About Kat

I started traveling young, when at 13 my mom took us to Oaxaca, Mexico, not to lie on a beach but to really see the vibrant culture, exuberant art, and to meet people who truly live differently than we do, yet still open themselves up to others to share all that. I suppose some people have an experience like this and are just hooked: I spent two summers in high school living and volunteering in Mexico, one in Spain (Andalucía) and then returned there for my junior year abroad (Barcelona).

I fell in love with not just seeing different places and ways of life, but learning languages, and the things we find out about ourselves when we have to express everything in a new way. And the other side of the coin of course is sharing my own culture, trying to be a good “ambassador” of sorts for the US, show that yes in fact some Americans do speak more than one language, and actually know how to read…

So after graduating college in 2008, when the economic collapse left a lot of us with a lot of frustration and a big question mark over our heads, I decided to follow this love and try something new. It seems more obvious in retrospect, as my mom did the same thing when she was my age (teaching via the Peace Corps in Chile), but at the time it felt half crazy, half something I knew I had to do: I moved to Italy to get qualified to teach English at a school in Milan, and I’ve been here ever since (plus one move down south to Rome). I’ve been learning the language and culture (ahem, trying to learn to cook), traveling around, seeing a lot of art, and finding out just how challenging and rewarding (sometimes not quite in a balance) it can be being an expat.

We’ll see where this adventure takes me next…