Submitted by William Voges on the 2019 winter session study abroad program in Siena, Italy sponsered by the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures…
The final week in Italy was eventful. We started out with an excursion to Assisi, a very quiet, rural town that contains the church of Saint Francis. I thought it was interesting that the entire church was pink, because it was made of a stone rich with iron. After Assisi, we went to Naples, which was my favorite city of on the program. My mother’s mother is the first in her family born in the United States, both of her parents immigrated from Naples. It was incredible seeing where I came from. Many of the family traditions I had growing up, I believed were Italian in general, but they are actually specific to Naples. For instance, my favorite food is a dish called “Arancini,” which is deep fried rice with meat in the middle. They actually do serve this everywhere I went in Italy, but nowhere else had ones that tasted anything near the ones my family makes, except for Naples. After Naples, we went to Pompeii. What struck me most about Pompeii is that people have always been people. In a museum, we saw little stones with names carved into them, those were the names of gladiators that children would collect. It is the Roman empire equivalent to baseball cards. People have always been people. We finished our journey in Rome, where it began. We had a final dinner with everyone in our group and it was emotional. I did not realize how close I had grown to everyone I studied with until we realized it was over.
