My first taste of Italy

Ciao a tutti! (Hi everyone!)

I’m so excited to have the opportunity to share my experiences abroad with you all this semester! My name is Melissa. I am a Finance major with a minor in International Business just beginning my junior year at Virginia Tech. Let’s go, Hokies! I’ve been dreaming of studying abroad since I was a little girl so you can imagine how ecstatic I was upon my arrival in Paderno del Grappa!

I suppose I should explain why I’m already here, when students don’t arrive until Monday. This semester, I was fortunate enough to be selected for the Resident Assistant (RA) position here at CIMBA. I’ve actually been in Italy since last Friday, first exploring Venice before arriving on campus for RA training Tuesday. I’ve been having a blast with my fellow RAs and we’re anxiously awaiting our residents’ arrival next week!

Since I’ve already been here for several days and traveled around a bit on my own and with my fellow RAs, you’ve probably guessed that I have pages worth of life experiences to share with you from just the last week! As I’m almost positive I’ll be visiting Venice again this semester, I’ll tell you about that later. However, there is one experience I’d like to share with you all that will give you a taste of what a great week it’s been.

On the plane ride to Washington, D.C. from Norfolk, VA (I live in Virginia Beach with my mom whom I already miss so much. Shout out to my mom!), I sat next to a woman who was also traveling to a small town northern Italy coincidentally, although I can’t remember the name. She’s originally from Italy and only moved to the United States recently for work and visits her home often because she misses it so much, which is sweet. When I told her I was travelling to Paderno del Grappa, she was beyond excited! She advised me that my first priority whilst in Paderno should be to find her favorite Italian pastry, kraffen, that’s special to northern Italy and hard to find elsewhere. She must have known that I have an overactive sweet tooth. I spent the entire two days in Venice looking in every pasticceria (pastry shop) looking for these “powdered doughnut-looking pastries with cream or jelly inside.” Sadly, my search was to no avail as they were nowhere to be found amongst the myriad other tasty treats. I arrived in Paderno still determined to find kraffen, but seeing as it’s such a small town with only one or two pasticceria, I postponed my search until my next visit to a larger city such as Milan or Verona, maybe even our closest larger town Bassano del Grappa.

Tuesday after our arrival on campus, I walked around our small town with my two fellow RAs to get a handle on where everything is. We even walked about 10 minutes to the next town, Fietta, to see what other kinds of fun places we could find. Feeling a little hungry about an hour before dinner, we decided to stop into a pasticceria that our manager had told us about. Just so you have an idea of how small a town we’re in, the women working there spoke approximately zero words of English, which made ordering a challenge. I ordered a croissant, but as I understood (barely) they were out for the day. She pointed to a pastry in the glass case that I might be interested in ordering instead and said “kraffen?” My eyes widened as I looked at her and asked her, “kraffen?!” Sure enough, there was the powdered doughnut-looking pastry with cream filling. I smiled and said, “Si, uno!” It was delicious! I thought of the woman on the plane and was so glad I met her and thankful for her expert Italian pastry advice.

 

I’ve learned so much in the past week that it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact I’ll be here for another three months! I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!

A più tardi! (See you later!)

-Melissa