Phylicia Quay
Entry 5: June 22, 2008
So today is our last day in Lugano, Switzerland! It's sad but I am also excited because classes are over! Tomorrow morning we have to leave bright and early for Paris! However, it is going to take us all day to get there. But we will still have Tues., Wed., and Thurs. to do everything we want to do and then Friday we travel to Zurich, Switzerland and Saturday morning we fly back to the States! I have had so much fun here in Europe! I didn't really realize before how much actual backpacking we had to do but we really do a lot! And while in Sansepolcro we didn't really have to walk much anywhere because our classes were in the same building that we were sleeping in. But here in Lugano we have a 15 minute walk up a hill to get to Franklin College for breakfast, then class, then lunch, and then it is back down the hill. But at least we were done with classes in the early afternoon and had the rest of the afternoon and evening to do whatever we want! The restaurants are really expensive here, so I only ended up eating out once and that was at a really nice pizza place not far from our residence and every other night Katie made risotto and I made pasta and we split it in half and shared to mix it up a little bit!
Entry 4: June 16, 2008
Last Friday we climbed the Swiss Alps, not quite as difficult as mountain climbing in the snow, but it was still uphill for about two hours. It was definitely worth it because of the amazing view when we got to the top. The mountains were absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately it was foggy and cloudy because it had rained in the morning, but the view was still amazing. I definitely slept good that night and my legs were sore the next morning.
Yesterday we got to the building we are staying in at Franklin College and it is really nice. Everybody has their own room, with a mini kitchen that includes a stovetop, a microwave, a sink and a mini fridge. The first thing I did when we got here was to wash ALL of my clothes and they finally got nice and clean and smelled good again! I will never take a washing machine and a dryer for granted again! They really are a luxury!
Entry 3: June 6, 2008
So today we got back from Venice for three days. It was pretty awesome. I didn't really realize before how much of the island was really water. There are canals everywhere, and no cars, only boats if you want to get around without walking. They also have a public water bus system called the Vaporetti, which is pretty cool. But we did learn the first day that you can get on it going the wrong way just like you can a regular bus in any other city! Other than that we didn't really get lost any. We did do a lot of wandering around just looking at everything there was to see, but somehow we always ended up in a place that we had to been to before and knew how to get back to our hotel from. The hotel was pretty nice too, we had five twin size beds and our own private bathroom. However, they did not have air conditioning and it was pretty warm in there, and there were a lot of mosquitoes at night!
Venice is known for the island of Murano right next to it that has the glass blowing factories, so they sell everything imaginable in glass in Venice. My group definitely spent a lot of money on some really beautiful hand made glass jewelry. The jewelry is pretty cheap though, usually under 10 € depending on where you get it from, but there was a lot of beautiful jewelry that we all wanted to buy!Phylicia Quay
Entry 4: May 29, 2008
So we just got back from our travel break in Rome. It was pretty awesome, but extremely hot, and we were definitely happy to be back in cool Sansepolcro. We visited the Spanish Steps, which were not as exciting as people make them out to be, the Trevi Fountain, which was awesome, the Colosseum, also amazing, Palatine Hill, the Vatican, the Pantheon, and the Piazza Navona.
Entry 3: May 24, 2008
Today we took a day trip to Anghiari and to Arezzo. Anghiari was absolutely beautiful! It is on a hill and when you look out from it you can see miles of country side, which is so gorgeous!! We went to the Taglierhi museum which used to be a palace and what would consider to be a very large house! It was two towers that had been joined together, but because they were on a hill, the floors don't match up so there are small stair cases connecting them. So technically there are 8 floors, but all 8 floors do not go throughout the entire house. So each tower was 4 floors. It was kind of confusing but they had a lot of interesting artifacts that were found in the countryside near Anghiari in the museum.
Then we went to the Miseracordia Museum. The Miseracordia are a group of people that do kind acts for the community anonymously. They are known for carrying the bodies away during the plague, but they had to keep their identities hidden otherwise the people in the town would not want to come near them, for fear of catching the plague from them. It was really interesting to see the wagons that they used during the plague in the museum. The man working was very nice, he let us take pictures of everything, but he did not speak any English so he was trying to explain things to Dr. Oatsvall in Italian so that she could tell us. He was a very cute old man.
In Arezzo, Katie, Manda, Terri, and I went to the Archaeological Museum and the Roman Amphitheatre there. It was so incredible! I took a LOT of pictures of the amphitheatre, of course there is not as much of it left as there is to the one that is in Rome, but it was still amazing being in something that was that old! It was amazing! We also saw the church with Piero della Francesca's “Legend of the True Cross” painting in the altar. It was gorgeous! I had never heard of the story before this trip, and it is really quite interesting. I loved seeing the paintings to go along with the story and how well Piero painted it!
Phylicia Quay
Entry 2: Friday May 23, 2008
So this morning was pretty uneventful. We went to class, and then Manda, Katie and I did a little shopping and did some errands that we needed to do. And tonight we had our first family dinner. Everybody was really nervous about getting a family that couldn't speak English, but afterwards everybody realized they were just worrying over nothing. We all had a great time.
I was paired up with Julia and the mother of the family came and picked us up in the Piazza. She drove us to her home that was not very far outside of the wall, she said it was really close to the Casa Buitoni. She had a gorgeous house, which was really a garage on the first floor, her house (or what we would call an apartment) on the second floor and another family lived on the floor above them. She had a daughter named Marta and Marta's friend was also there having dinner with us. Her father had to leave because he was going to play soccer.
They showed us the roof, which was gorgeous! You could see all of Sansepolcro from it. I told them that I loved it here and that it was a lot better than Raleigh, and they did not believe me, but I guess the grass is always greener on the other side! Then we had a wonderful dinner, smalls squares of pizza for an appetizer, one kind of them had small slices of potato on the top, which was rather odd, but still good, ravioli with cheese and pesto in it for the first course, sausage and potatoes for the second course, and then chocolate cake for dessert. We talked about Bush, Burlesci, Hillary, and Obama. They spoke English pretty well, so it went smooth. After dinner, the two girls, which were both 20, drove us back to the town and we walked around the main street a few times talking, and them introducing us to their friends. The Italians call this walk a Passagente which is every Friday and Saturday night. Marta bought all of us a drink at the bar where she works, and a bar is a coffee shop, and then they walked us back to the Servi. So it went over a lot better than I was expecting it too!
Entry 1: May 20, 2008
Hello everyone! It has been quite busy here the past few days and definitely feels like we have been here longer than four days! So far we have walked around Sansepolcro, visited the Casa Buitoni and the Museo Civico. All of which are gorgeous! I took about 150 pictures at the Casa Buitoni yesterday! We also saw a lot of beautiful and interesting artwork at the Museo Civico this morning.
Everyone has been getting along really well. Even though nobody knew everybody when we first got on the plane and it has only been four days, we are all really good friends now. Usually at night we have just been all sitting around the common area talking and doing homework.
Italy is absolutely gorgeous! And I love the small quiet town where everything is closed for the afternoon to relax. Life over here is just slower than life in the United States. I definitely think I want to move here when I graduate from college next year!
Ciao!
