In the spring of2011, I studied abroad with the Clemson Architecture Fluid Campus Program inGenoa, Italy. The trip was from January 9 th to May 12 th,and I studied with 16 other third-year undergraduate architecture students and5 graduate architecture students, all from Clemson University. Our home forthese 4 months was the Charles E. Daniel Center, more commonly referred to asthe villa. The program was established in 1972 and was one of the earliestAmerican satellite architecture programs in Europe. The program, known as theFluid Campus, was a balance of architecture studio, history and culture ofItaly, Italian architecture, urban studies of the European city, and fieldstudies. Approximately one third of the semester was spent traveling boththroughout Italy, as well as in many other countries in Europe. By travelingto, exploring, and discovering new cities, the Fluid Campus created a real lifelearning experience centered on interactions with new cultures. The programalso included an introductory course in learning Italian during the beginningof the semester. The villa itself, a 1900s palazzo in Castelletto Genoa was achance to be immersed in the history of Italian architecture.  In my opinion, the choice of locationcould not have been better for many reasons. Genoa is the completeopposite from Clemson. It is on the coast of the Mediterranean, it is an oldmedieval city, and we able to live in and experience an urban environment. From both a cultural, as well as architectural, standpoint Ifound this extremely interesting and compelling.
During thesemester, a typical week involved studio class, in the villa, on Monday,Wednesday and Thursday, a Day Trip around Northern Italy on Tuesday, studies inContemporary European Architecture on Wednesday, Field Studies on Thursday, andstudies in Italian Rationalism on Fridays. Each class further immersed us inItalian culture. For example, in our studio class, we were designing studenthousing for the University of Genoa. Our site was adjacent to the port ofGenoa. This design project proved challenging, when our Italian professorspointed out that we could not design a dorm as you might for an Americanschool. This design process challenged us to engage with the Italian culture inorder to meet the needs of Italian students. Needless to say, Tuesdays were thebest. Some of the places we visited included: Pavia-Vigevano, Milan, Como,Parma, Lucca, and Carrara. These day trips provided us with a glimpse ofItalian life as we explored the landscape and architectural history of northernItaly. Giuditta Poletti, our field studies professor was our main tour guide onthese day trips. Giuditta and I grew to be great friends and still keep intouch via facebook. I learned a lot about Italian culture and ways of life fromGiuditta, for instance, it is considered to be extremely rude to be barefoot,even indoors, in Italian culture. Giuditta was born in Genoa and now works asan architect in Genoa in addition to teaching classes at the villa. In herearly 30s, Giuditta also introduced us to some of her university friends whoshowed us the student nightlife of Genoa. Most students spoke English so we wereable to get to know them.
While the week wasmostly devoted to studies, the weekends were a wonderful opportunity fortravel. All of our professors encouraged us to travel, even if it meant missingtheir class. I mainly traveled with my close friend, Katie. Throughout thesemester we traveled to: Nice, France, then Berlin, Germany, next was a ten-dayclass trip in Italy to Florence, Siena, and Rome, the next weekend we were offto Paris, France, next we met up with an old friend, who was studying aboard inLondon, England. We spent another ten days in the United Kingdom and visitedDublin, Ireland, Edinburgh, Scotland, and a night in Manchester, England. Thefollowing weekend we spent with some of Katie’s family who live in Lille,France. Our last weekend travel adventure was to Amsterdam and Harlem,Netherlands. The following week we left for our third and final ten-dayadventure in Italy and Austria stopping in Vienna, Venice, Vicenza, and Verona.Sometimes we traveled in larger groups of five or six, but most trips were onlyKatie and myself. We preferred to travel without so many people, because it wasmuch easier to meet people and experience the culture. Being on a studentbudget, we usually stayed in hostels that were often bunkhouse set-ups. By stayingin the hostels, we were better able to engage with locals and fellow travelers.For example, in London we met Olivia and Grace from Southwark, a borough ofLondon. We were sharing a bunkroom with them. We started talking about thedifferences between America and England. It was quite an interestingconversation. The four of us realized that we both identified the other’sculture mainly through pop culture stereotypes. For example, the best glimpseof American life Olivia and Grace knew was from what they had seen of thetelevision shows the Simpsons and Friends.  Katie and I didn’t have any better idea of what definedEngland’s culture; our stereotypes were based off of Harry Potter. We talkedthat night in the room about what each of our lives were really like, where welived, and what we considered to be the American life and the English life. Itwas an eye opening experience to the untrue nature of stereotypes that I hadabout other cultures.
Another eyeopening experience, culturally, was my trip Amsterdam. While there was plentyof English being spoken, it was quite a different culture than that of SouthCarolina. I was able to spend five days in the city and get a better sense ofplace, than if I had only been there a weekend. Being an architecture student,one of the differences that I noticed was the urban planning of the city. I hadnever seen anything like it. The city was designed around transportation viabicycle. Cars and even public transportation were secondary compared to bikes.According to our tour guide, there are an estimated 500,000 bikes in the city.As a future architect, this city plan and bike culture will stick in my mind asa possible solution to our car dependent nation.
Another aspect of traveling that taught me about differentcultures was the food. I was always willing to try the “house special” orwhatever the waiter suggested. This gave me the chance to experience new foodsor combinations of food that I might not have been brave enough to order on myown. For example, while in Edinburgh, we took a guided tour of the city and ourguide said that if we wanted to truly experience their culture we should orderhaggis fritters, a traditional dish for dinner. Haggis fritters, as I laterlearned consisted of many different parts of a sheep, but it was delicious. Iam glad I tried it. I had a similar experience in France, when the housespecial consisted of cheesy pasta topped with a cracked raw egg, and again inGermany with flamy cutlet. My culinary experiences of different cultures werenot limited to my travels. We had an Italian chef in the villa who cooked forus. Our chef, Christina, also taught us a lot about Italian culture in thekitchen and more specifically Genovese style cooking. One of the main culturaldifferences for me was the emphasis on meals as a social event. Everyone wasexpected to be at meals, sit at the table, and socialize for at least an hour.This was very different than the ten-minute meals on the go that I associatewith my culture. Another cultural difference that I noticed, relating tomealtime, was that the most important meal of the day was lunch. This is incontrast to American culture, where the most emphasis is placed on dinner.Their work and school schedules are based around lunch. Children come home fromschool for a mid-day break and businesses close from around 12pm to 3pm. Thekitchen also provided a cultural challenge by exposing us to traditionalItalian foods such as octopus, quiche, preshutto and lots of eggplant. 
By getting to know Christina, in the kitchen, I wasintroduced to her husband, Gabriele Careddu. I soon learned that we were both avidrock climbers. After a few failed attempts to plan a rock-climbing trip, wefinally found a weekend that would work. Gabrielle and his brother took Lauren, another architecture student from Clemson living inthe villa, and myself rock climbing in Finale Ligure. It was amazing, worldclass climbing that I had read about in Rockand Ice, my favorite climbing magazine. Finale Ligure is only about an hourdrive outside of Genoa. I remember being excited to get outside and climb; Ihad only been to the local climbing gym in Genoa a handful of times. It wasinteresting to reconnect to the climbing community and culture so far fromhome. My culture and Gabrielle’s culture were so different from each other’s,but yet we shared the culture of climbing and a love of the outdoors.  
Thisidea of a shared culture was something that remained in my mind towards the endof the semester, as I began to look back and synthesize my experiences. Thissemester was my first real traveling experience. For the first time, I wasimmersed in a culture other than that of South Carolina. I learned that beforeI could decide if something was “strange” or “unusual,” first I had to understandthe culture of the place. While each country I visited was unique, there werealways relatable or common threads of culture with which I could identify, beit climbing, a beer at the pub, or a warm cup of coffee. This experience willcontinue to shape my personal development throughout the rest of my time atClemson and beyond.