Summer Internship

It's been over a year since I last posted. The rest of my semester in Italy was amazing and my travels around Europe with my mom and sister were awesome. I feel like I've really started to see the world.

I have started my first year of graduate school at Texas A&M University. I am a student in the Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education (SAAHE) program. One of the components of the program is a summer internship away from the university. Earlier in the semester I applied to several internships around the country and the world. I have been offered an ACUHO-I internship with the Qatar Foundation in Doha, Qatar. I am so exited not only to be spending some more time abroad and seeing the world, but also getting to have that experience while working in the student affairs field. I will be working in residence life but will also be doing some work with orientation. It should be an awesome summer.

I will be hopefully be headed over to Doha in early July (tentatively July 3). My last day of work in Doha will be August 27th, which is also the first day of the fall semester at Texas A&M. I had to weigh the pros and cons of missing the first day of classes, but I decided that spending eight weeks learning and having the experience is the best choice for me. As soon as I am done on the 27th, I believe the Qatar Foundation will be shipping me back to College Station so I can be in class on the 28th. I'll be there, but barely- I'm probably going to be so jet-lagged. But it will be worth it!

Now comes the process of preparing to go abroad again. This time it is going to be a little different because I've got to do a little bit more research on the culture of Qatar than I had to do for Italy. I've also got to figure out the little things, like what kind of plug adaptors am I going to need, what kind of food should I expect, and what clothing do I need to pack to make sure that I am dressed appropriately (both work-wise and culturally).

Over all, I've got a lot to do, but I've got some time before I've really got to get the specifics figured out. I am really excited to be going abroad again. I hope I have another amazing experience, or an even better one! :)

Spring Break and this Past Week

There is just so much to say about Venice and spring break that I don’t even know where to start/ I’m probably not going to spend eight hours writing a blog post about it. I’ll just sum it up with everything was amazing. We were in Venice with school from Tuesday until Friday, when Jessica, Erica, Karina and I left for Paris. 

We were in Paris until Monday when I flew back to Rome and the rest of the girls went onto England. I met up with Kristin (a real old friend from back home) in Rome and we explored Italy for a week. We covered Rome, Venice, Florence and Pisa in a week, and by the end we were dead tired. The best part of spring break was getting to see a familiar face and really get to spend time with an old friend, someone that really knew me and I could be totally myself around (not that I’m not myself with my friends in Castig, it’s just different). 

Torture Museum. Florence.

The worst part of spring break was definitely the Monday that I left Paris and met up with Kristin- it was the most hellish day of traveling of my life. I had to wake up at 5AM, jump a turnstile on a Parisian metro and take four different metros to get to the bus station to take a bus to the airport- that was surprisingly the easiest part of the day. I was asleep on the plane before it even took off! I got to the airport in Rome, but Kristin was coming into a different airport, so I had to take a bus from the airport to the train station and another bus to the airport that she was coming in to. Then Kristin’s flight got delayed so I had to take a taxi from the airport to the hostel to check in and hang out for a while until late that night. Then I took a bus from the hostel to a train station and took a train to the airport to meet up with Kristin. Lets just say that by the time that I saw Kristin at the airport gates I was near tears. It was a rough day for sure; seeing Kristin was the turning point and everything started getting better after that. We had to take a car from the airport to our hostel and the man was really nice. He was joking with us the whole time saying that I should come and give tours for him while he drives people to their hotels because I knew the city better than he did. He was a really sweet guy, another bright spot in my day.

New experiences that I haven’t blogged about: going to Venice and Paris.

Venice.

           Venice was great. I had heard a lot of really negative things about Venice, like you always hear that it is really nasty and everything smells really bad, but honestly it wasn’t worse than any other Italian city that I’d been to. Venice was awesome because instead of roads they’ve got canals and instead of cars they all have boats. It was kind of refreshing to be walking down the street and not have to worry about getting run over by a car. They had great little shops with amazing knick-knacks. We went to the islands of Murano and Burano when Kristin was in town. Murano is known for its glass making and blowing. They can do some of the most amazing things with glass and I saw things that I would have loved to have purchased but I knew that there was no way that it would make it to America in one piece. Burano is a gorgeous little island because everything is so colorful there. The houses are all difference colors and you could tell that it was just a homey little town because all the residents were out in the streets talking to each other about daily life. That island is known for their lace making and there was some gorgeous lace just about in every store. I would have loved to get some, but I couldn’t really think of any use for lace in my life.

Venice.

           With school and Kristin I got to see some pretty amazing things. I went to Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Cathedral, and the Peggy Guggenheim museum. 

St. Marks was absolutely gorgeous- totally covered in gold and jewel mosaics because it was a private church for the Doge (Venetian ruler) and the wealthy. I got to see gold plated bronze horses that are five centuries older than Christ- it was pretty awesome. I feel like I can always find something that takes my breath away. Kristin and I just had an absolute blast in Venice because it was so much calmer than Rome, where we had just come from. It’s a definite change of pace going from Rome to Venice, a nice one. The weather was also much better the second time around when I went with Kristin.

St. Marks. Venice.

            Paris was a lot of fun and I fit so much into two days of being there, it was kind of ridiculous. I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumphe, Sacred Heart Church, Notre Dame, Saint Chappell, the catacombs, Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb, and other things that I am sure I am forgetting right now. 

Notre Dame. Paris.

           We stayed in a nice hotel that was in a sketchy neighborhood- Moulin Rouge was a few blocks away if that helps explain. One of the best pieces of advice I’d have for an American tourist trying to get to our hotel at night is to just not look into any of the windows of the stores/bars you walk past. Not only are there strange things in them, but also strange people who are all in various stages of dress.

Moulin Rouge. Paris.

             The Eiffel Tower is bigger than I thought it would be, because I always here how people are disappointed when they see it because they think it is going to be bigger. We got to see it both during the day and at night, and it was gorgeous during both. At night (8PM and 9PM) they turn the “twinkle lights” on and the tower twinkles with a million little lights, it’s really awesome to see. We went all the way to the top and it was little unnerving because there really isn’t much structure to the building because there’s so little to it. It’s just you in the elevator and the world… nothing really between. One thing that I read that I find interesting is that even though the building is so large and heavy, with the construction of it the tower only exerts the same amount of pressure on the ground as a person sitting in a chair. Kinda cool, huh?

Paris.

The Louvre was huge. Way more than anyone could ever see and fully appreciate. We were only there for about two hours and we didn’t know that it closed so early so we didn’t even get to see the main highlights (the Mona Lisa and Hamurabi’s Code) before they started herding us towards the exit. There was a ton of really neat stuff though. I guess my favorites of what I did see were the Egyptian section. It was really neat to see a lot of the ancient stuff especially since I’ve always been really enamored with ancient Egypt. 

Saint Chappell. Paris.

Notre Dame was huge and beautiful, but I think I like Saint Chappell better. The entire thing seemed to be made of glass and it was beautiful to see it with the sun shining in. I was really thankful that Chris told me to go there because I loved it! 

The catacombs were also really net. It did take a few minutes to get used to though. Walking around with piles of human bones surrounding you is definitely not something that you do every day. It was net to see how many bodies/bones they crammed into such a small place and how artfully they could arrange some of them.

Basically Paris was lots of walking in two days and cramming week or two’s worth of exploring into 48 hours. If I go back later when my sister and mom come to visit then I definitely want to go to the Louvre again and also go see Versailles, which I didn’t get to go see this time. I’ve heard the Versailles gardens are worth the trip on their own, they’re so beautiful.

Tomorrow I’ve got plans with Liz to go over to Castiglion del Lago, a little village centered around a lake. We’re going to go hang out and soak in some sun, picnic in the park and hopefully get to get in the water if it isn’t too cold. But now that spring break is over and this weekend is coming to pass we have four weekends left and then my trip with sister and mom. I really need to start panning and figure out what I want to do with my time left here. Things on the to-do list are Capri and Cinque Terre for sure- two beach locations. Other than that I don’t really know what I want to do. We’ll see if anything pops up that catches my attention. I’ve also heard that Lake Como (on the northern border of Italy close to Switzerland) is gorgeous and so worth going. Time is really flying by here. It doesn’t seem like I’ve already been here for over two months. The program ends in 33 days and my flight back to the states is in 40. I can’t believe that this semester is going by so quickly; I honestly thought things couldn’t go by much faster than last semester, but they sure are.

Spring break was a doozy. I had an absolutely amazing time traveling around Italy with Kristin. Two weeks of traveling though (a week in Venice with school, weekend in Paris, then spring break) totally wore me out. This week has been all about recovering from spring break and getting back into the swing of school, or at least what we consider school over here. We only had classes on Tuesday and Thursday this week- I didn’t go to Florence on Wednesday with the rest of the group because I had already been to the museum they were going to visit. Instead I stayed at the center with Katie and Micah and we watched a movie, hung out and worked on some miscellaneous schoolwork. It was kind of funny because I made it all the way until dinner on Friday and then I realized that we didn’t’ have school the next day and that it was already time for the weekend- it was definitely one of the fastest weeks here in Italy.

The weather here has really become amazing. It was great during spring break and Kristin got a week of amazing weather while she was here. Right after she left it rained for a day and now the weather has only continued to get better. Everyone at the center has shed their jackets and sweaters and has turned to t-shirts and shorts. It’s really funny because apparently Italians aren’t big on wearing shorts, so it’s kind of scandalous here or something. We were talking to the Eurospar (grocery store) the other day and the six of us got honked at NINE times! It was hilarious and at the same time kind of annoying. Everyone stares at us wearing shorts too, and it’s not even like we were wearing short-shorts; they are the shorts that everyone wears in College Station, the Nike running shorts. Who knows, I guess we know for future reference though that if we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves to wear pants.

Yesterday (Friday) I hung out at the center in the courtyard and soaked up some of the amazing weather with Jillian, Erica, and Karina. Then we took our trip to the Eurospar. Today my roommate, Liz, and I went to Arezzo to shop around at the antique fair. They have one there the first weekend of every month and it takes over the entire town. You couldn’t believe the amount of antiques that this little town has to sell! They had everything from silver flatware, to crystal glasses, to furniture, to jewelry. There was something there for everyone. I saw this really cool bracelet that I thought Catherine (my sister) would love, but the guy wanted 40 euros for it, and I was like, “I like it, but not THAT much,” so I passed. It was really neat though. It was black metal with crystals and there were three skulls on it. It was kind of something I could imagine her wearing to work at Paul Mitchell or something. Who knows, she also could have hated it! Hah! Something I did find, fall in love with, and then purchase was something for my dad. It was at a stand in the Arezzo town square near the end of our journey throughout town. I was walking by the table and a glass case caught my eye and when I realized what was in it I thought to myself that I had to get something from it for my dad. I looked at everything in the case and chose out something that I thought was neat and also hope that he likes. I am being kind of vague about it because I want it to be a surprise to him when I get back. I did do some research on it when I got back to the center though and found the exact thing online selling for over fifteen times what I paid for it (and I paid what I though was a pretty penny for it!). I’m pretty proud of my find and I hope he thinks that it is awesome as I do!

A pair of the earrings I bought. You can also see the sun I got at Castilion del Lago.

At the antique fair I also bought two cheap pairs of earrings (not really antiques, but cute!) and Liz bought a broach for her hat and an adorable headband. It fair is definitely something that I am glad that I went to and I kind of wish I had gone earlier in my stay. It was awesome and antique-lovers back home would be way jealous of the amount of antiques for sale.

When we got back to Castig we were walking back to the center and there was a wedding party for a couple that had just gotten married at the church right next door. The bride had the most gorgeous dress and Liz and I definitely creeped on them while they were taking photos outside. We were more jealous of the background of their wedding photos than anything. A Tuscan backdrop probably takes the cake for more gorgeous setting for a wedding. Katie told me that she saw the bride and groom in Cocoa Palm (the gelato store) later eating gelato and that she was still in her gown! Talk about eating carefully!

If you’re reading this then you’re probably my family or some of my close friends. I love and miss you all and I’ll be back soon! Gotta stock up on some good Italian souvenirs before I do though. Sorry for the lack of posting, I’ll try and get better these past few weeks. Ciao!

Milan

This past weekend, Katie and I went to Milan and it was so amazing!

We started off the weekend going to Florence with class and we went and saw the Jewish synagogue there. It was influenced by the Mores, so it really just looked like a huge mosque. It was neat to see a change in scenery from the catholic cathedrals that we always go to, but I think I prefer the cathedrals. We did not get to take pictures inside (we weren't allowed to take ANYTHING inside) or I would have taken lots of photos to show the absolute difference between the synagogue and the cathedrals we've visited. First of all when we entered the synagogue we had to go through this massive metal detector/ security device that they typically have at airports that blows air at you to determine if you've got anything dangerous on you. We had to leave everything outside in lockers- cameras, phones, backpacks and purses, they weren't letting anyone get in with anything. My professor said it was a good indication of how safe the Jews feel in Europe.

Synagogue in Florence, Italy.

Katie and I went from the synagogue to get lunch and hopped on a train to Milan. Since we didn't want to spend 3 hours and 45 minutes taking one of the slower trains, we shelled out the extra 20 euro and got on one of the 'EuroStar' trains that only took us an hour and a half to get there. The trains are a LOT nicer than the normal 'regional' or 'intercity' trains that we always take. It was a nice chance of pace, not a lot of students or younger people on them, they were mostly businessmen and women. We napped on the train since we had to wake up at the crack-o-dawn to catch the train to Florence. We made sure to set an alarm though because we were scared that since it was just the two of us that we might both fall asleep and miss our stop.

When we got off the train we walked over to our hotel which we made sure to get close to the train station. We didn't want to have to haul all our stuff across the city to get the hotel. Our hotel was The Best!!!.... literally... the hotel was called Hotel The Best. Haha, they try with English and really make it sound funny sometimes. We dropped off all of our stuff and started walking around and shopped on Corso Buenos Aires close to the hotel. There are TONS of shops on that road and we made a night of it. Later we had dinner- a Burger King was conveniently located next to our hotel so we said 'What the hell' and had food that we were missing.

When we got to the hotel we hung out on the balcony and enjoyed the cool weather because our room was pretty hot and we couldn't figure out how to turn the heat down. I showered and when I came back out Katie was laying on the top of the bed and she looked miserable. The room was trying to bake us alive. We ended up having to turn off heater all together since we didn't know how to turn it down and we slept with the balcony door slightly ajar. While I was laying in bed though I had that feeling that I was going to wake up in the middle of the night and someone was going to be creepily standing at the foot of the bed. Thankfully we were on the third floor though so it would have been quite a climb to get up there.

The next morning we woke up at 8:30 and went downstairs for breakfast. We got croissants, butter, jelly and honey, as well as orange juice and cappuccinos- which Katie can't start her day without :-p. It was great to have a breakfast that we didn't really have to pay for- although I know they fit it into the room price somewhere. We headed out for the day and stopped at the front desk to talk to the receptionist that talks English. We asked her if she would call the church/museum for us that houses Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and make a reservation for us in my name. When we asked her she laughed at us and told us that we had to have a two month in advance reservation and that it would be impossible to get in to see it. So at least we knew that and didn't waste our time going over there and get turned away.

This is a large open-air market that cropped up overnight in the parking lot outside of our hotel room.
We stopped there after lunch before we went to the duomo.

We started off by walking to the metro station and we bought one day passes for three euros. Milan has a pretty extensive metro system so we relied on it to get us around everywhere that we needed to go. We headed to the duomo- the huge Cathedral- and it is GORGEOUS! It is huge and in the gothic style and I absolutely loved it. Probably my favorite cathedral that I've been in so far... right up there with St Peter's! We went inside and saw some pretty amazing stuff. There is the body of one of the saints and it's in a glass tomb and has a metal mask on the face... kind of creepy, but neat!

Duomo. Milan, Italy.

Duomo. Milan, Italy.

Outside the duomo in the piazza, Katie and I got accosted by some African men that were insistent about putting bracelets on us. We have been warned and I was kind of prepared from my experience in Pisa, but still it was a little unnerving. More than anything it is just annoying though because they wont leave you alone and insist that you take the little string bracelet from them. I just took one and put it in my pocket and walked away and continued to take pictures and ignore him. Katie unfortunately got someone that was a little more insistent. He grabbed her hand and tied it on her wrist while she said "no" about fifteen times. Then once its on her they ask for a donation. Of course she said no because she wanted nothing to do with it. Thankfully we got away relatively unscathed. Now we have "friendship bracelets" and every time that we look at them we remember that "Africa loves us," something that they told us several times.

Carnival celebration. Milan, Italy.

Outside in Milan they were celebrating carnival everywhere, so there was confetti flying and all over the streets and it looked like Halloween on crack! Kids and adults were dressed up and faces painted. There were even face painting station all around, even outside the Prada store! Hah! The weather was gorgeous so we got to walk around and have a blast. We had lunch outside the duomo in this little Luby's-like diner- it was great! We got pasta- of course- and pineapple! It was awesome to have a fruit that we don't get often/I haven't had since I've gotten here.

After lunch we headed over across town to the Monumental Cemetery. It's the kind of cemetery that people pay tens of thousands of euros to get a plot in, and the tombstones were anything but ordinary. One guy had an entire bronze statue reproduction of the Last Supper that was about 30 feet long and 10 feet high; tons of them had little tomb buildings; one had a reproduction of Trajan's column, and my favorite of all was a man who's leg was getting attacked by Medusa's head covered in snakes, while holding a plane propellor. It was interesting and I really wish I knew the story behind it. We spent about an hour walking around the cemetery looking at all the amazing tombs and the hundreds of thousands of crypts that run through tunnels along underground buildings.

Tomb. Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy.

Inside Trajan's Column tomb, Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy.

Trajan's Column tomb, Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy.

Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy.

Medusa, propellor tomb, Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy. 

Last Supper tomb, Monumental Cemetery. Milan, Italy.

After the cemetery we took the metro back to the shopping district close to the duomo. We started on the street that has Prada, Dior, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, etc. It was fun to look at all the stores that we couldn't afford anything in. We also go to see people that brought their dogs into these stores. Can you imagine bringing your dog into the Louis Vuitton store in America? I could only imagine what they would say... definitely nothing nice. Along that street we saw two Ferraris, an Aston Martin, and a Maserati. It was funny because it appeared that they only let the "worthy" cars drive down that road. We definitely didn't see any clunkers there.

Expensive cars in the streets of Milan.

After the unreasonably expensive street we went to an area that had stores that we were more likely to purchase things at. We went to the Gap, Sephora, and United Colors of Benniton. I bought three tshirts from the Gap, which Katie teased me about because she said that I could buy in America. Katie bought an adorable dress from United Colors of Benniton and then we decided to go look for a hairband for me because mine broke when I was in Rome... and that's where the day got really interesting.

We went into Accessorize (which is Italy's version of a Claire's); most things in the store can be bought for less than 15 euro and most of it is the kind of stuff that twelve to fifteen year olds love. Okay, so we walked in and I didn't see a hairband that I liked so we continued to look at other things and made out way into the back corner of the store where the saldi (sale) section was. We were back there probably for a total of 60 seconds. I picked up a goofy hat and was about to try it on but a security guard (a big muscly dude) walked up behind us and I thought that he might not be happy if I tried on the hat. Stores in Italy are weird about you touching things in the store if you aren't going to buy it. Katie looked at a set of earrings and then we put it back and left the corner. The security guard stayed back there and was rearranging everything that we had touched. We moved down the wall and were looking at other things and the security guard walked over to us and was like "Come back here." I was a little taken aback but was like... okay... So we walked back there and he holds up an empty thing where there was probably a piece of jewelry and he said "Where is this?" Katie and I look at each other and I are like "Uh, we have no idea." And he was insisted that we had taken it and told us to empty our pockets and show him our bags (Katie had her bag with her dress in it). He searched our bag and looked through my purse and was still convinced that we had taken this. I looked at Katie was said "We're seriously getting frisked in a Claire's right now!" It was really annoying because we could tell that we were getting profiled because we were young and Americans. It took about five minutes before we were like "Dude, we didn't take the thing and we're leaving." We walked out with nothing more than a funny story to tell and a little bit less of a happy attitude. As I told Katie, if we were in America I would have just said, "sorry I didn't take it" and left, because I know in America that they can't search bags. However, since neither of us know the laws in Italy we thought it best to not end up in Milano jail.

Considering what had happened the rest of the night was pretty uneventful. We did a little more shopping and took the metro back to the hotel. We had dinner that we took back to the hotel and fell asleep watching Casper. We were absolutely exhausted because we woke up early and had been walking all day. We slept like the dead.

We woke up early Sunday morning, grabbed breakfast and hopped on the train back to Castiglion. It was a great weekend and I'm really glad that I went with Katie. We've got ridiculous stories and things that we can joke about. Now when she's in a sad mood I just look at her and say, "Hey Katie, remember... Africa loves you," and she laughs. It was definitely a good weekend! :)

Trip to High School

Today we went to the local Castig high school and talked to the students so they could practice their English and interact with native speakers. IT was so fun! Going there we thought we were going to be speaking to a younger group (about 12 years old) and an older group. However, the first group turned out to be 18-20 year olds- so definitely no warm up with the younger children. It seems that we talked about everything! School, hobbies, movies, places to travel, siblings, pets, going out, sports, etc. As for holidays- they seem to celebrate Christmas the same, with Santa Claus and family meals.They don't have the Easter bunny, so explaining that was fun, they definitely had a laugh. They have a variation of the tooth fairy, but it's a mouse instead. And as for Halloween, they dress up and celebrate, but they don't trick-or-treat because apparently the older generation of Italians will throw water out of the windows at people.

Another thing was funny- they brought up drinking and we told them that the drinking age in America is 21. When we were talking to the 18 year old group they told us the drinking age is 18, and then when we talked to the 16 year old group they told us the drinking age is 16. Katie and I had a good laugh about that. Both groups said that the drinking age isn't really an issue and that the bars/pubs don't care. It explains why I see people in bars that look like they are 12 years old. But going to the high school and interacting with the locals is definitely one of my favorite things we've done so far. We've got some pretty sweet new Facebook friends now too! Hah!