Aperitivo Club: Edition 1

☀️Monthly Faves + How I’m (Barely) Surviving Italian Summer☀️

Ciao a tutti! (Hello everyone!)

Welcome to our very first Aperitivo Club Monthly!
This monthly post is something I wanted to create to better connect with you, my paid subscribers. As the name implies, I’d like to imagine we are having a catch-up over aperitivo—sitting in a piazza with a spritz and sharing more personal things I might not put in the main posts such as what I’ve been up to, little discoveries I’ve made, things I’m loving, what’s coming next, and honestly whatever else pops into my brain. I also really want this to be a place where we chat, so you’ll always find a Q&A prompt at the bottom (ask me anything!) and sometimes I’ll even share ideas-in-progress and ask for your input on upcoming posts.

So pull up a chair, grab a spritz, and let’s get this aperitivo going, shall we?

Kandinsky in Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Grand Canal, Me in Venice, Cicchetti, Lake Garda

Well, the summer has officially arrived in Bologna, and I. am. struggling. 🫠 My apartment, like many others in Italy, does not have air conditioning. (Italians have very strong feelings about AC.) Now, I am from the south-eastern US and am used to brutal heat and humidity in the summer, but at least in there, air conditioning is prevalent in all shops, restaurants, cars, and of course at home. Not to be dramatic, but not having AC has been a bit of a culture shock. Especially at night with only a fan to cool my room when temperatures in my bedroom are 27°C/81°F… I’m already dreading August and mentally preparing to survive on cold showers before bed and constantly chugging ice cold drinks. Do any of you all have tips for me? Please… 🙏

Also, I’ve been slowly working my way through my 120-hour TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course. Honestly, it’s been crazy to realize how much I don’t know about English grammar despite being a native speaker. I’ve already relearned a lot including what a gerund actually is. 🙈

My Business English class at the Bologna Business School wrapped up earlier this month for summer break, which has given me more time to focus on creative stuff—like my Substack! I’ve still got a few students I meet with for English conversation lessons which I love doing.

This past week, I also took a quick 3-day trip to Lake Garda, with a day trip to Venice, to visit my boyfriend. It was a short visit, but we took the train from Peschiera del Garda (at the southern tip of the lake) to Venice—it only took about an hour and a half. We didn’t do much in the way of sightseeing as I’ve been to Venice previously and he went to university there, so we’ve both already checked off the classic sights.

We did, however, go to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection as we both had not done that before. The permanent collection is home to fantastic works by artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Dalí, Klee, and Pollock to name a few. Afterward, we had a classic Venetian lunch of spritzes and cicchetti (small pieces of bread with various toppings, similar to Spanish tapas or what in the US we’d think of as more or less bruschetta.) The must-try cicchetti is baccalà which is a creamy spread made of salted cod. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city a bit before returning to Lake Garda by train.

If you have the chance to visit Lake Garda, I highly recommend! Maybe I’ll write a post about Lake Garda in the future since I really do love it there.

My Favorites This Month

Cotton and linen — I’ve basically been living in this white cotton skirt, beige linen pants, and white linen shorts on rotation. I don't usually wear skirts, but when it’s 30°C/95°F the breeziness of a long skirt or linen pants feels way better than just wearing shorts.

La Roche-Posay spray sunscreen — This is a new favorite. It’s one of those facial sunscreens that goes over makeup, and I managed to find it half-off at the pharmacy so it was only €15 or so! It’s super compact and easy to toss in my bag. I like how it is lightweight and not sticky as these are my constant dislikes about wearing sunscreen.