As the rolling hills of Switzerland faded into the distance, they gave way to a sprawling mountain range. First bare, then peaks covered in snow for miles, some peeking out above fluffy swarms of clouds. I could see the outline of roads and paths among the mountain ranges and caught myself tracing them on the plane window with my finger. I even saw a village deep within a valley between two of the giant mountains.

I wondered briefly if they ever saw any sunlight because they seemed so deeply tucked away from the world within these massive natural walls thousands of feet high.

I saw one small lake that was so green it resembled the skin of an iguana and couldn’t imagine what gave it the reptilian tinge.

Then came several more lakes, huge blue lakes. I am not familiar enough to know if we saw Lake Cuomo from the air, but based on the vastness of the body of water, felt that it must have been Cuomo. Then came the sprawling communities. The first thing I noticed was the roofs. They were unlike anything I have ever seen in the States. The red layers of shingles dotted the landscape for miles.

As the plane turned and descended, I was surprised at how calm I was. I was not stressed or super anxious…just ready.

Malpensa airport was my first true challenge of this day. It was even more challenging than getting on the plane in New York. After exiting the plane, and waiting 25 minutes for my baggage, I walked through the exit and found myself in Terminal One of the airport. There were no customs or security check. The only two people resembling security guards did not even glance at me as I walked by, and of course once I exited baggage claim, I could not re-enter. I had a minor anxiety attack thinking I had missed customs completely and already made a huge blunder after being in the country for barely an hour.

After searching for 30 minutes in vain for Customs, I went to my meeting point for my pick-up…only to find no one there. My arrival email said a man would be there with a sign to identify he was with MILSERVICE (the company that set up my housing)…No one was there.

Furthermore, my phone, which I assumed was set up with the international plan and would work once I arrived on the ground, had zero service. So here I am in a foreign country for barely an hour thinking I missed customs and my pickup and without a way to contact anyone. Basically, I was alone with my two huge suitcases sitting in the middle of Malpensa…it’s a miracle I did not break down right there. Turns out this was just the beginning of a very emotionally challenging day.

After an hour, I figured out how to get on the internet and desperately emailed MILSERVICE asking where the pickup was. After 45 minutes of back and forth, they sent a driver to come get me. It was disgustingly hot, and I was sweating before I even got outside the terminal. I could not tell if it was from the heat or anxiety, probably both. After shoving my bags into the back of his Mercedes, I got in the back and we sped off.

When I say sped, I mean SPED! I watched in horror as he flew through tight turns, drifted in and out of our lane, split the line, and weaved as the speedometer hit 140 and higher! I remember thinking to myself how ironic it was that I made it all this way and would die on an Italian highway. He was a large middle aged gentleman with salt-pepper hair, olive skin and a gold chain around his neck. He just looked very Italian. I remember wondering if all Italian men shared a similar look.

I settled in for the ride and sat there in silence and awe as this gentleman proceeded to call several people from the program and rip them in Italian. (I would later learn the airport pick-ups and drop-offs had been a disaster all day).

15 minutes later we arrived in the city, and the very first thing I noticed was the architecture. At first I was caught by surprise. I expected romantic designs much like I had seen in films and books but was bitterly disappointed. The city was very urban, gritty and almost dirty. The amount of graffiti stunned me, and I felt worse than I had felt all day. A few tall modern skyscrapers jutted out among the landscape, and I briefly recalled that the city had distinct modern and historic sections. I truly hoped I was seeing the worst of it.

As we got deeper into the city, we drove on stone streets with tram and trolley tracks in the road like a never ending steel tapestry. As we moved closer to our destination, I began to notice more of the architecture I was expecting to see when I came on this trip. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before with red clay shingles on the roofs and a design reminiscent of 1920s America. The buildings were tall and square and had balconies with metal rails and bars. I do not think a single balcony was bare, each containing some form of plant or greenery.

These buildings were located amongst modern-esque storefronts and graffiti covered concrete walls. I remember being completely torn between a feeling of depression and awe and amazement. People on Vespas and Mopeds sped around the streets and through Piazzas. We finally pulled up to a beautiful building on a street (Via) called Carducci, the International building for the university.

The building had a gated courtyard inlaid with stone and arches. I got out and followed the driver to the third floor. We entered a small classroom with three young women sitting around a table in the front of the room and a hodgepodge of students with suitcases scattered throughout the room. We left my baggage in the car, so I stood in the doorway, watching my driver interact with the women but feeling the eyes of the students on me.

They looked exhausted, as if they had been in the room for a long time. It turns out they had arrived early in the morning and had been victims of the shuttle fiasco as well, having spent many hours going in circles around the city. It seemed they were about to leave as I arrived, and my arrival stalled things even further. “Not the best start,” I thought to myself.

One of the women took my name and then disappeared for a time, presumably setting up transportation to our temporary home in a monastery in the city. I took a seat as about half the students departed for some unknown destination. I was left with about four other students in the cramped classroom. An American girl from Chicago, a Mexican man, a young woman from Korea and now myself to round out the bunch. We exchanged small talk and spoke with one of the student ambassadors who was still in the room with us. I remember her commenting on how my Surname was Italian and asking if I spoke the language (little did I know, this would be the first of hundreds of times I would get that question). Finally, our transport arrived to take us to the monastery, our temporary housing until the dorms opened up in mid-September.

So we all traveled downstairs and stood in the main entrance of the building, each of us with two suitcases and a carry on…staring at a four door Mercedes sedan. We all looked at each other as they told us two would go now, and two would wait for the next car. I was told to go, and the Korean girl joined me.

My suitcases were abnormally huge and getting them into this car was a struggle. After gently trying to tell the driver how to pack them into the car, we finally got settled, me with one of the Korean girl's bags in my lap and one of my huge suitcases in the passenger seat.

After 15 minutes or so, we pulled up to this red brick building across from an apartment complex. The entire neighborhood reminded me of New Brunswick, NJ with a more European design. We were buzzed into the building, which had metal bars on its front doors and windows and resembled an inner city shelter in New York. I was definitely fighting a feeling of panic at this point. The young woman from the program who came with us checked us in. I remember watching them converse in Italian and really regretting not taking any formal course on the language before this trip.

We each got a thick brass key and were told some of the rules for living there. Chief among them being we had a strict 11 p.m. curfew on weekdays. If we were not back in time, we would have to sleep somewhere else for the night. We were also told the Wi-Fi only worked in the common room, and we had to get a ticket from the front desk with a username and password to access it (only in four or eight hour increments). It was about 5 or 6 p.m. by this time. We were told we could have dinner at the monastery, but the young woman warned us against it, calling it “old people food.” I had no way to communicate with anyone back in the States and could not believe what I was hearing. After this debriefing, the woman from the program asked us if we had any questions, said goodbye and promptly left, leaving me and the Korean girl standing in the lobby with our suitcases, staring at each other with a mix of fear and amazement.

After a moment, we decided we might as well find our rooms. We quickly discovered that in Italy the ground floor is zero, not one like it is in the States. After going up one at a time in an elevator barely wide enough to hold us and our luggage, we got to our rooms. I was still in a shocked state, and it was not alleviated upon entering my room.

It was a single, slightly bigger than my college dorm room at Rutgers. It was bare except for the bed, a desk, a small end table and a crucifix on the wall. I put my bags at the end of the bed and sat down for a moment to collect my thoughts. The room was stifling hot, and I could feel myself begin to sweat through my shirt.

I went to the window, and after 20 minutes of playing with it, could not get it open. I thought perhaps this was because it was not meant to open and further dwelled on my plight. It was completely blocked on the other side by a wall of some material resembling the siding on my house at home, so no light entered the room.

As I unpacked a few things, I was so thankful that this was a temporary situation but seriously wondered how I was going to survive the next few weeks in this place. I decided to go downstairs and get onto the Wi-Fi, desperate to reach someone or something familiar in this foreign and scary place.

The Korean girl was already in the common room on her laptop. We sat down together, and 10 minutes later the two companions we left behind came in. We all sat together in the stifling heat talking of our travel experiences and the plight we now faced together for the next several weeks. Two young men, who were also in the program, heard us talking and joined us. Our table of four soon sat six, and so the San Francesco (the name of the monastery) band was born.

The two young men were a Mexican and a Parisian. It turns out the two Mexican men went to the same University back in Mexico but never met before. The Korean girl was from Seoul, the Parisian was at the Monastery before we arrived, and the American girl completed the group.

As we sat in the room together conversing, we circled back to the subject of our curfew and not only how oppressive it seemed, but also if we dared to venture out that evening before it went into effect. I suggested we travel to the Duomo, an incredibly famous church not only in Milano but all of Europe, via the metro and we all agreed to the idea.

30 minutes later, we reconvened and ventured out into Milano for the first time as a group. The closest metro stop was about six or seven blocks from our new home, and as we descended beneath the city, I could not help but notice how empty it was at this time and how much cleaner it was than New York’s subway system, the only one I am remotely familiar with.

No garbage in the tracks or rats running amongst the rails as you would commonly see in New York. No thick stench of urine hanging around every corner as I had grown so accustomed to among the bowels of NYC. It was also clearly labeled and easy to understand, something I was immensely thankful for.

As we rode the Metro to the Duomo (about 10 stops away), I noticed that all the cars were open. You could see from the front of the train to the back and walk between all the cars. I thought it was so cool to see how the cars behind us moved with the railway. After we pulled into the station and made our way to the exit, I could not help but feel the full weight of my journey. The challenges I had encountered so far and the distance from home hit me all at once, nearly making me sob. But I’ll never forget what happened next.

As we climbed up the stairs to the street, I could see the massive cathedral stretch towards the evening sky before I even conquered the first few steps. When we hit the street, that wave of despair that had overtaken me for most of the day washed away beneath the majesty of this enormous church. As we walked to the front of the building towards the main square, I was able to experience for the first time what I had only ever seen in photographs. Duomo di Milano was the most stunning building I have ever seen. The Gothic architecture was awe-inspiring, and the hundreds of statues across the sprawling basilica seemed to look down upon myself and the diverse city with a peaceful expression, calming the millions of souls amongst the bustling industrial metropolis, no matter the troubles the day might have brought upon them.

At the opposite end of the Piazza was a statue of a man upon a horse. I could not make out who it was on account of the darkness. The square had people scattered about it, but it was by no means crowded. Kids and vendors threw flashing toys into the air that spun around quickly like a wooden top as they slowly floated back to the earth.

Some sat on the stone steps near the church and ate gelato as others milled about the square going to one place or another. We further explored the spaces surrounding the square and this massive area of shops and cafes within giant stone arches (of a similar design to the Gothic Cathedral) enclosed beneath a glass roof. The center of this Galleria housed shops for Versace, Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. The floor held designs and pictures made with thousands of tiny ceramic tiles. To our left was a hole in the floor near the balls of a picture of a bull. Supposedly, if you stick your heel in it and spin around three times it is good luck. None of us tried it, I don’t remember why (probably because we did not want to spin the wrong way and make fools of ourselves or further add to our stretch of bad luck on this journey). After exiting this building, we decided food was critical and made a beeline for the McDonalds at the far end of the square from the Cathedral.

I cannot help but look back and laugh at the fact that the first place I went for food in Italy was McDonalds. I did not eat anything, probably due to my nerves from the stress of the day. We sat upstairs and I think I remarked how funny it was that one could have such an amazing view of an iconic building in Europe and chow down on a Big Mac. We successfully made it back before our curfew, and thus concluded our first night out together in Italy.

It was the first of many. I may have had hesitations after that first day. Over those first two weeks, I constantly wondered if I had made the right choice to study abroad. A year later? I would have done everything all over again exactly the same way. My year abroad was the happiest and greatest time of my life. I have experiences and stories to fill a book...but that's another story.