April 11, 2015 was the best day of my life.
Location: Capri, Italy
Location: Capri, Italy
For an assignment in my Human Development class, we were asked to make a teaching tool using all sorts of techniques we discussed in class. The lesson had to be taught through a vehicle, a way that almost anyone can learn or understand something; and a replicator, something that could be reused and applied to another concept. The tool had to apply to any lesson we wanted to teach Fall 2015 incoming study abroad students to our program. I chose to remaster the well known song Blank Space by Taylor Swift, and change it to Spring Break. My friends helped me very much, and I think did a really great job with this product below. Feel free to play the song or preferably the karaoke version in the background and sing along! Maybe you will even learn a thing or two about packing for spring break!
Blank Space / Spring Break
Taylor Swift / Kerry Woods
Nice to meet you
Where you been?
I can show you incredible things
Grab a backpack and a friend
We got there and I thought oh my god
Look at that place
This looks like my next escape
Break’s a party, wanna play?
No money, need a flight
I can find it on sky scanner
It might seem so cheap to fly
But you didn’t see the hidden fees
So hey, read the fine print
Save your euros till the end
Grab your passport and my hand
Make sure you have enough socks for the weekend
You might take some pictures, or sleep on lots of trains
You can tell me when it’s over, if the hostel was worth the shower
Got a long list of check-ins
My friends think I’m insane
But I just love to travel, so it was worth the pain
Cause we’re young and we’re reckless
We’ll take this world by storm
The views will leave you breathless and make you sad to part
Got a long list of check-ins,
My friends think I’m insane
But I’ve got a passport baby, so stamp your place
Sandy beaches, clear blue skies
Oh so many beautiful things
Pretty places, such long lines
Buy your ticket before they sell out
Find out where to walk, take the bus for over three stops
But the worst is yet to come
Oh no!
Walking, blisters, oh my god
I don’t want to pay for a cab
Should have got a metro pass
Then I check the routes like, oh my god
Where am I?
Why didn’t I decide to fly?
But then I would have missed these sights
Cause you wanna buy souvenirs so better pack light
You might take some pictures, or sleep on lots of trains
You can tell me when it’s over, if the hostel was worth the shower
Got a long list of check-ins
My friends think I’m insane
But I just love to travel, so it was worth the pain
Cause we’re young and we’re reckless
We’ll take this world by storm
The views will leave you breathless and make you sad to part
Got a long list of check-ins,
My friends think I’m insane
But I’ve got a passport baby, so stamp your place
Tourists only want selfies if it’s torture,
Don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn you
Tourists only want selfies if it’s torture,
Don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn you
You might take some pictures, or sleep on lots of trains
You can tell me when it’s over, if the hostel was worth the shower
Got a long list of check-ins
My friends think I’m insane
But I just love to travel, so it was worth the pain
Cause we’re young and we’re reckless
We’ll take this world by storm
The views will leave you breathless and make you sad to part
Got a long list of check-ins,
My friends think I’m insane
But I’ve got a passport baby, so stamp your place
Location: Perugia, Italy
The picture above is the gate to the entrance of Auschwitz. translated to English as: “Work Will Set You Free”.
Believe it or not, when people have asked me what my favorite thing has been while studying abroad, I always answer with this experience. I think it is so important to go somewhere of extremely important historical significance. It was cool to take a picture with the Eiffel Tower, lay on a beach in Spain, take pictures as gladiators in-front of the Colosseum, and see the sets of Harry Potter – but nothing trumped this experience.
There is this saying that history repeats itself. Therefore we all need to educate ourselves on genocides in the past and in contemporary society, so that we can prevent them from reoccurring in the future.
Location: Krakow, Poland
To start off the trip, on the train someone asked if we were on Next Top Model. My self esteem went through the roof. Which is really funny because due to Italy’s fabulous production of gelato, wine, pizza, and chocolate I am actually the largest I probably have ever been. But anyways, here is London through the eyes of a “Top Model”.
Well it took over an hour in line at border control/customs , it was by far the most extensive background check I have had yet. We stayed with the aunt and uncle of Ayanna, friend I am traveling with for spring break, in Norwich, UK. Norwich is a 3 hour bus ride from the airport but 2 hour train ride from the city . I slept through the whole 3 hour bus ride, woke up occasionally and the scenery was exactly what I had seen in Harry Potter, rolling green fields and tiny little towns with tiny little houses and little cars. Her uncle picked us up from the bus from the airport in his town in Norwich, took us to his cute apartment where his loving wife had prepared us a traditional Nigerian dinner of chicken and rice and fried plantains which is like fried bananas with sugar.
We sat around with them and talked and watched the Manchester vs. Barcelona soccer game, which is funny because we had just come from there. “Uncle” had her call her mom and grandma and aunts which was fun to see them all talk together and kind of get together as a family. “Auntie” kept making me tea, which was so nice because I’ve had a very frightening cough due to the Italian winters – that are a lot colder than you would expect because they don’t really use heating so going outside is pretty similar to being inside. (Sorry for the awful run-on sentence) Doesn’t make a difference where you are. I wear a north face and several layers to bed at night.
Wednesday morning we woke up to head to Wartford for Harry Potter World/ Warner Brothers Studios, which we had tickets to, and were greeted by eggs, toast, baked beans, and sausage. This was one of my best experiences in Europe because it was so generous and homey. As soon as I sat down, her aunt handed me another cup of tea and had another one already in a thermos for me to travel with that morning, one of the kindest things and people I have ever met. Her uncle brought us to the train station to head into Wartford to geek out on J.K. Rowling’s dynasty. Round trip was 59£ for the journey there and back during off time hours – rush hours are from 5 am to 9 am. These are even more expensive because some people commute into the city for work, and the railways take advantage of this and it therefore costs more. We also had tickets to a double decker bus tour in London the next day and bought another set of round trip tickets which were 42£ – cheaper because we bought them ahead of time. They said these can cost only about 16 £ if you purchase them a couple days ahead of time. But I didn’t mind because we were staying with her family for no cost, and served several meals there which saved us a significant amount. Her aunt also packed us lunch and snacks for the day; which was extremely kind and funny because she loaded up this huge bag that I was carrying around the train station which seemed to be my luggage because of how heavy it got.
The one thing that bugged be about London: everyone is very health conscious. Which made me self conscious. There are ads for gyms everywhere and an extremely large amount of people all running around in packs, literally, and wearing the sportiest gear I have ever seen. I kept eating tuna or chicken sandwiches here and felt much healthier than my travels so far in Spain, France, and Italy.
Warner Brothers Studios is in Wartford, which seems to be about an hour outside London if you take trains due to switching trains twice to get there. Warner Bros. has a shuttle from the Wartford junction station for a round trip of 2£ to and from the studios which I found to be well worth it. As a heads up, you cannot purchase tickets on location. You MUST prepay ahead of time. You can have tickets mailed to you for an additional charge, or pick up at arrival which is what we did and for free! When you purchase tickets online, you have to pick a time for arrival. They say you have to get there within 15 minutes of that time or you will have issues entering – we arrived an hour later than our purchased time slot and there was no problem at all, people check tickets at several stops and never said anything about ours . Also it was PACKED, even though it was a Wednesday afternoon in February – so I would look out for only early or later times if you plan on going during usual vacation times like around holidays or summer.
The studios itself are much more of a museum, completely different from Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Orlando which I went to about 3 years ago. This place is filled with all the sets, costumes, and props for the actual movies; and therefore there is not nearly as large as an interactive component as in Florida. There are no rides, and only one time you sit down and watch an introductory video in a large audience; which reminded me of It’s a Bug’s Life in Animal Kingdom Disney World without the 3D effects and bugs stinging your chair.
That being said, I think this place is much more for teenagers and adults than for kids. Lots of things are for viewing only, behind ropes and glass cases and therefore to be seen and not touched . I know my siblings and I would have had a problem with that in our childhoods, but I think we would be much suited for this type of attraction in our late teenage years an early 20s. Therefore it is called a tour of the studios and rightfully so – it was definitely amazing to see the golden snitch, goblet of fire, Dumbledore’s office, potions class, Great Hall, and lots more in person but I would have loved a bit more to interact with or do per se.
I don’t want to talk that much about it, and spoil the experience for those of you who plan on going on your own. There are lots of things I found astounding that I didn’t take pictures of on purpose so that I could just experience the moment. Photography didn’t give the being the credit it deserved, and to do it justice I want you to go there and see it for yourself. What I found the most amazing was the amount of special and visual effects used in the movies. Scenes where Harry and Ron and Hermoine just walk around a town or in a forest, which I thought were real places, they filmed at were all actually just green screens the actors acted infront of. And the scenery, as simple as a street in an empty town, was all artificially created. I obviously knew the brooms and dragons flying around couldn’t be real but from what I was told at the studios, it seemed as though most of the movie was made from scratch in literally every sense. And it gave me not only for the effects crews, but the actors themselves. I think it is so hard to act with an empty space, unable to interact with anything and basically have to do lots of improv or however you are able to act for the majority of a movie infront of a green screen and no environment to work with at all.
We went to London on Thursday and it was kind of actually a nightmare. Due to being so far out, we didn’t get into the city until noon. And then it took us almost 2 whole hours to find our tour bus we had already reserved seats on the week before. I do not recommend doing that. I definitely think you should do a double decker bus tour of as many cities as you can visit – I have done one for almost all the major cities I have been in: Barcelona, Rome, London, and Paris. But for London I suggest that you walk around a bit and get a feel for the bus companies that seem to have the most buses out and about. I would choose that route, do not prepay before going. And it was also pouring rain, and I mean cats and dogs. It was almost hurricane conditions if you ask me. It was so cold and poured for hours with a lot of wind. There was one hour that it let up to a drizzle and we were by Buckingham Palace. So we jumped off there and took a few pictures and grabbed coffee. We didn’t really get to do anything else because the rain started back up and we only had a few more hours before we had to take a train back to Norwich. I saw London Bridge from afar, and you can see the American eskimo I became due to the weather. So we just rode around the bus tour for a couple more hours and grabbed fish and chips before heading back to Norwich.
I definitely need to go back to London. My total of 6 hours actually touring the city did not give it justice. I don’t think I’ll make it back there this trip but I am looking forward to traveling there again in the future!
I want to end on a note about Harry Potter World. You see before this trip I had always held onto this knowingly gullible and naïve idea that Hogwarts existed. I had this vision that it was somewhere hidden way in the hillsides of Scotland by a lake and you could only get there by train like the books and movie say. However, seeing all the sets and props and watching videos on how the special effects teams created the dramatic movie scenes made it truly hit me that Hogwarts isn’t real. A part of the child within me died, and I was kind of upset for a bit there. It’s so sad to grow up, and the magic that you feel as a child like at Christmas or Easter fade away with age. Rent needs to get paid, internships need to be applied for, graduate school admission exams need to be studied for and taken; and with these things I think aging truly begins to set in. I don’t have significant wrinkles or graying hair, or the same stresses as my dad who raised 3 kids by himself for the past 11 years – but I think that these are the times when we truly become old.
Location: London, UK
Over the past 9 days I was on spring break, and it was an amazing experience being able to travel through 3 countries during that time. The next several blog posts of mine will consist of each country from that trip.
We started with Barcelona leaving Rome on Friday morning. And with that this is where my spring break begins!
The metro and buses of the city each cost 2.15€ each way per person which is a pretty good deal. But to maximize the transportation services even further, we purchased 3 day passes. These are called Hola BCN! Which you can buy at the airport or any metro station. These passed can be purchased at a discounted rate for any number of days – our 3 day pass with unlimited use of the metro and buses during that time was 20.95€. It came out to be a pretty good deal because we used the buses and metros several times daily and had to change buses and trains en route to city destinations, so in one day I think we used a bus or train 8 times which would have been 17.20€ in one day and would have cost almost the same as the three day pass if we had not purchased it and paid 2.15€ per person every single time. So when visiting Barcelona, I HIGHLY recommend purchasing one of these passes for each person in your party if it makes sense logistically.
Location: Barcelona, Spain
When good Americans die, they go to Paris.
-Oscar Wilde
So far, Paris is my favorite place in Europe. I know I said that about Pisa, but I hadn’t been here yet. The best way to describe Paris is to call it New York City but cleaner to appease to the majority of an American (complete assumption) audience reading this post. You see, I have a slight problem while living here in Italy: I absolutely do not fit in. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE who lives here has hair as black as a raven’s feathers, and slightly pale olive skin due to the winter season. The fact that my dad said to me on FaceTime the other day, “What have they done with our Irish princess?”, perfectly proves the point that my red hair and vast accumulation of freckles, I like to refer to as Pangea, are not the typical Italian look. Therefore I get a bit more attention here in Italy compared to being at home.
I am not sure how familiar everyone here is with the Italian lifestyle and/or its stereotypes. Well for those of you who have heard that Italian men are a bit more aggressive than American lads – you have heard correctly. In my case, at least, I get what you would call “cat called” on a daily basis. On my way to class in broad daylight, in morning hours, I usually hear something along the lines of “Mama Mia!” shouted in my direction. It happens on at least a daily basis for me. And from what I understand it is a normal aspect of Italy’s culture. According to Italian women, men have been doing this for as long as they could remember. And because the men do it so often, the boys grow up thinking it is perfectly acceptable and assumed of them to also do so. Well at first I found it startling and flattering, but now I find it quite annoying. My friends who have darker hair and features say that it does not happen to them nearly as much because they fit in a bit more, I, on the other hand, am seen as a sort of rarity and am noticed more because of the blatantly non-Italian features.
The main reason I LOVED Paris so much was because, not one person cat called me. Beings as it is a big city, there were sooo many people. Everyone was rushing about to get somewhere and no one paid me any mind at all. I loved it, It felt great to just blend in and go along with the flow. I went to small private Catholic schools from kindergarten to senior year of high school, which accumulated to be 12 years. I chose to go to Penn State for college because I wanted to be a tiny fish in an ocean, no longer a whale in a fish tank. In Paris, I was able to be the tiny guppy swimming about without a care in the world and it was wonderful.
As soon as I got onto a train in Rome, coming back from Paris, a group of Italian male teenagers started whistling at me and directing provocative comments towards me. At that point I knew I was officially back home in Italy and once again the whale.
If you didn’t already insinuate from before, I must tell you that I loved Paris very much. The atmosphere is like a beehive with all the little honey bees bustling about their merry way without any interruption. I love city lifestyles and could definitely see myself living in a major city someday, before I have kids and want the typical white picket fence and big backyard.
I experienced one of the best moments of my life in Paris that weekend. When we got off the shuttle from the airport to the city it started to snow. And when I say snow, I mean quite more than a flurry or two. It was snowing so hard when we got on the tour bus, that looking out the window was virtually pointless because you couldn’t see anything. That’s when I decided to sit on the top of the double decker bus by myself. I went to the top of the bus in almost blizzard conditions and was completely alone. I had the whole top of the bus to myself, and it was absolutely magnificent. There was this calming quiet and sense of serenity on the top of the double decker bus in the snow. I felt completely at peace and sat down eager to start the ride. We passed by all the major attractions such as the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Palace of Versailles, and on and on.
But it wasn’t until the snow really picked up and even I couldn’t see my surroundings very well, that a life altering event occurred. I was squinting, try to see the road ahead through the snowstorm when I felt an ominous figure looming over me. I reluctantly looked over my shoulder, and was astounded to find that it was the Eiffel Tower. I sat there with my jaw dropping to the ground in disbelief. I was completely alone with the Eiffel Tower in a snowstorm. The flurries seemed to lessen their load and became more of a delightful dance during the exquisite moment. I was overwhelmed by an immense feeling of amazement, gratitude, and true joy. I got so emotional I almost started crying. It was one of the most amazing feelings and moments I have ever experienced in my life. And after my own little perfect moment, seemed to have been frozen in time for a split second, the rest of the tour bus came sprinting onto the top deck to get their own moment with my looming friend. This was actually a good thing, because I was able to have someone capture the moment for me with this picture:
The next day was much better weather, with a drizzle or two in the afternoon. So my roommates and I jumped back on the tour bus, after spending several hours at the Louvre. and redid all the sights. And because of the benefits of good weather, were able to jump off at each location to take pictures and explore.
One of my all-time favorite things in Paris was the Louvre Museum. I am an art geek and love all types of artwork except for Early United States History Battle scenes. I just don’t enjoy red paint splattered all over the canvas with heads missing and pools of blood engulfing a field. But that’s just me. Anyway, I was so amazed by the Louvre Museum because I am taking an Art History course here called Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Genius, and Scientist. So, for the first couple weeks of the semester I have been studying his work with the class in chronological order – observing how his technique as an artist evolved from his early days. I was walking through the Louvre on my way to see his world-renown “Mona Lisa”, when I accidentally came across several of his paintings I had just studied in class that very week. I was actually amazed by how powerful it was to be seeing these works firsthand, after studying them a few days before. It’s one thing to look the paintings on a projector or a textbook; but to stand there and appreciate them for their miraculous presence and entirety was probably one of the best aspects of study abroad. It’s so different to be at home and study something and just keep looking at pictures or hearing about them. But when someone studies abroad in a European nation, it is so unreal how easy it is to travel to the locations and monuments you discuss in class.
And I think that’s the true value of studying abroad.
Location: Paris, France
I love spaghetti. And I like to cook spaghetti. And I used to eat it every day. I weighed thirty pounds more than I do now. You can’t – you can’t do that.
– Christopher Walken from Love, Eat, Cook
Last weekend my roommate and I went to Assisi as a day trip to check out the town 30 minutes away from our school here in Perugia, Italy. It was a sort of run through of the train system here in Italy and understanding how they all worked so that we had a better understanding of it for future/longer trips. I LOVE the Italian train system. You can buy a ticket to practically anywhere in Italy, for the most I have seen to be is 50 euros, and you can use that ticket once anytime between the day you got it and 3 months after the day of purchase. To buy the ticket you can go up to a ticket counter and speak in Italian to the man at the desk (not an ideal option for non-fluent speakers such as myself) or you can go to these self-service machines like the ones now at the movie theaters in the US that let you buy your ticket electronically there or an ATM. These electronic machines can be used in almost any language, which I love because there are so few times in Italy that I have been able to speak only outside of my apartment. The only trick is that when you want to use a ticket you have purchased for that route, you have to validate it at a train station the day of. This means you have to put your ticket in a machine, there are dozens of them at larger train stations and a few at smaller ones, and it will stamp your ticket with the date. This means that your ticket is good for that day only and to use one-way.
So my ticket from Perugia to Assisi was 2.50 euro which I think it very affordable, and we jumped on a train around 11:30 pm and got to Assisi’s train station around 12:00 pm. The only thing in our way was the huge hill to get from the train station to the top of the “mountain” where the town of Assisi lies. Instead of buying a bus ticket to get to the top, my roommate and I already came dressed prepared for a pasta and pizza calorie killing hike up the mountain. Let me tell you, it was an amazing workout. We stopped for a water break halfway and were both sweating when we reached the top. I’m sure the bus would have been pretty cheap and the more touristy option, but we wanted to see how the climb up was and hadn’t worked out in awhile so accepted the challenge. After leaving Assisi we both agreed we are so glad that we didn’t do the bus route up because we think we appreciated the town so much more because we earned it by just getting there.
Because I went to Catholic school for 12 years, the Papal Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi absolutely amazed me. When you walk in the cathedral is definitely bigger and of more grandeur than your average church at home – but it wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought it would be adorned in more lavish attire and have paintings basically “dripping” in gold. For those of you who don’t know very much about St. Francis, he started the Franciscan order of friars who believe that you should rid yourself of all wealth and riches and live as simply as possible following the way of the Lord. Therefore, it made sense that the main floor of St. Francis’s Basilica was not as fancy – I guess as a lack for a better word. His tomb site is open to visitors below the main floor and I hope everyone reading this is able to visit this place, it is absolutely magical. You go downstairs into what seems like a dungeon and there is this Twilight Zone effect where everything frozen in time back in the 13th century. There are candles and lanterns everywhere and in the center of the room is this great big cement like column which has an opening with St. Francis’s tomb inside lifted up above the ground. It is absolutely amazing. It is absolutely silent in this room with pews to pray scattered around and everyone is just in complete awe being there. I talked to someone in Assisi after this experience, and he said he does not consider himself a religious person nor necessarily always believe in God and such. But he said that when he visits that tomb, this immense and powerful feeling comes over him and he is overcome by belief. It is one of those things in life that is so hard to put into words because of how mind blowing the experience is.
After visiting the tomb, I ventured to the second floor of the Basilica and it took my breath away. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been in, in my entire life. It is much more grand than the main floor and houses the most beautiful and colorful fresco paintings all over its walls and ceilings it is unbelievable to comprehend that you are actually seeing these things.
I do not have any pictures of the inside of the Basilica because photography is prohibited. I actually do not have a problem with this, because pictures cannot contain the experience of actually going to and visiting this amazing church. I was not able to visit the Cathedral of St. Clare because my roommate and I were short on time after having lunch to make the next train back; but I will most likely go back with a school trip in a few weeks and will report back. I would also like to make a shout-out to my Aunt Mary’s class in Springfield, PA who are following my blog and go to St. Francis of Assisi school!
Now everyone, I am in love with Pisa. It is by far my favorite place in Europe – so far. I cannot really explain it very well but the town is just so cute and bustling about and everyone is so friendly. I just really loved our day trip there. They have this stretch of shops anywhere from H&M to Foot Locker, and many Italian boutiques and eateries. All the buildings were painted in these bright warm colors and the weather there was fantastic! I go to school in Perugia Italy and it’s usually in the high 30s or low 40s here. In Pisa I did not check the temperature but as you can see in this picture I took off my winter jacket and sweater because it felt like high 50s, maybe even 60s!
It was actually so funny, while my roommates and I were taking pictures with the Tower, this group of boys from Gonzaga introduced themselves to us because we were one of the only people there speaking English and asked if we could take their picture. Shout-out to my sister who goes to St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia, I immediately knew Gonzaga because it is a Jesuit school just like St. Joe’s.
Anyway, I am also in love with Pisa for another reason other than its climate: gelato. Final shout-out to my Aunt Kara who told me that I need to eat as much gelato during my time here. Man oh man was that good advice. I have had some stellar gelato here so far in Italy but nothing comes close to the one I had in Pisa.
My friends, this masterpiece consists of half tiramisu and half coffee flavored gelato. When I tell you this was the best thing I have and will probably ever eat, I absolutely stand by that. It was the best 3.50 euros I will ever spend and has been my best purchase on this Earth. As you probably could tell from my past posts, I clearly love food. But I mean how can you not? And when you’re in a country like Italy, everyone is a foodie.
Well folks, that’s all for now! This weekend I am traveling to Paris and could not be any more excited – I seriously still cannot believe I am able to do all these amazing things here this semester. Some things still haven’t hit me and everyday I am blown away by something new. So with my 20 years of experience at life in hand I would like to give a word of advice: Go for it. I don’t care what it is or who you are or where you’re from. If you want to do something with good cause, do it. Life is too short to regret missing out on opportunities. Get out of your comfort zone and do something that makes you happy. I am trying each and every day to do something different and new and daring to get as much out of this experience as possible; and each time I do so it has been extremely rewarding.
So my final note is, and in the words of a popular brand of athletic wear, “Just Do It”.
Pictured above, I was receiving a lesson on how to make pasta at Agriturismo Orsini on Lake Trasimeno by the Orsini family. They own a farm on the lake and are one of the founders of the slow food movement in which they completely sustain their selves and farm by complete means of only what they produce themselves. Interestingly enough, there has been an olive oil “famine” this year in Italy due to a bacteria, Xylella fastidiosa, that grew on olive trees and wiped out a large majority of one of Italy’s main exports. Because the Orsini family are in complete control of their products, they were able to get their animals to eat the infected olive branches therefore saving their olive oil production this spring. They are one of the only companies in Italy that were able to successfully produce healthy olives this year and therefore their oil is in high demand. Our group was privileged enough to buy their homemade olive oil before it was released to the public which is sure to sell out quick!
As soon as our group, 90 American students studying abroad at the Umbra Institute this semester, arrived at the farm we were immediately welcomed with open arms by this family. They immediately fed us a “peasant’s breakfast”, which I thought was fit for a King! It consisted of their homemade bread with olive oil and then another sweeter bread that they also made there with chocolate chips baked inside. Molto buono! (Very good!) After a meet and greet with the family over some bread and olive oil, we were given a lesson on how to make pasta – start to finish. Starting with eggs and flour, all the way to how to correctly cut the pasta and then let it dry properly before cooking. After eating pasta that we made that day, and several other courses they prepared for us for lunch; they gave each apartment a plate of even more fresh pasta to take back with us and eat for dinner that night. Such sweet and loving people.
Below is the process of how to make pasta taught by the Orsini family:
Location: Lake Trasimeno, Italy
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to present: PERUGIA, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITALY! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
People, let me tell you, Perugia is an absolute dream. When I pictured Italy, it is exactly what I imagined. I have to pinch myself every time I walk outside my apartment because everything is so beautiful and I am so so appreciative of all my surroundings. I am a big eater, as you will come to read, and I cannot even begin to express how amazing the food is here. I knew it was one of the best things about Italy before I even arrived, but I did not truly understand it until I came here and tried it for myself. Everything is so fresh and delicious. Not yet have I ate something that I was not pleased with, and it seems to just keep getting better and better. I have ate pizza everyday so far, and probably more than once a day on occasion. There is not one pizza here that is the same as another. Each is in its own way different but always delicious. It is actually very funny, my Italian teacher Francesco asked me yesterday in class what my boyfriend’s name was. I laughed and responded: mangia aka food. Just to get your salivary glands in action, I have some pictures of my boyfriend to show you:
The last picture is of the best tiramisu I have ever had in my entire life, and it was served in a bowl that would put America’s fame for obesity to shame. I am actually getting really hungry just looking at it.
Aside from the amazing meals, there are so many things that set Italy apart from the United States. Something that I find extremely different and interesting are the toilets. The water tank is usually separate from the actual toilet, mounted high above on a wall. There is the closest thing to a button that you press high above on this tank to flush the toilets. I know it’s not that big of a deal, but it looks so much more sophisticated than American toilets. I quite like it.
Italians do not seem to have breakfast, a simple espresso and brioche at most suit them perfectly fine. I am still adjusting to this way of life by beginning to make toast in my apartment before class and buying an espresso at school with my class during our morning break for 70 cents. For lunch, a slice or two of pizza seems to be the most common meal – I don’t think this is something I will ever complain about. However, dinner is served at the earliest, at 8:30 pm. It is customary for people to go to bars and order apertivos which are drinks with company an hour or two before dinner. This is something I am having a great deal of difficulty adjusting to. As much as I love vino rosso, red wine, I am trying to limit my intake before dinner due to being on an empty stomach. Some places have buffets that you can snack on while enjoying your libations, however my friends and I have been really hungry during these times and ended up eating an amount from the buffet equivalent to a large meal. This doesn’t seem to be the right way of going about it, but we are still trying to adjust.
During my 20 years of existence, 12 of them were spent studying Spanish. From kindergarten to senior year of high school I always had a Spanish class. Because I took such a large amount of one language, I was exempt from my language requirement at Penn State. Therefore, this is the first time I have taken a language since I was 17, three years ago, and it is the first time I have been in a country whose primary language is not English. My hardest transition to Italy has easily been the Italian language.
This past Tuesday, we started “Survival Italian” class. Every student in the Umbra program, 90 of us from the United States, have been required to take this week of intensive Italian before the semester began. Organized by experience level, I am in a class of other students who have never taken Italian. Most of us have taken Spanish or French, but it is reassuring to know that there are others in the same boat. Interestingly enough, I wish I had taken Italian sooner. I enjoy this language so much more than Spanish. My background in Spanish has definitely helped when learning Italian for the first time, because lots of words are almost identical in both languages but usually with a slightly different pronunciation. However, I like Italian so much more than Spanish because in Italian you have to pronounce every. single. syllable. in. the. word. And not only that, but you must pronounce them in a dramatic and loud manner. This is great for me, because I am “slightly” dramatic and already kind of talk like that. Also, I am much more interested when learning Italian because it benefits my immediate future. I constantly am interacting with native Italians here, and most of them surprised me by not being very proficient in English, if at all. Therefore I am eager to learn the language because it makes my time here so much easier by already knowing a few more words and phrases every day. I think it also helps that my professor is a native Italian, whom not only teaches us the proper form of the language but also the everyday dialect of the Perugian people.
We also do fun activities to make the lessons we do in class, more applicable to every day life. Yesterday we went to a typical apartment in this city and had to label all of the furniture and items around the house with the Italian vocabulary we learned that day in class. Today, our professor showed us how to ride the city’s metro and brought us to a supermarket outside of walking distance from our school and apartment. We all were given assignments to analyze a specific type of food sold there in the market, and note the differences between brands, prices, and places of production. Our last day of survival Italian class is tomorrow morning, and there we will present what we found interesting from our shopping trip. We were all given half an hour to browse the market and shop for our own apartments during this assignment. My roommates and I went grocery shopping a couple days ago to get basic food items at the local grocery store in our town. The only thing we recognized in the entire store was Ritz crackers and Coca-Cola. I was probably the happiest girl in the world today when I found lactose free milk, because I am lactose intolerant, and Frosted Flakes at this larger market. To hold me over for dinner, I ate a bowl of it while writing this post and it brought me so much joy to have a bit of home here in Italy.
I already miss a few aspects of America such as my native language, bigger breakfasts, and using cars as a main source of transportation. But I wouldn’t trade this view in for the world. This my friends, is Perugia.
Location: Perugia, Italy
‘Twas the Night Before Pasta, when Kerry sat anxiously writing this post
Dreaming about what in Italy she would love the most
After collecting all necessary papers, cards, and euros
She asked herself, have I packed? The answer was no.
Hello to anyone and everyone kind enough to read my blog! My name is Kerry Woods and I am a junior Psychology (B.S.) Neuroscience major at the Pennsylvania State University hopefully applying to medical school this spring. I am studying abroad this Spring 2015 semester in Perugia, Italy at the Umbra Institute. I have never been to Europe and am so very excited to not only be able to travel there, but stay until May! It is all starting to hit me at once now, especially when printing out my flight confirmation number and boarding pass to leave tomorrow.
I am almost 100% Irish and am probably one of the palest people you will ever meet. And with that, I only know about 5 words in Italian. It’s safe to say I am going to stick out like sore thumb. Which is all fine and good! As you probably already know and will soon find out I’m not shy or quiet, at all. So along this journey I will be exploring Europe for the first time, main destination Italy. I am hopeful that I will be able to travel to other countries such as Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, and the UK.
I chose to study abroad in Italy because it has all my favorite things: pasta, art, wine, beaches, and cathedrals. Even though I am a science major, I am extremely interested in art. Almost anything really – paintings, sculpture, architecture. You name it, I probably enjoy it. I went to Catholic school for 12 years of my life, and therefore really appreciate historic churches. I love stained glass windows and paintings, by whom I consider geniuses, such as those in the Sistine Chapel. Therefore, I will absolutely share my experiences regarding the famous food and beverage in Italy; but I will also sneak in a bit about churches as a heads up.
As an author of this blog, Penn State requires me to post something on a weekly basis. So I will try to keep up with that timeline as much as possible. I also love when I am able to visually see places and things someone tells me about, therefore I will try to attach several pictures with each blog post. The best way to communicate with me abroad is to send me a Facebook message. I am purchasing an Italian phone and number while abroad, and will only be using my current cell phone in areas with WIFI. Thank you so very much for taking the time to follow me on my journey this semester, I really appreciate it!
My resolution this year is to be a better listener, so come back and experience all that I am able to see and more importantly, hear.
Location: Wilmington, DE 19803 United States