Avventure in Italia 2015

Hi everyone,
I'm merely posting this 3 years late because I had it saved as a draft in my blog. It reflects on the first week or so on my study abroad experience in Summer 2015. Enjoy!


Ciao, gli amici!

Can you believe that the summer is already halfway over? Where in the world did the time go?

A little update on my life:

While I may do an entire post solely about Ignite Outdoors 2015, I will say right now that I had the time of my life welcoming in the UTK freshman class of 2019. It was an unbelievable experience that I will never forget for the rest of my life that caused a huge amount of unexpected personal growth, absolute adoration for the outdoors, and an admiration for the incredible young men and women that are entering the University of Tennessee this coming fall. Expect great things from these people because they are going to take the University by storm. I am so beyond lucky to have met so many of them as they undergo this transition from high-school into college! I also will be forever thankful and blessed by the staff this year - every one of the TL's, the SOLE staff, and our beloved directors and assistants, JQ and Jess Blanford. Ignite will FOREVER hold a soft spot in my heart! More to come in another post!

Once I arrived home from Ignite on June 19th, I immediately began preparing for my study abroad trip to Urbino, Italy! Currently, I am sitting in my adorable, quaint dorm room in Urbino writing this post in the biggest heat wave that has hit Europe in years, but I can't complain.
We, a group of 45+ students of all ages from UTK, arrived here on July 3rd in Rome after a 9 hour, overnight flight from Charlotte, NC to Rome, Italy and a 4 hour bus ride to Urbino. Our destination - a beautiful, medieval castle of sorts nestled in the countryside of central eastern Italy - took my breath away from the moment we stepped off the bus.

Immediately, the entire group began exploring the city, which consists of numerous, delicious gelato eateries, dozens of locally owned shops, live music, gorgeous and historic buildings from the 13th century, and some of the best wine and espresso you can imagine. We stumbled upon, and continue to discover, hidden alleyways that lead to secret parks with incredible lookouts and colorful cobblestone streets. To put in fewer words, this city is magical and already feels like home to me and everyone else. We even celebrated America's Birthday together after knowing each other for a mere 2 days by dressing up in good ole' red, white, and blue and enjoying one another's company on our beautiful dorm's terrace with a stellar All-American playlist!

A typical day's schedule looks like waking up around 7:30am, grabbing la colazione (breakfast) at La Caffe degli Amici and heading to class by foot inside the city walls.  The trip to our academic building is typically around a 15minute walk, 1 mile roughly, and it lies down an alleyway across from an enormous, beautiful European Catholic church that dates back to early 13th century. Class lasts from 9am-10:30am with a pausa caffe' (coffee break) at a quaint cafe till 10:45am with another class from 10:45am-12:15pm. After class, lunch at the mensa (cafeteria) in our dorms fills our tummies with delicous pasta, pizza, chicken, fruit - you name it. The pomeriggi e sere (afternoons and evenings) are completely open to us to do homework and do as we please. It's absolutely fantastic as everyone typically takes a siesta (nap) with the rest of the city anywhere from 1-4pm, the hottest part of the day. Speaking of hot, it's absolutely scorching here as the heat index yesterday was 103 degrees. And guess what, we have no A/C. However, fans have become a hot commodity (pun intended) in Urbino this week as we weak Americans try to cool off in this dreadful heat.

Essentially, Italy is better than I could have ever imagined. Our group has accepted every single person as they are, and we also take care of eachother as if we have known one another for years. Strange to think we have only been together for 4 days! Soon, many of us will travel to Venice for the weekend together as well. I'll definitely keep you all updated with pictures soon as I get them off my camera!

That's all for now! Arrivederci!

Ciao,
Corinne



The castle I get to call home for the next 5 weeks! Urbino, Italy!