After nearly a month of travel around Italy, a month of being IN MY FORTIES (omg!), I was rounding the bend of an unexpectedly whirlwind and adventurous summer. With my physical location drifting northwards towards Germany, I was facing down reality. Future life, for now, lied in Berlin.

And, my excuses for taking breaks from prioritizing myself and my dating while in Italy were dwindling! But, the 30d30d mantra was still with me. I was a bit bolder than I might have been in the past.

So after meeting up with the previous Italian friend, I stopped by Venice Airport to leave my car, and headed into the mountains. Lovely Trento hosted me for a week – a week of being sick, but luckily no Covid! Great nature, great mountains, great university and coworking campuses. Then I landed in an even better mountain town, the outdoorsy gateway of the Italian Dolomites – a South Tirolean town called Bolzano after the Bohemian mathematician. Spent three days in the most adorable cliffside Airbnb owned by an Italian diplomat, after which I would head back to real life.

That first evening in Bolzano, I managed to find the closest cable car to the top of a nearby towering mountains surrounding the snug city. I arrived at the top with just 15 minutes before the last cable car down, and quickly climbed up 200 stairs of the overlook structure that sees vast expanses of mountainsides. Gorgeous!

Up there, I found one couple and one solo cute guy. So I stood near him. Made some remarks about the beauty. He was actually from Berlin, on his first day of a 2-week solo tour of Italy, and had just arrived by train. He commented how only Americans tend to chat up strangers like that — and that he liked and admired it (whew!). We gazed at the sunset together, scurried back down 200 stairs to the cable car and barely made it.

At the bottom I managed to do the brave thing: invited him to keep chatting over drinks. We ended up in one of the best Austrian restaurants in the town (Bolzano is a distinct Italian/Austrian blend of a city). We hung out for a couple hours. It was fine, but just fine. We ended with “maybe see you in Berlin!” but neither of us felt compelled to exchange numbers. We had run out of things to say. But, that’s ok! I think what counts is that I tried. And will keep trying. Rah rah rah.