Author: Keira Davies
First Week in Italy: Delays, Dinner, Research, and a Very Sunburned Will
Weeks of anticipation built as we waited for the day to finally arrive. When would we finally be in Italy, eating good food, drinking wine, and enjoying ourselves? The anticipation kept growing until it finally exploded on May 17: travel day.
Some of us started the day at 4:00 a.m., driving to the airport to begin the journey. At first, everything seemed great. But then, slowly, things started to change. The flight delays came flying in: an hour and a half delay, a two-hour delay, and suddenly we were stuck twiddling our thumbs at the airport, waiting to board.
Then, finally, we landed in Milan, Italy. The first pack of students ran outside to get train tickets, excited to start the adventure. But then one word flashed across the screens at the station: Cancelled. The train workers were on strike, so there went that option. The rest of the day was filled with technical difficulties, public transportation problems, and delay after delay.
However, that was not going to stop us.
The next day, we all got together in Bologna to celebrate the start of the summer. We enjoyed an amazing aperitivo and sampled some delicious food and drinks. As the drinks kept flowing, so did the food: prosciutto crudo, tortellini in brodo, tiramisu, and so much more. After the chaos of travel day, sitting together outside in a piazza in Bologna felt like exactly the kind of welcome to Italy we had all been waiting for.
The next day, we went to our respective universities in Bologna, Parma, and Modena to begin our research. In Bologna, Lincoln, Anna, and I are working on using Raman and FTIR spectroscopy to characterize compound polymorphs by analyzing the spectra and creating graphs from the data. In Parma, Dominic and Ava are using X-ray diffraction and crystallography to study another aspect of the compounds’ structures and polymorphs.
In Modena, Marietta and Simon are working on synthesizing materials and growing crystals with dynamic properties that will be used by other students in the program for crystallography in Parma and spectroscopy in Bologna. They are also analyzing the dynamic behavior of materials in-house. Andrew Foster and Will Stoll are doing computational chemistry research with Prof. Giovanni Maria Piccini, using molecular dynamics and machine learning to characterize the potential energy landscapes of dynamic materials.
As the work week wrapped up, we decided to take a trip to Rimini Beach to relax and enjoy the sun. The day was filled with laughter and joy all around: goofing off in the ocean, tanning in the sun, and eating good food together.
What made the trip continue even after it was “over” was the fact that the PhD student with us, Will, was as red as a lobster from the sun. As much as we reminded him, he never quite remembered to put on enough sunscreen. It is safe to say that Will became the unofficial cautionary tale of the first week: always reapply sunscreen.
Looking back, the first week was a mix of everything: long travel days, unexpected delays, train strikes, new cities, new labs, amazing food, and the beginning of new research projects. Even with the chaos, it already feels like the start of something special. We are settling into our cities, getting to know our mentors, beginning our research, and learning how to live and work in Italy together. If the first week is any indication, this summer is going to be full of good science, good food, and plenty of stories.
