Instead of watching the sunset at the hilltop of the Piazzale Michelangelo and tasting the fluffiness of homemade gnocchi, I am now writing this on my fourth day of self-quarantine in my Staten Island home, because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Every year thousands of students flock to Rome, Florence and other Italian cities in order to study abroad—to live and learn among a culture that is not their own.