So I realize it’s the end of the semester and I still haven’t blogged yet, but I figure better late than never. I have been studying in Barcelona for 3 and a half months now, and I absolutely love it. The program I chose to go through is called ISA. I didn’t know anyone else doing it before I came here, but I have met so many new people. I live with a host family here and have a roommate from Chicago. We also had the option of living on our own in an apartment, but living with a host family was definitely a better choice. Our host mom cooks us three meals a day and does our laundry once a week. Plus I have learned a whole lot more Spanish by living with a family who doesn’t speak English at all. My host family is so nice and they’re always willing to help us if we need anything.

Barcelona is a great city for studying abroad. The weather is great, and there is so much to do both at night and during the day. There are beaches, mountains, and tons of attractions. One of the biggest attractions here is Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, which is a huge Cathedral that has been under construction for over a hundred years. There is so much more to do here, and even though Barcelona is a big city, getting around is a lot easier than I expected.

The classes I’m taking here are International Business, International Marketing, and two Spanish classes. The teaching style is definitely different, but it’s a nice change of pace. My classes meet for an hour and 45 minutes two days a week. All of the people in my classes are study abroad students, so I have classmates from all around the world. We don’t have class on Fridays so that we are encouraged to travel as much as possible. Basically all of my grades depend on final exams and presentations. But all of my classes have been interesting and I have learned a lot.

Throughout the semester I traveled to Munich, Dublin, Mallorca, Amsterdam, Rome, Venice, and all around the rest of Spain. Once you’re in Europe, it’s so easy to travel around to other countries. Flights are cheap and everything is pretty close. I loved all of the cities I went to, but Barcelona is still my favorite. I’m excited to come home, but I know I will miss Spain. My roommate and I are already trying to figure out when we can come back!

-Brittany

I had the opportunity to visit the International Criminal Court here in The Hague, Netherlands.  The International Criminal Court is the first permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.  I was able to sit in and listen to the defense of Charles Ghankay Taylor, former President of Liberia.  His 11 count indictment includes

-Acts of terrorism

-Murder

-Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder

-Rape

-Sexual slavery

-Outrages upon personal dignity

-Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular cruel treatment

-Other inhumane acts

-Conscripting or enlisting under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities

-Enslavement

-Pillage

Taylor told stories of back dealings with CIA and US Government Departments and tried to paint himself as a savior to Liberia.  I never imagined sitting only a few feet away from a man possible of all these crimes, let alone that he would be a former president.

Steve Zorn

Hello again!

Sorry it has taken so long to write on this blog, I have been very busy. Florence has been wonderful and I have experienced many wonderful amazing things since being here. Since it is the half way mark through the semester I am beginning to miss more and more things about being home. It’s the little things that I miss about home such as a warm bowl of chili on a cold day, autumn and the leaves falling and changing colors, I miss green grass or grass in general, I miss the classes at U of L, and I miss just being at home and the convenience of driving anywhere you want. Living with 7 other people doesn’t help anything either but it has been a fun process of getting to know people and learn and talk with them about there schools at home. But all of these things are making me miss home a little more everyday.

Since my last post I have done a lot. On the weekend of September 26th Florence had a wine event. At this event you just paid 10 Euros and you got a wine glass and you got to go around to over a hundred different booths and taste the wine. I had about 12 glasses and it was delicious. It was fun to be able to interact with tourist and locals all at the same time. On October 8 for my wine marketing class we were able to attend the biggest wine event in Florence. All the important wine producers and journalists from all over Italy attended. Oh did I mention earlier that my wine marketing teacher is apart of Frescobaldi? Frescobaldi is one of the most prestigious wine producing families in all of Europe. They have been Tuscan wine producers for 700 years, since 1308. This is just incredible to me. But anyways since I am getting off track…my class and I went to this huge wine event on October 8th. Here I tried the most expensive bottles of wine that I will never be able to try again. Some of these bottles were selling for 1000 Euros. Yes, the wine was the best that I have a ever tasted but I can’t imagine spending that much money on a bottle of wine. The outfits that the people pouring wine were wearing were so sophisticated. It was like nothing I have ever experienced before. It was exciting.

Now on to my travels…The first weekend of October my roommates and I went to Rome for the weekend. At first I did not think that I would like Rome as much as I did. Before I chose Florence as my place to study I was planning on studying in Rome. Even though I loved Rome I can’t imagine being there and studying, I think I would be over-whelmed and in culture shock with the amount of people and tourist in Rome. I went and saw everything that you should see when in Rome. Of all the things I saw my favorite was the Coliseum and the Roman Forman and ruins. It is so fascinating how intelligent the Romans where and how they built the buildings they did back some 1,900 years ago.

After Rome I went on an excursion offered through the school. This excursion was to the town of Maiori, Amalfi, Capri Island, and Pompeii. This trip was full of scenic landscapes. The Amalfi coast is filled with cliffs and towns built on these cliffs. The water here was a beautiful teal color. Capri island was beautiful as well but it was much more tourist than I was hoping although they do make the best homemade Limoncello (a lemon Liquor). While on our trip we stayed in a little town called Maiori. The locals in Maiori were unlike most Italians. They were very nice and did not judge us because we were Americans. One night after dinner there was a wedding reception going on outside and a member from the family came inside the hotel and told us to all get out on the dancer floor. We all went outside and crashed an Italian wedding. The 70-year-old grandfather of the family led all of the dances as we tried to follow a long with him. I hope I am as energetic as he was at 70 years old. The last song that they played was Y.M.C.A. I didn’t even know people in Italy knew of this song but at the end of the night we all came together as two totally different cultures with a song we all knew and spelled out those four letters. Y.M.C.A. After the reception I kept thinking about how welcoming they all were to us coming and joining in on something that is so family oriented. I kept thinking about how that would never happen in the United States. A family would never invite a bunch of foreign strangers into their wedding reception. This showed me how different and welcoming the Italian culture is from our culture. After Maiori we were on to Pompeii. I am sure most of you have heard of Pompeii. Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. killing everyone and the volcanic ash preserved their bodies. This place was fascinating. The ruins were fascinating and the bodies were the most fascinating. It was sad and hard to see the bodies of people once struggling for their lives and the look of agony still on their faces.

My next trip was to a wine estate called Castello di Verrazzan in Chianti, Tuscany about 45 minutes outside Florence. This wine estate was beautiful. It’s an old castle built on top of a hill overlooking Tuscany in 1716. On this trip we sampled his wine, which was great, and we ate some food he prepared for us. The olive oil he makes is probably the best olive oil I have ever tasted. While showing us through the cellar and the rest of the winery he was talking to us and kept telling us to live in the moment and “Happiness is only real if shared.” I have come to learn that this is true and to try and live everyday in the moment.

My fall break trip was last week and Ellie( my roommate and another U of L student) and I went to Ireland. Let me just say I fell in love with Ireland. I want to move there. Maybe it was just being in the presence of fall and being around green grass and the leaves falling and the leaves changing color, but Ireland was all I had ever imagined it to be and more. The first stop was Dublin. Right when I stepped off the plane it felt like home. The wind, the coldness, the people speaking English… ahh it was a pleasant arrival. The people in Ireland are so nice as well. We stepped of the public bus onto O’Connell Street looking a little lost and this woman came right up to us and asked us if we were lost and if she could help. It was a pleasant surprise since in Italy people sometimes tend to just kind of ignore you or act like they don’t speak English. The best thing about Dublin was just about everything. The people, the atmosphere, the Guinness beer and the rainbows were all amazing. The next stop after Dublin was flying to Cork, Ireland. In Cork there was the Cork Jazz Festival going on but it was very rainy there so we just went to a pub and listened to live music. Then we went to a little teashop and had the best hot chocolate ever with HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOWS!! This made our day. There is no hot chocolate in Florence, let alone homemade marshmallows, we were in heaven to say the least. The bed and breakfast we stayed at (Garnish House) had the best breakfast in the morning. They had Porridge with Baileys Irish Cream on top, delicious. Cork had some great places to relax, eat and drink. After Cork we were off the Blarney, home of the Blarney Castle. We went to the top of the castle to kiss the Blarney stone, which was kind of scary since you have to lean backward over the castle ledge to kiss the stone. But some famous people including Winston Churchill have kissed the stone so it was pretty cool. Then if was back to Dublin to catch a bus in the morning to go to Glendalough, Ireland. This is about an hour drive from Dublin. During the drive we got to see the countryside of Ireland. Glendalough was the home of St. Kevin back in 500 A.D. He built his Monastery there and leaved in the woods. Here there is also a really old cemetery, which was neat to see since it was 3 days from Halloween. Here in Glendalough the landscape was gorgeous. Autumn leaves everywhere and there were some great hiking trails around the two lakes that we went on. The next morning we went back to Dublin to hangout for the day before we headed back to Florence the following morning. If you ever go to Dublin go to the Archeological Museum. This was probably the most interesting museum that I have ever been in. In this Museum they had the “Bog Bodies” look it up on Google but it is where dead people were found in the bogs of Ireland. These people that they found are as old as 300 B.C. That is 2,300-year-old people and since they were found in a bog the chemicals in the mud preserved all of them. Their skin and organs are still preserved! Amazing. I found this to be even more interesting than Pompeii because all of the people found in the bog had been murdered some 2,300 years ago. All in all I want to move to Ireland. I loved everything about it, the people, the landscape, the weather, the food, everything. If you ever get the chance go to Ireland… GO!!

Now I am back in Florence enjoying my last month and a half here. I will definitely miss Florence and the beautiful skies here.

After spending the first few weeks staying in Den Haage some of us decided to make our first trip outside of the Netherlands.  This trip was to Dublin and 7 of us went.  There were 6 students from U of L and my roommate Alex who is a senior at a school in Michigan.  We took the train late Thursday night arriving at the airport in Brussels very early the next morning and waited for our flight with anticipation.  We were all very excited for our first trip.  As soon as we arrived in Dublin we went straight to the hostel and dropped off our bags.  Next up was some food and a free walking tour.  These free walking tours are in cities all over Europe, and the ones I have been on thus far have been very interesting.  On the tour I learned a lot about Ireland’s history and the struggle they went through to gain their independence.  That evening we went on a pub crawl which was a lot of fun.  They took us to five pubs and one disco.  We had tons of fun and met people from all over the world.  We made friends with some Americans that are studying in London.  They offered to show us around London when we made our trip there.  The next day we went on a tour of a prison and to the Guinness factory.  When you reach the top of the Guinness factory your tour concludes and you can have your free drink at the top bar where there is a gorgeous view of the entire city.  The following day we decided to take a tour through the countryside.  It was everything we expected.  It had beautiful rolling hills and we even got to see a castle.  The next trip we took was to Munich for Oktoberfest.  For this trip we rented a nine person van.  Two of us were U of L students; there were boys from Wisconsin, Maryland, California, two French boys, and two French girls.  We bought a tent and decided to camp for the weekend.  We drove all night Thursday and arrived Friday morning, and went straight to Oktoberfest.  We got into the first beer house; it was a grandiose building with ornate decoration on both the inside and out.  We had a blast meeting all different kinds of German people.  The beer houses were so amazing.  They were decorated with lots of pictures of the German countryside and people dressed in lederhosen.  Actually, many of the people attending Oktoberfest were dressed in the traditional lederhosen.  We all decided that when we go again, and I’m sure we will, we will attend in the traditional lederhosen.  They had thousands of people sitting at tables drinking big glass steins full of beer.  Our waitress came up to table carrying 10 steins, each holding a liter of beer.  We then went back to our campsite exhausted and slept all night.  The next day we got up early and went to the tents again.  It was just as amazing as the day before.  The following day we took a walking tour of Munich.  On this tour we learned an enormous amount of Nazi history.  The next trip we took was to Hamburg and Berlin.  We again rented a car but this time it was just four of us.  The people that went were two U of L students, a friend of the other U of L student, and the boy from Wisconsin.  We got a late start on Saturday so we did not arrive in Hamburg until about one am.  We decided to still go out, so we parked the car and arrived at the area where most of the pubs are located and had an amazing night.  The pubs do not close until after 6 a.m., so we stayed up all night.  We went back to the car at about six and slept for a couple of hours then woke up and continued our trip to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp near Berlin.  The concentration camp was so moving.  It was what Hitler deemed to be the ideal concentration camp.  It was originally a prison camp before everything began with WWII.  The day we went was very gloomy and rainy and that felt fitting.  You could see some replicas of what the buildings looked like.  They also had stone blocks where the other buildings would have been.  Many of the buildings contained old pictures and newspapers from that time.  After the camp we continued on to Berlin.  We found a hostel and decided not to do the walking tour that day because of the rain.  We took a nap and got ready to go on the pub crawl that evening.   

Even though it was a Sunday the pub crawl had more than thirty people on it.  They took us to five different pubs and a disco.  We had tons of fun meeting people from all over the world.  Even on a Sunday night the pubs in Berlin were busy.  The next day we woke up and went on a walking tour of the city.  Berlin is a beautiful city.  Most of the buildings are new and that is shown through the architecture.  Our tour began with our tour guide showing us the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby over the balcony.  We then continued on to the Jewish Memorial.  That was one of the most moving pieces of art I have ever seen.  It was interactive and you could walk through it.  We then saw the location where the bunker in which Hitler committed suicide had been.  It rained for most of the tour so the tour guide gave us the quick story.  A very interesting thing that I learned was that the Berlin Wall was not straight; it wiggles throughout the city.  There are gold bricks in the streets to remind everyone where the wall had been.  Our tour ended with the tour guide telling us his very elaborate story of how the Wall “actually” fell.  We then went home with a new picture of what was going on in the world at that time.

Since I last wrote so much has been going on here in
Holland. Classes have started to settle down and they aren’t moving and changing as much as they had been in the past.  We have made a trip to
Dublin, Ireland which was gorgeous and so much fun.  We have gone to Gouda famous for its cheese and
Rotterdam, these day trips out into the country are so fun and easy.  Ashley and I bought a discount pass for the internal train system which gives us 40 % off train tickets inside The Netherlands.  Our day trips to Rotterdam and
Gouda only cost us around five euros each way. 

This past weekend Ashley and I, along with another exchange student from Arkansas went to
London.  We had so much fun! Instead of taking the train we decided to take the ferry which traveled for nine hours overnight and got you to
London in the morning.  The ferry was cheaper than the train or a plane ticket so we decided to go with that.   The ferry was so nice; it was almost like a cruise ship.  It had ten decks with two restaurants and a movie theater and shopping. We spent four full days in
London and got to see everything we wanted.  We stayed in a Holiday Inn which was a luxurious change from our previous hostel experiences.  We went to
Buckingham
Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben,
London
Bridge,
Tower of
London,

This week is mid-terms so there are no classes.  I only have one test which is not until Friday so I have had time to relax from our trip and study for my test.  As soon as the week is over our fall break begins.  I am so excited because we are going to Rome and
Greece for the week!  It’s going to be another crazy busy time, but it will be beautiful.  We are flying Ryanair and got fairly cheap plane tickets.  Some other U of L students have a euro-rail pass and will be meeting us in
Rome when they arrive. 

Overall we are having a wonderful time, last week we had a meeting where all the exchange students got together to give the school feedback about what we liked and did not like about how things were going.  It’s nice how the school creates opportunities for all of the exchange students to get together and meet each other.  I feel like I am meeting people I will stay friends with for a long time.

Thanks for reading,

Amanda

Ciao!! This is my 20th day here in Florence, Italy and I absolutely love it here so far. Here in Italy I live with seven other Florence University of the Arts students and one is also from U of L!! Luckily with eight people our apartment is huge! I have been traveling within Italy a lot since I got here 2 and ½ weeks ago. Last weekend all of my roommates and me went to Pisa (to see the leaning tower) and Livorno (which is one of the many beaches here in Italy). The beach at Livorno was weird, no sand just concrete and then the sea. Then this weekend we went to Cinque Terre and this was the most beautiful place that I have ever been. Cinque Terre is on the coast of northern Italy and is where five towns are connected by a hiking path. Monterosso was the first town we stopped at and then we hiked to Vernazza, which was my favorite of the five towns. The views from the town were incredible and the town just had that homely feel about it. After Vernazza we took a ferry to Manarola. After Manarola we walked to Riomaggiore. To walk to Riomaggiore we had to walk on the “Via dell Amore” Translated means the “Path of love.” Back in the 1500’s people in Manarola were only allowed to marry within their village so in order to connect the two villages together they built this walkway so people could meet and marry within the two villages of Manarola and Riomaggiore. That was a little lesson of the Via Dell’ Amore, sorry to bore you!

Things in Italy are different from that in the United States, as you would think so. One thing I noticed about how they run their businesses is that they have no set hours of store operation. They just open and close whenever they feel. Sometimes I go to a store and they will be closed in the middle of the day and they might open back up that day and sometimes they won’t so you have to learn to be patient when wanting things. Here in the United States you can just about go anywhere at anytime of day and get something that you need. Whether it be Wal-mart or another 24 hour grocery store. Being here is teaching me a lot of things about myself, and a lot of things about how different cultures work outside of my culture.

My classes here at the Florence University of the Arts are going to be pretty fun. I am taking International Marketing, International Management, an Italian class, and the one I am most excited about is my wine communication and marketing class!! In this class I get to sample wine and learn all about how to promote Italian wine. During the semester I get to go to my teachers wine estate where they have own it for 700 years!!! Then I get to go to a wine festival here in Florence on October 8th where I will get to taste wines from all over. Some bottles that I will taste will cost 500 Euro, that’s $735!!

I must say the wine and the pasta is much better here in Italy! I will keep you posted on my future travels and new explorations.

Hello from Holland!! I have been in the Netherlands for a few weeks now and am really getting a feel for the European culture. We arrived on August 24^th which was a week before classes started. Exchange students that had been at U of L in the spring met up with us and helped us to the DUWO office and our apartment. It was such a tremendous help! We got moved in and all went out for dinner in the city center. The city center is so neat with its old and new buildings. There is tons of shopping and restaurants! A few days later we went to the beach to spend the afternoon. It was so much fun! There is a pier with bungee jumping and a casino and shopping.

On Thursday of our first week we had IBMS orientation. All the exchange students got together and the teachers gave us a tour of the school and the city. It was very nice. We walked through the Parliament and where the Queen works each day. The next day we all went back to the school to set up our class schedules, which took some effort! The class set up for exchange students can be rather complicated and still 3 weeks in takes some getting use to. That Saturday the Inter Access program took the exchange students to Amsterdam where we had a boat tour of the city and went to the festival. It was a great way to get to know other exchange students. I have met so many great new friends from all over the world!!

The following week classes started and they went pretty smoothly. Most everything is online and all the teachers understand our position and are very lenient with us. That weekend a few friends and I took a weekend trip to Hamburg, Germany. It was beautiful! We had an amazing weekend and got to see many landmarks and churches.

This past weekend a few of the exchange students and I went to Delft which is a small town about 15 minutes by train from The Hague. It was open monument day so we were able to go into the town hall, Water Company building, and several churches free of charge! There was a large festival in the square and plenty of things to see.

We are having a great time here in The Hague! I will be posting pictures soon and writing more about our life here in the Netherlands!