About Me

My name is Theresa, and I'm a freshman currently in first year engineering planning on majoring in materials science engineering and minoring in electrical engineering with some German, Japanese, and a semester study abroad on the side. I'm from Michigan City, Indiana, which is ninety miles directly (like on the same highway) north of Purdue on Lake Michigan. If you stand on the beach in Michigan City, you can often see Chicago forty miles across the water. Living so close to the city has always been a great springboard for travel, which I've been lucky to take advantage of throughout my life. I've passed through Midway and O'Hare a good number of times on trips all of the country to different national parks with my family, and I even was able to travel to Rome and Athens as a sophomore in high school. The most notable trip I've taken to date started in Chicago, but didn't take me to either of the airports. Last summer, my best friend and I, both just out of high school, drove to the historic start of Route 66 across the street from the Art Institute downtown to mark the beginning of a three week, 6,000 mile road trip to California and back. We stopped at five national parks, drove, ate a lot of really good food, drove, hiked up three mountains and down four, drove, and generally had a good time. It was definitely one of the best experiences of my life.
I'm going to Venice mostly because the opportunity came up, and I always try to grab ahold of such opportunities whenever possible. I loved my first experience in Italy, and I've wanted to see other areas of it ever since. In particular, I've always found Venice to be fascinating because it is so unlike any other place in the world. Also, I'm really excited that we'll essentially be in one place for the whole week. In the past, traveling has a often been a blur of rushing from place to place, and it will be nice to be more immersed in one place. From the architecture to the art to the espresso, I really want to soak in Venice, and I'm super excited for the trip.  

Gelato

Gelato is not like ice cream. When you eat strawberry ice cream, you're eating something that tastes like your run of the mill vanilla ice cream flavored with strawberries.  Eating strawberry gelato is not the same experience at all. Strawberry gelato is not gelato flavored with strawberries; strawberry gelato is strawberries that miraculously have the consistency of gelato. A mix of hazelnut gelato and chocolate yields Nutella in gelato form. Pistachio gelato is unlike pistachios in only the temperature and the texture. Gelato, at least the fresh-made kind that we will hopefully find in Venice, takes ingredient its flavored with and makes it exponentially better without changing the essence of that ingredient. A good gelato just might change your life.