#HogsAbroad Student Blogger Spotlight: I scream, you scream, we all scream for GELATO! #HogsAbroad

Our #HogsAbroad student blogger, Katie, updated us from Rome:

Ciao! We made it to Reggio Emilia! After a lonnnng day and a half or so of traveling I have finally made it to my new home for the semester and started to get settled in. The combination of jet lag and a 7 hour time difference was a lot to get used to at first. We arrived on Monday evening and were quickly immersed in the beautiful culture of Italy.

After a couple days free to ourselves to explore and enjoy the beautiful architecture and delicious food, I think we are all excited for classes to begin tomorrow because we’ve run into a small problem in our adventures so far… It’s very hard to communicate when you don’t speak the language! Not to mention, I always feel incredibly rude when I blurt out English phrases, partially out of habit and partially because I don’t know any better.

All communication struggles aside, we’ve managed to order plenty of gelato! It was somewhat jokingly a goal to make gelato my first taste of Italy, but it just so happened that it worked out exactly that way! Since then I’ve had at least one ever day, and my goal is to never get the same flavor twice until I’ve tried them all! Aside from all the gelato, we have also been able to experience some delicious, more traditional dishes of aperitivo (appetizers) and pasta! On the other hand, we also were welcomed with some Americanized traditional dishes.. The first evening we went out for pizza as a group and they made us pizza topped with hot dogs and french fries!

Quite frankly I couldn’t understand what they said, so I was unsure if that was traditional or not, but if that doesn’t scream America, I don’t know what does! Lucky for us, the program we are with leaves us entirely on our own to decide what to do with our free time, and they offer optional day and weekend trips to nearby cities to attend as we choose.

Tomorrow, a group of us are looking forward to attending the local circus after our first day of classes, and this weekend we will head to Bologna, Italy to participate in a school organized trip and also do a bit of exploring on our own! Ciao for now!

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Read more from Katie at https://ciaofromkatie.wordpress.com/

To find out more about the USAC Italy: Education, Communications, Health, and Italian Studies in Reggio Emilia, visit http://usac.unr.edu/study-abroad-programs/italy/reggio-emilia/about