Rachel's been MIA-- well actually more like a 30th birthday trip for the books!
Rachel reveals details on the adventure that launched her new decade, and why she kept it hidden from social media.
This is Rachel Go's Rogue. Welcome back to another episode of Rachel Goes Rogue with your host, Rachel Savannah Levis. I am so happy to be back in the US after an amazing trip to Europe. I know a lot of you guys were wondering where I was since Juliette took over for an episode, and I figured, now that I'm back from my vacation, I wanted to share a little bit with you guys, so I did let you guys know that I was going to Europe. I spent four days in France and then I spent five days in Italy. I ended up not posting very much, but I did have a great time, and I'm thinking with the not posting part, I am noticing a bit of perfection coming up for me and just overthinking what to post. I think also not having an updated wardrobe may play into that too. I'm just wearing the same clothes over and over because I'm putting my finances into traveling instead of a wardrobe update, so that may play into it too. But besides that, I really had a great time and I do hope to start posting this week now that I'm back and I am reacclimating to the time zone and everything.
The trip was amazing.
So I started in Can, France, that's where they do the Can Film Festival. My friend Page was also turning thirty during this time, and so we did a nice little home cooked meal at the villa that we stayed at, and we had a bunch of friends who she's gotten to know from Paris come down, and then we had a few mutual friends come over to France, and so it was like a group of fourteen of us and it was really cool.
I got to meet a bunch of.
Her friends, and I got reunited with some old friends, and Can was such a beautiful place. Everyone was very friendly and nice, and I think Can has a lot of Americans go over there because there were a lot of people that spoke English at the restaurants and at the shops. And I'm guessing because of the Can Film Festival, a lot of people from La go there. So it felt very effortless and easy to navigate the area. While we were there, I went to Italy. A group of us broke off from that huge group and spent sometime in Sorrento. We ended up losing half of our suitcases because our carryons. They wanted us to check our carryons, and then they ended up not making the flight even though we were super early to our flight, so unfortunately half of our suitcases did not make it. That was fine because I packed enough to get by, and it worked out for the best because I did have a huge suitcase and a smaller roll on suitcase, so it was nice just to worry about the big suitcase and not have two huge suitcases with me. But getting the suitcases back was.
A little bit of a pain, but that's okay. It was all part of the experience Italy.
Italy has the best food ever, the best cheese, the best pasta. It's all handmade, and the people there are very friendly. It just has an environment that energizes you, and I think Italy was my favorite. My favorite spot in Italy that we went to visit is called Positano and it is this cute little village with a bunch of houses and restaurants all built on top of each other. The streets are super narrow, and we did end up renting a car. Luckily, one of our friends had experienced driving in Italy before, so we felt like we were taken care of Postseitana was the cutest and the most fun, the best food. One of the days in Positano, we went to a beach club and we got a boat that drove us along the coastline for beautiful photos and then we arrived at the beach club, got escorted to our lounge chairs and it was just a really good environment. The music wasn't as loud as the year before because our friend Austin had been there before and I guess he went the last day of the summer celebration, so they went all out, and this time it was still September, so it wasn't as crazy, but it was still very fun. We went in the water, it was super clear and the waves were big but not overwhelming. We went cliff jumping and ate incredible pasta.
Once again. Yeah, that was my favorite day for sure.
The shops were super cute as well, just like walking by and being a tourist and saying hi to other Americans.
There were a lot of Americans there, so.
It felt easy to navigate once again, the cultural differences. I noticed that with driving over in Italy and in Cannes, France was very aggressive, like the drivers that we took ubers in went very fast, and the roads are very narrow and people are more aggressive with driving, and it just made me realize that in the States, we typically are pretty considerate of the right away of other drivers and just letting people in and the lane and whatnot. For La that may be a different story, but the roads are just so narrow that it did stand out to me as a cultural difference. Also, drinking coffee should always be done after your meal, so having a cappuccino with brunch is acceptable, but don't order coffee before your dinner.
Only order after your dinner.
And a cafe is an espresso and then a cappuccino. Typically you would get a cappuccino for brunch, but it's acceptable to get a cappuccino or a latte after your dinner too. The people that I was with, some of them knew the best TikTok viral spots for the best restaurants in Italy, and we went to a few of them.
One of them was a pizza place.
They had these heart shaped pizzas and it was delicious. They don't go crazy with the sauce, they keep the sauce super simple.
It's more about the cheese and the toppings.
There's this like ham and pistachio pizza that was delicious. And then for dinner, we waited an hour outside of a restaurant to get seated and we were like, do we do it?
Do we not? We figured might as well.
It was our last night in Italy and this place supposedly was really good, and this restaurant definitely did not disappoint. We got a bunch of pastas, lasagna ravioli, and I got a penne with mushroom and some parmesan cheese. I didn't end up finishing my pasta, and I guess that's a huge I don't know. The waiter got insulted that I didn't finish it, and she was like, what's wrong, and I was just like, I'm so full, and she was disappointed. And then my friend finished all of his pasta, but she brought by a bag of bread so that he could wipe his plate clean and then have a clean.
Plate for her to take back to the kitchen.
So yeah, they take their food very seriously over there.
That I appreciate that.
I'm just very appreciative of the opportunity to travel and as I've had a rough go of things for the past year. I really do feel like I'm starting to live again, and I get to share these moments with friends that are trusted people and people that I want to continue to develop friendships with, and so having that type of friendship and support is something that I don't take for granted. Having people that enjoy traveling too, it just makes your life a lot easier when I'm a go with the flow type of person, and so and people arrange things and plan things out, book the airbnbs and just tell me how much it is and I just have to pay for it and then come along for the journey. That is my favorite type of vacation ever, and that's exactly what happened here.
So it's really cool and.
It's gonna definitely be one for the history books for me because this is my first time traveling as a thirty year old. We're adults now, not that we weren't before, but it just feels a little bit different now. Hopefully I start posting soon. Maybe it was just because I didn't want to post while I was actually in France and in Italy, because I didn't want to take away any time that I had in the moment since it is so limited. That honestly is probably the reason. And I'm just trying to get re acclimated to real life again. So I'll be working on my photos and you guys can follow along and see the things that I'm posting. I'm pretty sure I took pictures and videos of everything that I'm mentioning in this podcast today, so that'll be good. I love Positano. I don't think that i'll go back immediately. There are other things on my bucket list that I want to go see, including other places that I want to travel to in the States that I haven't yet, Nashville being one of them. So yeah, there definitely will be travel for me in the future.
I really want to go to Kyoto in Japan.
That's where Mount Fuji is and I'd love to go like in the springtime with all of the cherry blossoms. That would be so beautiful and pretty, and yeah, that's definitely on my bucket list. Hold on, let me pull up my bucket list. There's the flower Festival in the summertime in Columbia.
Oh, Switzerland.
We did a layover in Switzerland and it's a beautiful place and I really.
Want to go back.
There is this really fancy skiing resort called Saint Maurite. In the wintertime, people will take the Polar Express to Saint Maurits in Switzerland, and I have a friend that stayed at the Carlton over there and he highly recommends going to visit. That sounds like a dream vacation, so hopefully I can save up enough money to go there one day too. I'm really happy to be sharing my travels.
With you guys. I know I haven't been.
In the office for the past episode, but I'm back now and I'm ready to get back into all things rogue. That was such a special, relaxing yet eventful vacation that was much needed, and I'm happy to be back. It was such a way to kick off my thirties and I'm really excited to see what the rest of the year brings for me. Thank you so much for listening to Rachel Goes Rogue. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive video content at Rachel gos Rogue Podcast.