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Almost 3 years ago I received my acceptance to the University of Florida.
I was traveling home from summer B classes for a weekend when I met Marissa. I sat at the red coach bus station and a random girl came up to me to make sure she was at the right place. She also complimented my Vera Bradley duffel bag, so we immediately clicked.
I realized she had the same class as a girl I knew from my K-8 school named Laurel, and somehow out of all the students in that lecture, Marissa knew Laurel too. We found out we were both Telecommunications majors. I was too nervous to sit with her on the bus, so I sat directly in front of Marissa and we talked. She asked me what kind of music I like, a question I hate. I said “oh jeez I listen to so many top 20 songs and a lot of Broadway.” Marissa said she liked that music too! We exchanged phone numbers and I told my mom I made a friend on the bus.
Our story almost ended there. Marissa and I did not talk to each other again all summer. Then fall came, and my friend laurel made a group chat for our intro to media and communications class. The first day of fall semester I went to Weimer Hall 1064 and sat with Laurel and some blonde girl she knew. I took me three weeks into school to realize the blonde girl was the girl from the bus station that I fell in friendship love with.
The next semester, Marissa and I signed up to do the radio reading service through WUFT-FM because at this point in our lives we had not yet realized neither of us wanted to be telecommunications majors. This radio station focused on news, business, entertainment, and sports. There were four of us researching, hosting, and producing the show so we split up the sections. I always took entertainment and chose at least one of my four articles to be fashion. Throughout the semester Marissa and I would come in for our 9 am shifts looking amazing even though no one can see you when you are on the radio.
We talked the entire semester about starting a podcast or maybe pitching an entertainment radio show to the school, until we finally landed on a BLOG. One of the other students at the station told us about wix, so the last week of our freshman year we launched our website. We went in blind to the whole thing, took pictures on our Iphone 6’s, (pictured above) had no idea what our voice or audience would be, but we figured it out.
That whole summer we had two blog posts going out a week, something we definitely could not maintain during the fall. Marissa and I worked on a new radio show focused solely on politics; this was an amazing opportunity because it lined up with the 2016 election. We also both decided Telecom wasn’t for us, so she went to the business school and I went to journalism (I switched to Public Relations eventually and I think I’ll stick with it.)
Sophomore year came and Marissa, Laurel and I decided to fulfil our dreams of studying abroad together with the college of journalism and communications. We went to the info session and within 15 hours, the trip was sold out. Less than 8 months later, the three of us began our journey to Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, London, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Paris.
Study abroad changed my life, and I got to do it all with incredible friends by my side. Spending an entire month sharing the same room with a person and only being separated for the few hours that you sleep is a true test of friendship. From watching the sunsets in Santorini to taking naps under the Eiffel tower, every moment of the trip gave me goosebumps. When I walk into Weimer Hall at UF I get to see so many familiar faces that experienced this once in a life time opportunity with me. My amazing group of 7 still go to brunch and gab about Europe because our college experience peaked there.
What’s next for F&S fashion? The future is unknown, but Marissa has accepted an internship in NYC with Ross this summer, and I am hoping to find an internship there as well doing PR for mental health advocacy. In the fall Marissa will be studying abroad in London to finish her last semester at UF. This means you can expect amazing blogs from different locations starting in May. I am eternally grateful for the friendship that would have never happened if it weren’t for UF and the Red Coach bus. This friendship has allowed me to travel the world, blog, be a radio host, and unapologetically listen to Ed Sheeran and Broadway hits. Here’s to a million more memories with Julia and Marissa.
Thank you to everyone who has followed F&S fashion. It means the world that so many people bring up our blog to us and let us know that they are reading. Every week it is equally as thrilling to bring new content to you. A special thank you to the amazing photographer, Kayla Tuckerman, who took these photos for us and was a fellow UF CJC study abroad student on our trip.