It seems so strange that the Winter Olympics have made my lovely hometown - Torino - a household name. It seemed no one knew about my city before the Games. Italy, for most people, has been Florence, Rome, Venice, but certainly not Torino. I’ve described it to people. It’s a beautiful city - the river, the monuments, the cafés, the view of the mountains. The mentality and traditions are not only Italian, they’re ours - they’re Torinesi. Now, my city is in the spotlight - its name on everyone’s lips, NBC cameramen in every corner. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials, the specials and the coverage of the Games. What you may not have seen is the café I waitressed in for a year while at university here. Pina Secchi, an older woman from Rome whose son owns the popular meeting point at the foot of the hills, would sit down in the afternoon, after starting her day in the kitchen at 5:30 a.m., and tell me about walking through Rome as a young girl during the war. She’d watch the customers filter in and out, always the same, and tell me to go eat a sandwich before I went back to work. I can show you Pina Secchi, Piazza Castello and much, much more. Thanks to good friends and understanding bosses, I was able to be in my city during this exciting time. I’ve seen Torino decorated and scrubbed, the monuments I used to walk by every day lit up for the world to see. I was able to bridge the gap between my professional life, which brought me to the U.S., and my roots, which forever tie me to Torino. For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to recapture the essence of Torino with my new eyes. It’s the first time I’ve walked these streets with my cameras, but certainly not the last. I offer you not only my Olympic experience, but my emotion and pride at watching Italy win a gold medal among roaring crowds and Italian flags. I give you Italian teenagers, festive and patriotic, but in the end just like any other teenagers. I give you the realization that Torino cannot be encapsulated in a stereotype. I give you a window into my city’s elegance and mystery, its culture and its hope. I offer you the love of home. I hope you enjoy.