It was the start of my 2nd semester Sophomore year at Notre Dame. I was in a quad with my roommates, in the midst of a very important argument with one explaining that no, they did not in fact finish a whole fifth by themselves the night before. At some point another one got bored of the topic and mentioned they were applying to the London study abroad program and asked if anyone else was going to - and me half-paying attention said sure. Turns out, that decision was pretty important.

Fast forward to next year and I’m in London with a full slate of classes, travel and extracurriculars. It’s a bit hazy when I first met Isabella, but I think it was either in one of the classes we shared or in the weekly basketball gym time they had set up. In the first month there we kept running into each other whether it be in class, on ND-organized trips, or weekend group outings including to her favorite bar, Ballie Ballerson (only kidding, Thirsty Bear was probably her #1). I had definitely started to feel something was there when about a month into the program she sent me a text of consolation - the Knicks best player had just torn his ACL. I acknowledge to most people this wouldn’t mean much, but to a sports junkie like myself this was a sign I had to at least try to ask her out. It took a couple weeks for me to gather the courage to say something, but we ended up going on our first date while traveling in Italy and made things official shortly after.