Submitted by Sejal Shah on the 2017 winter session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics & Astronomy…
My first week in Italy was absolutely wonderful. I absolutely love to travel and I have been out of the country many times with my family, but this has been completely different. The independence and freedom was something I was afraid of before I came to Italy, but it has just helped me grow as a person and made me feel more mature. Some of the dinners and lunches are not with the entire group and we are on our own to find a place and order the meal with our extremely limited knowledge of Italian. One time, my roommate and I decided to go to a small sandwich shop not too far away from the hotel. We got there and Google translated the menu and attempted to order by pointing to the meal. While we waited for our meal, we felt like we should interact with the other people who were there since our professor always encourages us to be more social. We talked to a lady who we found to be from Istanbul and met a man from Tunisia and it was just such a life changing experience to hear what they have to say. The lady’s daughter who was also there had written a book and she even invited us to her book signing event. I would say I’m not someone who would go out of my way to talk to someone I didn’t know at a restaurant, but I am so glad I did.
Also, I enjoyed learning about all the Italian history as well as their culture. Our day starts with a delicious Italian breakfast usually consisting of different types of bread and coffee. After class, we spent some time exploring the city of Perugia taking pictures of the beautiful scenery from every angle. Today, we toured most of Perugia. Our tour guide Rita took us to an underground castle that was built hundreds of years ago and explained how the city expanded in five directions to form a star. It was amazing to see how people were able to build structures like this without the architectural knowledge and tools we have today. The tour ended at a magnificent church with a dome.
We visited Florence and Siena a couple of days ago and the churches and cathedrals we went to were absolutely breathtaking. I am just so amazed by the carvings and the decoration in the different domes we have seen so far whether its gold plating or painted. During the Siena tour, we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption which had its floor covered with different carvings. Our tour guide explained how the lady standing with one foot on a ball and the other on a boat represents the unpredictability of our fortune. Little pieces of information like that were very interesting to me and I am excited to learn about the history behind each of the cities we plan to visit.