My name is Lauren Ollis. I am a sophomore at the College majoring in Marketing and International Business, with a minor in Italian Studies. This spring, I am studying in Taormina, Sicily at Babilonia Language School. I chose this specific program because I wanted something different. I wanted to live in a small town that didn’t have too many tourists and be able to work on my language skills. While I am here, some goals I have are to become proficient in Italian and to learn to cook like a true Italian grandmother. I didn’t do much research on Italy as a whole, but I mainly focused on Sicily. Sicily was conquered by so many different cultures over the past 3000 years and each civilization that came in affected the dialect, food, traditions, and so much more. My area specifically has also changed a lot due to the fact that there is an active volcano less than 40 miles away from me!