Verona

Last Saturday I ventured to Verona with some fellow students and had a blast. Verona is the setting for Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet, so it is very tourist-y but still wonderful. As soon as we stepped off the bus into the main square our eyes popped open. In one direction there was a huge marble building topped with sculptures from the renaissance, directly in front there was a long line of buildings with frescoes right on the facade. In the other direction was a tall white and pink marble tower.
We had lunch in the main square outside and enjoyed the sun and then decided to explore this new city. We climbed the pink and white tower and saw the entire city in every direction. We even saw some paragliders riding in the wind. We also manged to find the arena, which is in much better shape than the colosseum in Rome. The day ended with the three of us walking on a medieval brick bridge, while the sun set over the river and an Italian man played his accordian.

Getting Ready to Leave

Ok, so a month home is not even enough time to get ready for a trip to South America, especially when I have not been many places outside of America. I am partly making this post for the viewing of others and I am partly making this post for myself to remember the trouble I went through later into the semester when I want to quit and come home! haha! So to go to South America, Argentina in my case, one must get a series of shots. These shots, for me, included: Yellow Fever (OUCH OUCH OUCH), Typhoid, Hep. A, and TDAP. Ok, apart from these shots, I have had to learn how to shove my life for four months into two bags. Not that great! On top of having to get the shots, I got to be sick for two weeks straight after recieving the shots because of allergic reactions and normal reactions to the shots. The main reaction being the flu like symptoms 10 days after recieving the Yellow Fever shot!!

I post these negatives to warn people that the application proccess is nothing to complain about versus everything else that should be done in order to study abroad. But there are positives, like the great roommate I am already talking to that will be staying with me in my homestay, or the fact that I get to escape the worries of the Wofford bubble for a semester. I also get to spend my 21st birthday in Buenos Aires!!

But everything is completed now, and, alas, I leave in only five days. Five short days of enjoying sweet tea and my family. Five short days to say my goodbyes for four long months. Four months that I will have to learn another language in order to survive and get along with new, interesting people. Four months that I will go through a roller coaster of emotions (as per the W-curve- I learned this in my interim :) ). But every moment so far and in the future are going to be memories made for a lifetime!!

Italian Cooking

Last Monday, I took my very first Italian cooking class. We learned how to make gnocci patate (pasta) and scalopina (veal). This pasta is so amazing and now I know how to make it from scratch. I can't wait to make it back in the States. To make gnocci, you have to mash up potatoes, throw in some eggs and flour, and mix it with your hands. Then you roll it off a fork to give it cool lines and bake it! Everyone in the class was very proud of themselves and we have already made some on our own. The picture is of all of us rolling the pasta dough before we cut it in little sections to make the individual peices. Our teacher is in the foreground and she's precious!

I have also begun to really enjoy the Italian concept of a three hour lunch. Here in Ferrara, around 12:30, the entire city shuts down for lunch till around 4 when everyone opens their shops again. For a while, I just didn't know what to do with myself for that long. Now, I fully embrace sitting in a restaraunt for 2 1/2 hours with a couple friends, eating a piadina and sipping on a cappucino. Caffetteria Spisani is the caffe right outside the building where we take classes and definitely one of my favorite places to get a pastry and coffee or lunch.

A Whirlwind Tour of Paris

For my first excursion away from London I spent two nights and three days in Paris.  We stayed in a small hostel off Caulaincourt Square near the Moulin Rouge.  The picture to the left shows the serious staircase we had to climb to find the hostel (after being dropped off at the wrong place by our cab driver and wandering around Paris for 2 hours- I guess Caligncourt and Caulaincourt are easy to confuse).  Somehow, in  such a brief period of time, I managed to see TONS of the city and feel completely satisfied with the trip (which I did not think would be possible). My favorite neighborhood was the Latin Quarter, lined with outdoor fruit and vegetable stands and belaungeries ( I had 4 pastries in the span of two hours... See photo above right).  On our first day, we went to the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay.  The Louvre was so much larger than I expected and it was hard to take it all in at once.  We spent about two hours wandering around the massive building and then moved on to the Musee d'Orsay, which was my favorite of the two.  The d'Orsay houses tons of Degas' ballerinas, vibrant works by Van Gogh, Monet and Renior- and it was amazing to finally see some of my favorite works of art in person, which I have previously only seen on slides in Art History classes.  Most of the paintings were much bigger than I had imagined.  The d'Orsay also had a special exhibition going on about the influence that Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass" had on Picasso and his ouevre.  The original Manet was on display, along with a large selection of Picasso's interpretations (including paper cut-outs, sketches, and completed paintings).  

We also managed to see Notre Dame, the Arc d'Triumph (top left), the Eiffel Tower at dusk (top right), and more.  I have never accomplished so much in such a short amount of time and I must say that I loved every minute of it!  When you are in such a culturally rich place for just a weekend, it forces you to make the most of every second- something I need to remember to do for the rest of my time in London.  We took the "Chunnel" back on Sunday, exhausted but full of enough French culture to tide us over for a while.

Parma and Ferraris

Yesterday, I went to Parma and saw some wonderful churches. Parma is a city very like Ferrara, with the small town feeling and quiet city life. It has a lot of history with Napoleon Bonaparte and I saw the theatre his second wife built, as well as the palace he lived in while he lived Parma.
Food in Parma is supposed to be the best in Italy and I can now vouch for it. Our lunch was bruschette con cruddo e crotto (cooked and smoked, thinly sliced ham) and spinach ravioli with parmasean cheese...sooo good!
After lunch, our group went to the Ferrari museum, which is about an hour away from Ferrara. I saw all of their Formula 1 cars as well as their road cars. We weren't allowed to touch the cars, but I'll admit it...I touched two and it was everything I thought it could be.
The pics are of the baptismal church in Parma and the Ferrari museum. The ceiling of the church is made of red and white marble, which symbolizes the blood of Christ and the purity of our souls after we accept Christ.
The Ferrari is a 1960s cruiser.

My Birthday in Italia!

My 21st birthday was last Friday in Ferrara, Italy. When I left the U.S. I was pretty bummed that I would have to spend a very pivotal birthday in a country where drinking begins directly after birth... It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and exactly what I would want my 21st to be. Since drinking isn't a big deal in Italy, no one really gets drunk over here. I'm not really the type to go crazy either, so hanging out in a bar that is Domencan Republic/Italian was perfect. I tried a few drinks and I got to cut the line for the bathroom. That equals a very successful night.

On Saturday, we visited Padova, which we call Padua. It's a beautiful city with a lot of life to it. About twenty minutes after we left the bus behind, our tour grounp encountered a political demonstration. It was about the family that wants to take their daughter off of life support because she's been in a coma for 17 years. Here in Italy, the government does not allow the family to have a choice and they won't allow the doctors to take her off. This has stirred a lot of feelings within the Italians and we got to see how they go about changing the government. I also got to see where Galileo taught his classes. It was very cool to see where one of the most influential people in our history spent his time.

Today I saw my first Italian soccer game! It was a lot of fun and very intense. Everyone gets really into it and I think I'll have one of their chants stuck in my head for the next couple weeks.
Another good weekend in Italia!

London a.k.a. Home

After three weeks in London, my small room in Chelsea is beginning to feel like home.  This became particularly clear when I returned from a weekend in Paris.  Don't get me wrong- I loved sleeping in a hostel, but by the last day of the trip I was actually longing for home.  And home has become London.

Let me back track to where I last left off... I started classes the week of January 12th.  The IES London Centre is a 45-minute-commute from the LRH (London Residence Hall).  The 3/4 mile walk to the South Kensington Tube Station takes me through residential streets lined with elegant town homes, past Cinqo (an amazing Italian deli and tart shop), the Chelsea Hospital, a private primary school, the Chelsea Farmer's Market (an easy distraction), small coffee shops and cafes, Snog (Pink Berry, London-style) and the Hummingbird Bakery. If you are a fan of cupcakes, the Hummingbird Bakery is your heaven.

Rows of gourmet cupcakes (everything from red velvet to double chocolate with cream cheese icing) tempt you from behind a long glass case and cake platters line every inch of spare counter space.  It is almost (emphasis on almost) too much for a sweets-person to handle.  On our first day of school, my friend Abby and I popped into the bakery for an afternoon snack- and we were definitely not the only ones with this idea.  After our indulgence of a shared vanilla cupcake with silver sprinkles and two lattes, I decided that I had already found my favorite coffee and dessert place.  A premature decision, perhaps, but nearly a month later I remain firm in my choice.

I am taking five courses, each taught by an English professor: Contemporary Business Issues in the EU, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Their Art and Movement, British Youth Culture, The Architecture of London, and the Economics of Europe and the EU.  So far, my classes have been discussion-based, heavy on the reading, and interactive with our London setting.  My architecture of London class meets every Wednesday afternoon from 2pm to 4:30pm.  We meet at a different location around the city and our professor lectures as we walk.  I have taken both of the architecture courses offered by the Art History department at Wofford, Principles of Architecture and 20th Century Architecture, but learning onsite is a completely different experience. 

 

On of my favorite places in the city so far is Covent Garden.  The area as we now know it was designed by the British architect Inigo Jones in the 17th century.  The concept was for a planned market town with a central arcaded piazza.  Through the years, it has transformed from fresh produce market to red-light district to tourist attraction.  But, the open air structure with specialty shops, produce stands, and street performers still makes for an entertaining- and historically rich- afternoon.

-Katherine

City Life

Ferrara is very small city with a very large history. The family that ruled Ferrara for hundreds of years was the Este family. Ferrara is also known as the City of Estense, because of their influence. This Este family had city walls built around Ferrara to protect themselves against other powerful Italian familes and against the Lombards during the middle ages. Over time, these walls have crumbled and lost sections due to wars and bombing, but for the most part they remain intact. I discovered one section of the wall one day when I went exploring. The wall goes from being about ten feet tall to over fifty in other sections. I tried to climb it...as the picture shows, but now I know why they were so effective against German warriors...
Another aspect of Ferrara is the bikes. For every person in Ferrara, there are 2.3 bikes. This city is know as the city of bikes (Citta di bici). Bikes are a hot commodity here and you HAVE to lock your bike everytime you leave it. Most of the time, a group of us will lock them together. You have to learn very quickly how to navigate narrow, cobblestoned streets and not die in the process. People in their cars will swing their doors wide open and completely knock you off your bike. While this has yet to happen to me...I did run into a wall. It was raining and I was darting out of the way of an incoming car and the tires just slipped out from under me, to the left. My head landed on the wall beside me. hahaha Ever since, I have been very aware of walls and cars around me. I just know now that I will forever appreciate our wide bike lanes in the U.S. But at the same time, I'll never get that same rush of adrenaline riding down a busy, Italian street, praying the whole way I won't die.
The pics are of me and a friend's bikes (mine is the blue) and me attempting to climb the city walls.

Jazz Club

So, the program I'm with, CIEE decided to show us a little Italian culture by taking our group to a jazz club. I got lost in the rain on the way there, but I still learned my way around the city a little better because of it. The building that the show was in was very cool. It's a cylindrical building with two storeys. Downstairs, there is a restaraunt with a very cool, saxophone shaped beer tap. Needless to say this was the highlight for my group of American college students. The acoustics were so weird in the room though. The girls at my table were able to hear conversations perfectly from across the room because the sound waves traveled around the circular shaped wall and then bounced off and into our ears...very fun. After dinner, we went upstairs to enjoy some Italian jazz, but I must say, I was not a fan. Though it was really fun to watched drugged out, Italian musicians. After the jazz club, a few us decided to try the Italian way of riding two to a bike, since I didn't bring mine. I think once was enough.
This picture is with Jordan, who was a big fan of finding Duff beer, which is the beer of The Simpsons show. No pics from the jazz club...wasn't appropriate to take them there.