By Angela Pepkolaj
My love for Italy and the Italian language began from a family trip when I was about 14 in Genova, Italy. My family and I still lived in Albania and we went to visit my aunt in Italy. I couldn’t stop smiling. I was so excited. Our first few days there were incredible. We ate the best food from different kinds of pasta to endless pizzas. There was a small pizza place near our house that we used to eat from every other day. My uncle’s specialty dish was Carbonara pasta. The creamy pasta stole everyone’ s heart and that’s where I knew I loved Italian culture.
It felt so similar to Albanian culture, everyone getting together for meals, watching our favorite shows together or cheering on the same soccer team or watching Formula Uno felt so warming. I mean, we do the same in Albania but being able to do it with a different culture in a different country was special. The food and the holidays brought us all together. I remember growing up and my younger cousins couldn’t speak Albanian, only Italian. They would talk together and I sometimes felt left out that I couldn’t understand them. Studying Italian at Brandeis has helped me be closer to my Italian side of the family and now, we make annual trips to the Liguria and Toscana regions and I am able to understand and speak for myself in a country that feels like a second home. 
Angela Pepkolaj is a student at Brandeis University and received the The Claire Gaudiani Memorial Fellowship