Travels and Transitions

These past two weeks or so have been busy busy busy! After spending an awesome night with Gina Maione in Roma before she headed back to the States, I endured a five hour train ride to Calabria, where I spent a few days with the Adamo family in Cosenza and the beach in Cittadella. Then, I spent a few days in the village where my Nonna was born and raised, Pedivigliano! I ALWAYS love visiting Pedivigliano, because I always end up feeling like some sort of celebrity when I’m there. Random people on the street always ask me my name and are overjoyed to know I am my Nonna’s grandson. This usually results in me going to their house to meet their family and hear tons of stories about my Nonna, her siblings, and their lives in Pedivigliano. After a few days of food, more food, even more food, and just an awesome experience of being engulfed in the history and undying presence of my ancestors, I headed up to Toscana! Once again, I endured one of the most horrible train rides of my life (in part due to the fact I ended up standing/sitting in the stairwell of the train for the whole time since I didn’t have a seat). After a tight connection to my next train, in which I had to run like a crazy through Stazione Termini in Roma, I made it the Chiusi-Chianciano in Toscana. Here, I spent a wonderful time with some truly phenomenal long time family friends, Earl and Estelle Hart. They were so generous in taking me all around and showing me the sights. More importantly, Earl and Estelle are just another example of how hospitable and caring people can be, for I had never even met them before, yet they treated me like family! Then, it was back to Roma, where I ate a pathetic dinner of Salami and Taralli in my hotel room by myself and moved into The John Felice Rome Center the 29th! Phew…that was a mouthful! Ever since, our days have been jam packed with orientation activities, learning (and usually forgetting) names of all the other students here, and getting oriented with Rome! More to come soon! Pace, Luca 🙂