Day 2: May 19

 Today was a nice day. Walked about 15 minutes to the church and we saw tons of poppies and puppies.

The church is tiny and has very old seating. They are completely wooden, have no backs, and almoat no one knelt. I love that there was no bell during the consecration and it was a new experience to dip the host in white wine—which was better than the white wine my church uses!

We met everyone at the train station, and I like how easy it is to buy a ticket (and get a return ticket) and validate it. The train ride was so smooth and we saw some cool art at the Modena station.

We had 2 free hours in Modena, but all the grad students stuck with Drs. Gess and Miller. The closeness of everything made me think of NY or parts of Baltimore except with more color and nicer smells. We saw umbrellas hanging at times and and I stepped into St. Rita's Chureh. We also passed by a pig truck!

  

Dr. Gess gave me permission to break the rules and go into a bookstore, after which I met them at al Grattorino. I got birthday gifts for people at the bookstore (where Duolongo left my brain and I forgot how to say I don’t speak Italian) and then saw large personal pizzas and a pizza with fries on top. I did also take a bite of vegetable pizza and was sad that I now find pizza cheese to be too stringy to me and won’t be having any more Italian pizza. This actually makes me sad because I wanted to try a bite of real pizza since the last one I loved was in the Italy part of Epcot. 

  

Back in Reggio, I bought Tori gelato before meeting back up with the professors. The grad students went back to Dr. Gess’ apartment to talk shop in a cafe across from the apartment. She significantly helped me with terminology and strengthening alignment a lot more. She also suggested that I eliminate my first research question and only have what is currently my second one. This is exactly what I’m hoping for so as long as my advisor agrees, I’m in! It would mean even more edits beyond her other suggestions but it would decrease extra overlapping work. I am eternally grateful she and Dr. Miller will be on my committee and they are running the USC people on this trip, because I have very few concerns about my output (though getting there will make me crazy)! 

I then broke down and bought a 1.50€ (basic cost) for a cafe Americano and it was Jaime perfected but extremely small. I am happily surprised it wasn’t too strong and that the lack of flavor didn’t make me feel ill.