All posts by Laura Itzkowitz

Laura is a Brooklyn-based writer and the Managing Editor of Untapped Cities. She spent her junior year on Smith’s Paris program and lived in Rome for two years after graduating. She holds a BA in French from Smith and an MFA in creative writing & translation from Columbia. Her writing has appeared on Fodor’s Travel, PolicyMic, Architizer, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Words Without Borders, and others. She was named a New York expert blogger by Time Out New York and one of the Top 20 NYC bloggers by Hotel Club. She serves on the editorial board of Global Impressions as Alumna Editor. You can follow her on Twitter @lauraitzkowitz.

Issue I: International Photo Contest

Spring 2014, Issue I: International Photo Contest

Photographs give us a unique way to preserve a memory or moment in time.  For this inaugural issue, Smith students submitted photographs from their time abroad, along with their thoughts on how each photo highlights an intercultural encounter.  The original call for photos was part of the International Photo Contest hosted by the Lewis Global Studies Center.  Though students captured experiences that ranged from quotidian to adventurous, they all raise questions of what it means to experience a culture in the role of a foreigner. We are currently accepting submissions for our second issue, “Adapting.” See our submission page for details.

Thumbnail - Itzkowitz - Via della PaceVIA DELLA PACE

Laura Itzkowitz

I was in Rome for the first time, staying in a tiny rented apartment in a narrow street behind Piazza Navona. There was an Italian moka pot—the kind you put on the stove to make espresso—but I didn’t know how to use it, so I went down to the Caffè della Pace for a cappuccino in the morning.

Thumbnail - Paulson-Smith - The Funeral Next Door photoFUNERAL NEXT DOOR

Katie Paulson-Smith

As I sat in my host family’s apartment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with its permanently wide-open windows, which welcomed many birds, it took me a while to realize that this was not your typical party.

berlin: the divideWALLS HERE AND THERE

Sophie Schor

It was an especially grey, winter day in Berlin, but the chill in my bones came from more than just the humidity. There I was, standing face to face with the remaining concrete barrier of the Berlin Wall.

Thumbnail - Wu - The World on a Wall photoTHE WORLD ON A WALL

Lisa Wu

When I walked through the entrance, the first thing I noticed was the unique decor: the walls were decorated with currencies from around the world. There were bills and coins taped everywhere—on the walls, on the ceiling, in the nooks and crannies of the hall.

Thumbnail - Sarno - A Family Affair photo 1A FAMILY AFFAIR

Jessica Sarno

I felt a great responsibility to my family to make the most out of the opportunity.  In an effort to include them in my travels, I wanted to capture momentary glimpses of my intercultural experience in photos not only of the extraordinary but also of the everyday interactions that I would encounter.

Thumbnail - Brotherton - Getting Lost in Kyoto photoGETTING LOST IN KYOTO

Aileen Brotherton

The sun is setting, the sky is gorgeous, the weather is brisk, my feet are sore, and my friend Mara and I have gone astray on the wrong side of Mount Inari.

Thumbnail - Thompson - Embracing My Curiosity photoEMBRACING MY CURIOSITY

Eleana Thompson

The rest of the house is quiet because Hana warned that from 7-8 p.m. she is not to be disturbed while she watches her favorite Turkish soap opera. I decided that watching the show would be an ideal way to demonstrate to Hana and the family that I wished to be a part of their daily routines.

thumbnail Smith students eating chestnuts in Paris 1950 photo from the Smith College ArchivesFROM THE SMITH  COLLEGE ARCHIVES: SMITH STUDENTS IN PARIS, 1950

Bailey O’Connor

“There is nothing so mouth-watering… As hot, freshly roasted chestnuts,” at least according to the juniors of the class of 1951 in Paris, as reported in The Springfield Sunday Republican on February 5, 1950.

Past Issues

Notes From the Field: On Being a Travel Writer

I’m a travel and lifestyle writer and editor, though sometimes people seem to see me as a unicorn or some other mystical creature. When I introduce myself, my interlocutors often express incredulity that I’m able to make this lifestyle work—sometimes I’m incredulous myself. Since I went fulltime freelance last February, I’ve spent 86 days on the road, including 26 days in Italy, 12 days in Australia, 8 days in Portland, Oregon, 5 days in Madrid, 4 days in New Orleans, and a weekend in Marfa, Texas—and that’s just the beginning. I’ve logged hours on planes, trains, cars, boats, and a helicopter. I couldn’t even tell you how many pages I’ve written—suffice it to say a lot. I feel very lucky and privileged to have my dream job, but it’s not magic. I’ve worked extremely hard to get where I am, and I hope my path will inspire others to follow their dreams too.

Villa Carlotta, Lake Como
Villa Carlotta, Lake Como

When I’m not on the road, I’m in Brooklyn—where I share an apartment with three roommates—working from home, a coffee shop, or library. A typical day starts at 7:30 am, when my alarm goes off. Some mornings I go to the gym or yoga class, shower, and sit down to work on my laptop with coffee and some yogurt. Depending on the appointments I’ve scheduled, I might head into Manhattan to meet a publicist or colleague for lunch or coffee. In the evenings I often attend industry events, like previews for new hotels, book release parties, new menu tastings, or just meeting over drinks or dinner to talk shop. Though writing is a solitary activity, I’m always out and about gathering intel about travel industry news and learning about places to visit and write about. Writing for travel magazines and websites, there’s a lot of pressure to keep track of the hottest new openings and predict what people are going to be talking about, which I find both challenging and thrilling at the same time.

So how did I get here? In a way it started at Smith, where I began to learn how to channel my passion for traveling, cultural immersion, and writing during my Junior Year Abroad in Paris. Back then, I penned notes in small journals never intended for publication, though they would become the basis for some personal writing I did in grad school. Some of my fondest memories are just sitting in Paris cafes nursing a café au lait and recording my observations and thoughts about the city around me. I kept journaling after I graduated from Smith and went to live in Rome. Being a writer still seemed like an impossible dream until I showed friends some of my vignettes and they encouraged me to do something with them. When I got into the creative writing MFA program at Columbia’s School of the Arts, I knew I had to go.

After two years spent teaching English and writing constantly in Rome, I moved to New York for the two-year grad program and quickly immersed myself in life in the city. I began looking for opportunities to get my work out in the world and started writing for, and then editing, an online magazine called Untapped Cities run by a then-grad student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning (GSAPP). I wasn’t getting paid, but I was gaining experience writing, assigning articles, managing an editorial schedule, and editing work by fellow students. The Huffington Post and Business Insider syndicated some of my articles, and from there I started getting paid assignments. I took a job as a fact checker for Travel + Leisure—which I had long upheld as the gold standard in travel magazines—and for whom I soon began writing and editing.

Christo's Floating Piers at Lake Iseo
Christo’s Floating Piers at Lake Iseo

In a way, the year-and-a-half I spent in T+L’s office was like a second grad school. I was constantly learning about the world through the lens of the talented writers and editors who contribute to the magazine, and I was seeing first-hand how print magazines are produced at a time when print media was working harder and harder to hone the power of the web and social media. Shortly after I started, the longstanding editor in chief retired and a new one took over, ushering in a new era for the publication. Many of the editors I worked closely with over that period have since left, but like old classmates and friends, we’ve stayed in touch and continue to work together at the other magazines and websites they’re now editing. I really can’t overstate the importance of maintaining a strong network of collaborators, especially for freelance journalists. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

I still have those frustrating days when it seems like no one is interested in my ideas and none of my writing is any good, but I have to remind myself that it’s a job like any other. There will be frustrations and setbacks—days when time seems to drag on at a glacial pace—but the rewards of traveling to beautiful places, meeting fascinating people, and contributing to society in my own small way keep me forging ahead toward new challenges and opportunities.

 

laura-itzkowitx-in-palemrmoLaura Itzkowitz is a New York City-based writer and editor. She spent her junior year on Smith’s Paris program and lived in Rome for two years after graduating. She holds a BA in French from Smith and an MFA in creative writing & translation from Columbia. She is a contributing editor at Untapped Cities, and her writing has appeared in Travel + Leisure, Brooklyn Magazine, Surface, Architectural Digest, and others. She co-authored New York: Hidden Bars and Restaurants and contributed to Fodor’s Brooklyn. She was named a New York expert blogger by Time Out New York and one of the Top 20 NYC bloggers by Hotel Club. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @lauraitzkowitz.

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Via della Pace

Looking at this photograph, you might notice well dressed people hanging out at sidewalk cafés, old ochre-colored buildings covered in ivy, cars parked on the cobblestones, and the marble portico of a church at the end of the street. I look at this photograph and I remember making a decision that would change the course of my life.

I was in Rome for the first time, staying in a tiny rented apartment in a narrow street behind Piazza Navona. There was an Italian moka pot—the kind you put on the stove to make espresso—but I didn’t know how to use it, so I went down to the Caffè della Pace for a cappuccino in the morning.

I could tell the place was special, though I didn’t know its history at the time. I know now that the Caffè della Pace is where Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Francis Ford Coppola take their coffee when they’re in Rome. Today it’s about the closest you can get to La Dolce Vita . The café has been around since the 1800s, and it looks the part—all mahogany and marble with sculpted nymphs and an antique cash register. In the summer, they keep the windows and doors open, and patrons sit under white umbrellas outside, drinking espresso in the morning, or Prosecco and Campari in the evening.

Rome in July is always hot, but the heat is not what I remember. Roman heat weighs you down, but I recall feeling light and unburdened that day. I visited the Caffè della Pace many times after I went for that first cappuccino, so I don’t remember what time of day it was when I took the photograph, but I remember how I felt. It was a strange and beautiful feeling, as if I were dreaming. Or maybe the passage of time makes it appear to me as a dream.

The way I remember it, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I breathed in the Mediterranean air, looking at the beautiful people dressed in white and listening to them speak. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but when they spoke Italian, I felt like I was eavesdropping on a series of little operas. I looked around at the marble tables on the terrace of the Caffè della Pace, the ivy-covered buildings on either side of the street, and at the end, the pristine white portico of the church of Santa Maria della Pace. I remember stopping to take this photograph and thinking, I just have to learn this language and come back here to live.

And that was that. My decision was made. I had to learn Italian and live in Rome, no matter what.

I was twenty years old, and had just completed a rather formative year of study in Paris, where I felt I was becoming the person I wanted to be: smart, confident, and poised. I was not intimidated by a little challenge like learning a new language and carving out a place for myself in a foreign country. I had done it once, I could do it again.

Yet, this line of thinking would have been unimaginable before that year in Paris. There, I was faced with the task of reconciling the world’s expectations of me with my own desires. I began to build my identity by noticing little things about myself. For the first time, I acted capriciously instead of planning things out. I learned that I am a person who likes the freedom to act on a whim; who enjoys nursing a café au lait while sitting at a café writing in a journal; who can’t stand feeling rushed; who chooses rather arbitrarily which placards to read in art museums; who sometimes daydreams elaborate scenarios and entire conversations; who decides to do something and stubbornly keeps at it. Eventually, the little things added up to a complete picture.

A year later, I was back in the Eternal City with the intention of staying as long as I possibly could. I stayed for two years, and though I never managed to find another apartment near Piazza Navona, I visited the Caffè della Pace often. Now, the street bears many memories, but none of them would have been possible without the first.

 

Photo © Laura Itzkowitz. All rights reserved.

Laura Itzkowitz headshot 2 by Melissa Itzkowitz

Laura Itzkowitz is a New York City-based writer and Research Assistant at Travel + Leisure. She spent her junior year on Smith’s Paris program and lived in Rome for two years after graduating. She holds  a BA in French from Smith and an MFA in creative writing & translation from Columbia. She is a contributing editor at Untapped Cities, and her writing has appeared on Fodor’s Travel, Mic, Architizer, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Words Without Borders, and others. She was named a New York expert blogger by Time Out New York and one of the Top 20 NYC bloggers by Hotel Club. She serves on the editorial board of Global Impressions as Alumna Editor. You can follow her on Twitter @lauraitzkowitz.

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