I sat on my yellow bedspread, computer on my lap, rolling suitcase at my feet spilling poorly folded towels onto my bedroom floor. Tomorrow, I'll be headed across the world to Italy, where I'll know no one, I thought. The fear of being separated from my friends and family pressed through my fingertips as I clicked the “Create blog” button. I had been warned that when you return from studying abroad, your loved ones cannot fully understand your life in another country. They didn't have to order their meals in Italian; they didn't navigate cobblestone streets with an Italian map; they will probably never meet your friends who became your family abroad. While my friends and family could not be next to me physically, I desired for them to also experience life in a foreign country through recounting my European adventures in a blog. Who says you can't take your loved ones with you?
After doing research on where I would be living, I found breathtaking pictures of Florence's cityscape and saved them on my computer. One, taken at sunset, captured the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge and its golden reflection on the Arno River. I uploaded the picture as my main image and included text over the building where I would be living. When my readers pulled up my page, they could visualize exactly where I would be typing from.
I refreshed the page. Zero followers. Well, I have to start somewhere. I typed my blog while staring at my open suitcase, postponing packing my life up for four months until I could at least finish the first entry. I wondered if anyone would care to read what I had to say, and I wondered if I had anything to say at all, even if only to cyberspace. I nonchalantly added my blogger link to my Facebook in hopes that someone other than my parents would stumble across it.
I received my first comment that night from a coworker. Already I had connected with someone! With this small peak in my confidence, I slept soundly, preparing for the long airplane ride the next day and the start of my Italian journey.
Rome
Less than 48 hours later, I hacked into a free wi-fi account at our hotel in Rome. I typed out every emotion I had experienced from hugging my parents goodbye at the airport, to the relief from meeting my group for the first time, to the delicious experience of eating gelato for dinner with my new roommates. My blog acted as a journal cataloguing the events of my days, but the part I am most proud of is one I stumbled into. On the plane, I shared a row with an elderly Italian woman who spoke no English. Having piecemeal knowledge of Italian, we used gestures to communicate about what airplane meal to choose, whether or not I would like to eat her dinner roll, and if I could reach her shoe that slipped under her chair. Watching her emphasized facial expressions and hand gestures, I learned to adore this woman I could barely speak to. But, it was not the woman I was taken by as much as it was the Italian culture I was finally encountering. This would be the topic of my blog: how I fell in love with Italy, and why my readers should, too.
Florence
Every day, I traveled the streets of Florence and recorded the quirks of the Italian culture. Experiencing the city as an outsider, I closely observed every day Florentine sights with vigor. I would return to my apartment after a long day of walking around and nearly every night I typed down descriptions of Italy for my readers to absorb themselves in.
I vividly remember wandering the streets one night with my roommates as we searched for a rumored concert. Several groups of small, exhausted children carried by their Florentine parents passed us on the way to a church square. Soon, we faintly heard music and made our way to the city center. Following the beat as if it were a Siren song, we came to a large square filled with a mass of Florentines. Many were children carrying large, intricate lanterns while their parents stayed close by to watch for fire hazards. We were told this was an ancient tradition called the “Festival of Lanterns,” where children would carry lanterns in a parade around the city of Florence. Grateful for the internet, I attached a hyperlink in my blog entry to explain the origin of the festival so that I wouldn't have to take up my reader's attention with information that they may not care to know.
As we pushed by the crowds in the square, my roommates and I were awestruck. We found this festival by accident and happened to participate in an Italian tradition that was centuries old. I took several pictures to capture this memory, including one of a little girl holding a lantern while sitting on her father's shoulders to watch the band play. The music was unrecognizable as it was in Italian until I heard the beat for “Rock Around The Clock.” The vocalist sang the words in quite fluent English with only a slight Italian accent, and next he began to play Little Richard's “Tutti-Frutti” at the end. I nearly flipped! Little Richard was born and raised in Macon, GA, my hometown. Here again my two cultures collided. Of course I relayed all of this information to my friends through my blog when I got home. It was such a blessing to be able to link my small town friends to this foreign city through a universal appreciation for a song.
To Your Home
I continued to write about more of my adventures, finding myself inserting vivid imagery and description to pull my reader into my Italian life. My aim was to capture all of the senses; something that only a medium like the internet can fully do. I included pictures so that my readers could walk across the Ponte Vecchio with me, not just conjure pictures in their minds' eyes. I recommended songs for them to download to fill my readers' minds with the rich Italian music culture of Verdi to Dean Martin. I attached recipes from my Italian cooking course for them to recreate at home the smells and tastes of the world-renowned Tuscan cuisine. I wanted my audience to live a virtual reality in Italy. A letter could not do that justice; too many would be required to catalogue my journey, and that medium would reach far too limited of an audience. Writing a book could not inform my friends of my day-to-day life, and it would most likely not be as interesting to a reader who simply wants to know what life in Italy is like today. I could hear from my readers in their comments on individual entries, and I could respond to them later, or be more aware of what they desired to read as I continued to describe my “Four Months In Firenze.”
My grandmother loved these stories and read my site every day. For Christmas, she asked for a printed out and bound book form of my blog. I like to think that my blog taught her, though from a generation completely foreign to computers, about digital literacy. Though she obviously still preferred the more comfortable, tangible print form, I believe she gained a greater sense of self-sufficiency simply from learning how to operate my website.
My grandmother wasn't my only follower. I Skyped my parents weekly, and they would ask me questions about activities I mentioned in my blog. My father regularly (and lovingly) critiqued my writing. Having this immediate feedback from him was beneficial to my writing skills, but it was also a challenge to my conscience as an adult writer. One blog entry complained about how American men didn't "have the balls" to ask women out, but how Italian men had been boosting my confidence by asking me out more regularly. My father said, "You do realize your grandmothers read this." He asked me to take it off. I told him that I was mature enough to be able to make my own decisions about my writing. Because it's the internet, one can easily edit what is said, unlike print which cannot be changed. But, this was a point that I explicitly chose my rhetoric to be able to call American men to a change (and even as an indirect call-out to one male reader who is now my boyfriend).
I know blogs often get a “bad rap” for being overly sentimental...** The internet allowed me to immediately connect two unlike cities across the globe and inform Americans about the beauty of the Italian culture. Having a following and reading my readers' comments, I realized for the first time that people were listening to what I had to say. The recorded numbers of page views and subscribed readers gave me an idea of who my audience was so I could respond accordingly. The medium of the internet allowed a depth of connection across continents that would never have been possible before this technology.
