Getting to Know Vittorio

This last weekend, I traveled to Brussels, Belgium! I really wasn’t expecting a lot from Brussels, but the city was beautiful and, for someone who loves architecture, it was cool to walk around the old parts of the city. As I was alone on this trip, there was so much that made me grow as a person while I continued to step out of my comfort zone. For example, eating at a restaurant by yourself in a foreign country where you can’t read the menu is something I feel that pushes me to grow as a person, and you end up with great food 🙂

My main objective of the weekend was to go to the International Brussels Tattoo Convention. I already had an appointment with my favorite tattoo artist, but on the second day of the convention I decided to also get a tattoo from this artist from Italy. His name was Vittorio, and I had admired his work as I walked past his booth the day before. On the next day, I decided to ask him if he had time to tattoo me. He said yes, and I got an amazing tattoo from him. During the tattoo, we also got to talking. Vittorio is a little older than me, 25. He comes from a very small part of Italy in a southern region of the country. We talked about life and how he ended up here tattooing, and how I, an American ended up in Europe getting a tattoo at the International Brussels Tattoo Convention. Long story short, we ended up talking so much that he invited me to have a beer with him after the tattoo. As we sat and talked after the tattoo, I asked him about how he became a tattoo artist. It turns out that the Italian education system is much different than the American system! Instead of offering many different programs at universities, in Italy each university specializes in one specific thing, and so Vittorio decided to pursue art. After that, he got into tattooing and has been doing it ever since. I thought it was so cool that he’s been able to travel all over Europe because of it. Vittorio has also never been to America and so he was very curious about what it was like. I shared mainly what the education system was like, to which he had many questions.

We also talked about transportation, Italy is not like Germany which has a good train system. It is similar to America where many people drive; however, people in Italy have to wait longer to get their licenses, and it is often harder to obtain with more of a focus on driving theory.

Throughout this whole encounter, I kept thinking how awesome it was that I got to be there in that moment getting to know Vittorio. A parting word of knowledge that I gained from this trip, everyone has a story to tell. Get out there, and get to connecting with people. There’s a world full of friends to make 😉

Tschüss!

(Below is a picture of what the Tattoo Convention looked like and a picture of one of the amazingly beautiful churches in Brussels.)