The Beginnings
May 03, 2013 00:30

Well, it's finally happening: I'm going abroad. And to be honest, it hasn't really hit me yet. With a good handful of my friends abroad this past semester, traveling to Europe just seems to be part of the college experience. But given the fact that Toronto is currently the extent of my international travel, Europe is kind of a big deal. I mean, I have covered a good bit of the east coast, but I haven't even made it past Michigan. So when I say that four weeks in Italy is going to be an experience, I really mean it.

For those of you who don't know, I'm Italian. My dad's maternal grandfather, Andrew (they called him "Beepa"), was born in Amalfi but came over to America at the turn of the twentieth century – he was only sixteen at the time. He had two older brothers, but they stayed in Italy and lived long lives. Beepa would frequently send care packages back to the Scoppettas (mistakenly changed to Scoppetti on the trip to America) filled with American novelties such as sugar, flour, coffee and cigarettes. Beepa and his wife Lucy Monaco, whose family was from Naples, lived in the second floor of my dad's house growing up. They were considered part of the family and thoroughly enjoyed watching my dad and my uncle grow up.

My dad's paternal grandfather, Matthew, was from Sicily. He came over to America when he was only five years old – his father (my dad's great-grandfather) accompanied him on the trip, but there is no record of Matthew's father in Ellis Island. Matthew worked on the docks and married Valentina Zarilla who was born in America (her family was from Naples). Matthew passed away when my dad was only a couple of years old.

I bring these stories up because when people ask me why I am studying abroad, that is one of the main reasons. There is a chance that we will make it down to Amalfi one weekend, and I really hope I can track down some of my family. From what I've been told, the Scoppettas own a shirt store in Amalfi.

In addition to the family history, I am really looking forward to the academic courses of this program. I know, call me a nerd, but they're going to be pretty cool. The program is called Engineering of the Renaissance, so naturally, most of the people going with me are engineers. I will be taking two courses while I am over there: an urban studies course analyzing the globalization of Florence and an engineering course exploring the technological achievements of the Renaissance. We already had a couple of meetings with the Pitt professors, Dr. Galdi and Dr. Robertson, who will be teaching the engineering course, and they are really great people. Dr. Galdi grew up in Naples and seems to share many stories from his childhood. The cultural course will be taught by CAPA, our coordinating program over in Florence.

Now, I built this blog a couple of months ago over my spring break, and I ended up running out of time. So what you see here is more-or-less a smattering of unfinished features, but it should suffice. If I have time when I get back, I would like to finish it up, but we'll see. And just to be clear, the design is heavily influenced by Medium, a new blogging platform built by the co-founders of Twitter. At any rate, here is what you should know:

  • The blog is primarily categorized by date; thus, there will be one block on the homepage for each day that I am in Italy.
  • Each day is then comprised of a collection of journal entries, each associated with a particular activity during the day. These activities are attached to a location, time (hourly) and a distinct photo gallery.
  • Each location also has its own page with a summary of the journals attached to it.

Ideally, this blog will represent a comprehensive journal of my experience, but to be honest, I'm really not sure how much time I'm going to have while I am over there. But I will do my best to keep it updated. Thanks for following along!

Ciao,
Nick