The World of Technology in Europe - A Lost Adventure

When I arrived in Europe I never thought about how much I rely on technology being a photographer. During my time here I have been uploading photos to my website Hannah Swick Photography, Facebook, and of course this blog. Unless I have perfect Wi-Fi connection it takes hours on end to upload my photos onto anything. It makes it difficult to share everything that I want to.

Before I left Colorado I unlocked my iPhone to have world access via Verizon. I thought that buying a SIM card ahead of time through UNC would be great! It promised too much and sounded like it wouldn’t be very expensive but boy I was wrong. The SIM card that you can buy through the ICIS card that I got from UNC was one of the worst things I ever did. It said that you would be able to call at a low rate but it charged me more than anything else. I made only a few essential calls and it cost me over 150 euros in two weeks. I wanted to cry. When I arrived in Italy I bought a specific SIM card for Italy. You bought the SIM for 25 euros, which included the first three months as a down payment, then after, that it was supposed to be 9 euros. If I didn’t have to try and call my credit card company who kept hanging up on me, and the calls kept dropping I would have been fine, but that wasn’t my case. WIND, one of the Italian phone companies here charged me an arm and a leg and my minutes were gone along with my entire down payment. So my dad found the app where I could call through until I could pay again for the month and everything was fine. Phones are complicated here. Recently I prepaid for my last month here in Italy (10 Euros) and before my contract restarted for the month, a Slovenian phone company charged WIND 12 cents for me apparently using their phone signal, even though I haven’t even been in Slovenia. Because Trieste is so close to Slovenia, this happens a lot. So I went to WIND to see what happened and they told me that there was nothing I could do about Slovenia picking up my phone signal so I owed WIND money. I found this not my problem but theirs, but I couldn’t win the battle. The minimum payment to WIND is 5 euros so I had to pay the 5 euros even though I only owed 12 cents. It was ridiculous.

Free WIFI in Europe does not exist. That has been a trouble of mine with blogging and uploading photos onto my website. I decided to not pay for an Internet card for my computer in my apartment the duration I have been in Italy because it thought it was too much. So I have only used my computer for iTunes and editing photos at home then I go to the University for Wi-Fi, which bumps you off every 2 hours until I found a local coffee shop named Kulp in Trieste that has fast Wi-Fi and a big comfy couch that I spend most of my time on when I am not at home or at school. Paying 2 euros for a cappuccino for unlimited Wi-Fi for roughly 6 hours (the time that I normally am in the Kulp) is much cheaper than paying for Wi-Fi or Internet at my apartment and I also enjoy the coffee! Compared to home, I can upload about 30 photos in 6 hours here in Italy, but at home I can upload 30 in about an hour.

If you have Apple products I would recommend anyone traveling abroad to buy the specific outlets for mac products! They are interchangeable and fit better in the plug-ins throughout the UK and EU than the all-in-one big bulky converters. The best apps that I have found while being abroad are WhatsApp, iTranslate, Duolingo, Skyscanner, CNN, Linphone, The Weather Channel, FaceTime, and Maps. CNN is always nice for me so I can stay updated with the United States and see what is happening in the countries I am in. I also don’t have television or the radio to stay updated (even if I did, it’s only in Italian).

One thing that I found very impressive was that FaceTime is a billion times better than Skype. I tried Skyping back home and the connection was awful. I couldn’t hear or see my parents, so we decided to try FaceTime. I had never FaceTimed before I was here in Italy but it works 99% of the time. I also use WhatsApp to stay in contact with not only my friends and family back at in Colorado, but almost everyone uses it here in Europe as well. It is a free texting app that connects to your contacts that have the app. I have friends from Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Colorado, and Oklahoma.

My view on technology has changed while being here. I have learned tricks by experience and hopefully I was able to let everyone who wants to study abroad or just travel some in on insight on what to expect in not only Italy but also Europe.

What I have learned in Europe!

People have asked me what it’s like to live here in Italy and I have a lot to say about that. It’s different. I have learned how to be independent and most of all what I really need to make me happy. No one needs everything that they have. Coming over seas and leaving almost everything you have behind at home is difficult. It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to bring but in all reality I brought too much. I wear pretty much the same combinations of clothing almost everyday here. I’m surprised if someone hasn’t noticed. I did buy 2 sweaters, a coat and a scarf here because I made the decision to buy a coat instead of bring one with me, and it was cheaper in the long run then haul a coat in September!

Changing my daily routine was overwhelming at the beginning. I moved into an apartment that wasn’t mine, all I had was a bed, desk, closet, bathroom, kitchen and utensils. I have changed my routines in the morning and have gotten used to not having a bathtub when all I want to do is relax. My comfortable home is half way around the world and nothing made sense the first few weeks living here. Going to the grocery store where nothing is in English can be difficult. It took me over a month to find milk that was lactose free, something that is so easy to find in the United States can be difficult when there is a language barrier everywhere.

I have never been afraid to go alone here in Europe. I feel completely safe. Never once have I felt that I was in danger (except on a train in Germany, but that is a long story). I feel more endangered in my hometown than in Europe. Yes there are some places in every town that can be scary, but so far I feel great, as long as I don’t speak or bring attention that I am a foreigner.

Traveling is so easy and relatively cheap to do. Many planes here in Europe are around 30Euros, it’s when you have luggage is what bites you in the butt. I can fly from Venice to many places on a low budget, if only I had more time I could take advantage of traveling further places. Unlike in the United States, no one relies on a personal car to get around. Most places have an excellent bus system and train system. I can get anywhere in Italy by train. I don’t think I can get to Nebraska by train or by bus from Greeley.

There are a few things that I do take for granted:

Health: I am I healthy and young. My legs have walked me around Europe, my lungs work, my eyes can see, my ears can hear the beautiful sound of the sea.

Wealth: I’m not talking about money. I am talking about the wealth of my experiences I am having and which I have had. My parents have taught me that there are more things in life than fancy clothes and expensive things. Traveling is considered wealth in my eyes. The more that I can see in this world is more important to me than anything that I can buy in a store. I would rather buy a plane ticket to Prague than spend that money on something that I won’t care about in ten years. 

Now that I have finally gotten to travel throughout parts of Europe, it doesn’t mend my itch for traveling. I just want to travel more. I have so many places that I want to see now, not just in Europe, but also around the world! I cannot wait to see where life takes me after I graduate from UNC!

Rain Rain Go Away…

Trieste is very rainy. I would say that it rains five out of seven days but always on days I have class first thing in the morning. When it’s not raining, it’s windy. The wind here in Trieste is named Bora. During the winter it gets so windy here that people can hardly walk, buses cannot drive up the step streets, and trashcans slide into the road. Bora is only beginning now in November. Last week it was so windy, I didn’t go outside the majority of the day because I could hardly walk in it. A funny thought I had was that what if instead of snow days like we have in Colorado, they have wind days, where school is canceled. I don’t know if that happens here, but I could believe it because the shutters can hardly block out the noise tunneling through the narrow streets.

Today it rained. I didn’t have class until 2:30, my beginners’ Italian course. Being almost done with classes, this class has been the hardest for me. Learning to speak and write a language in eight weeks is difficult. I have people in my class from Turkey, Poland, Spain, Romania, Africa and fellow Americans. Maybe it is difficult because the only common language we have in the room is English yet the professor doesn’t know English very well so she speaks only in Italian to explain everything. I guess I jumped both feet at the same time into the language.

Academics here are very interesting. I was so used to either MWF classes or TR classes back at UNC, but here I have a combination of MF, MT, TR, WT with each class lasting either 2.5 hours 3 hours or 4 hours but a 10-15 minutes break every hour where you can either grab some coffee, a smoke break, or eat a snack. The first two weeks here I thought it was ridiculous to pause class to drink coffee but now I enjoy a nice break where my brain doesn’t have to pay attention to anything. I am going to miss my breaks in class when I return to UNC but then again, my classes are no where near four hours long, not even my studio art classes are longer than three hours. Of course in art class, we take breaks for coffee because one can only print in the darkroom for so many hours at a time.

Here in Trieste I am taking four courses: Intellectual Property Rights, Entrepreneurial Finance, Marketing and Innovations, and Italian language. I think the most exciting part of any of the classes is that I am the foreigner in the room. 99% of my classes, besides Italian where we are all foreigners, are from Italy. 95% of the students from Italy are from Trieste or small towns near by. There is a Russian, two girls from Slovenia, a guy from Taiwan and two students from Africa (I’m not sure of which country in Africa). I have always envied exchange students ever since I met my first friends from around the world my Junior year in High School but now I was walking in their shoes and being around the world studying.

If I had one piece of advice for students in college is take the opportunity to get out into the world. Not just studying in a different state, but to study abroad. I have learned so much just being away from home. Yes I do miss home, but home is where the heart is. Very cliché, but it’s true. My heart is here in Italy right now but it is also back in good ol’ Greeley, Colorado where my family is. I have made a nice little home here where at the end of the day, I can take off my shoes and know that I am comfortable. Also, advice for anyone studying abroad, make sure you travel outside of the country you are living in, especially if you are in Europe. Europe is a little bit bigger than the state of Texas.  Take advantage of being here. Not many people get to say that they lived in a different country for either a semester or a year to study. I am lucky that I have traveled with someone who knows how to get around. So far I have been to Dublin, Galway, London, Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Venice, Trieste, Muggia, Collio, Florence, Bologna, CinqueTerra, Pisa, and Rome. I am still going back to Venice, Bologna, and Florence and then after the semester ends I am going to Prague, Ansbach, Paris, and Brussels and back to Dublin. In total of 16 weeks, I will have been to eight countries. I only wish that I could go to more, but I still have the rest of my life ahead of me.

I am ready for the next six weeks of my journey here in Europe.

-Ciao

Being Away For The First Time

Face-timing my nephew Jaxson

Growing up I always wanted to see things but I was always afraid to do things on my own. I have always had my parents by my side taking care of me. For the first time in my life I moved out of the house, half way around the world, to a country that didn’t speak my language. It’s frightening, yet exciting at the same time. I have had to adapt to many things. Having to take public transportation for the first time in my life was a big step. I had never ridden a bus before, not even to school. I have always walked places or driven in a car. It’s very different than home here.

The first week I arrived in Italy my credit card stopped working, my bank account was frozen, and I had thought that I was prepared for it all. I did all the necessary steps to try and prevent it but it still happened to me, the girl who was preparing to study abroad for over a 6 months. Luckily my parents found an application called Linphone that I could download on my iphone that allowed me to call through my home phone landline. I was then able to call my phone company and not have to be charged crazy international rates.

The Parents!

When I decided that I wanted to study abroad, it was about this time last year. I one day came home and told my parents that I was going to go to Trieste, Italy in the fall semester. I literally sat down and printed off all my paperwork and started filling it in. I turned my application in before winter break and waited until March 1^st, the actual deadline to start planning my trip. I was telling people that I was going to Italy before I was even accepted because to me, I had my mind set on it and thought there was no way I would not go. If I was declined, I was going to take a semester off and travel. I needed to get out of Greeley. The same time, I was scared.  I didn’t know what all I had to do to get to Italy. I found out during spring break that I was accepted to the University of Trieste and only a few days later, I bought my plane ticket to Ireland. I know… Ireland is nowhere near Italy. Ireland was where I wanted to start my adventure on September 4^th, 2013 yet it all didn’t seem real, even though I had an official date as to when I was going to be packing my bags and leaving this town I grew up in.

The Sister-in-law and Brother!

It’s been hard being away from my family. We have always been so close. I found out in January that I was going to be an aunt for the first time and my nephew was due a week after I left the states. While I was gone I missed the birth of my beautiful nephew Jaxson Eli Swick on September 12^th. I was sitting in Germany with my friend Thorben who was an exchange student my junior year in high school, uploading photos from Amsterdam and London onto my website, thinking how in the world did I happen to miss the birth of Jaxson the only time I was away from Greeley longer than a week!

At the same time, I was separated from my friends and family while a devastating flood swept my town and much of Colorado and I was nowhere to help out. My best friend lost her house and everything in it and all I could do was tell her how much I loved her and if she needed anything, my home is always open. It’s hard when people you love are in pain, and you are enjoying just the beginning of your adventure around the world, getting ready to experience how other people live. 

I’ve missed a lot of things here. But I have so many things to be thankful for. I get to travel. I am so blessed to be able to do things most 20 year olds don’t get to do. I can say my first apartment was in Italy. The first time I took a train alone was in Germany. The first time I traveled out of the Americas was with out family and with only mere strangers I met a few months before, but now are dear friends. I am also blessed that I have a best friend only 3 hours away by train in Bologna, that if I need to, I can go see any time I want because a train can take me there every morning leaving at 7:04am.

As my journey is quickly ending, I have a small countdown going on in my head. I have three weeks left of school. I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone by. My friend Erika is coming to visit me on December 11^th-20^th so that’s only 27 days away! I leave for Germany on the 20^th for Christmas and then spending New Years in Paris! 2014 is in 48 days and I’ll be back in Colorado in 54 days.

I have mixed feelings about leaving this place I call home for right now. I want to go back to Colorado,go back to dance classes,spend time with my family, but at the same time I am going to miss my new friends and living on my own. I know this isn’t the last time I will be living abroad but I will be making the most out of the next 54 days until I go home. Italy is wonderful.

Romagain Romagain Jig-a-dee-jig

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A musician on the streets of Rome.

Jared and Bryan almost missed the train to Rome. I remember myself standing outside of the train looking at the guard hoping she wouldn’t blow her whistle to allow the train to depart. I saw Jared in his bright orange shirt running up the stairs, but without Bryan. I was getting nervous. The time was 13:39 and the guard blew whistle and all I could see in the distance was a guy with a backpack running up the staircase and I started yelling to get on the train now. We all made it. We departed Pisa at 13:40 and arrived in Rome around 17:00. I remember strolling out of the train station terminal and thinking how eager I was to see all the historical sights in this ancient city.

I spent five whole days in Rome, the capital of Italy.  The night we arrive in Rome, I think I saw most of the city. We stayed in Alessandro PALACE Hostel, which was near the train station and metro. That made it easy to get around. We decided to walk from our hostel to the Spanish Steps that were built in 1717 and has 135 steps. The scalinata is the widest staircase in Europe. We then headed to the Fontana di Trevi, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci. It is the largest Baroque fountain in the city. Of course I threw a Euro with my right hand over my left shoulder for good luck and hopes to return back to Rome someday. Afterwards we walked around Rome enjoying the lack of tourists during the evening and being able to appreciate the sites at night.

Fontana di Trevi

We toured the Colloseum, the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city, St. Peters Bacillica in the Vatican City, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, The Capitoline Hill, Castel Sant'Angelo, Circus Maximus is an ancient Roman chariot racing stadium, Piazza del Popolo, Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, Arch of Constantine and probably a few more!

The Capitoline Hill

The Colosseum

I found pinocchio!

While I loved being in Rome it was nice to finally end right back up in Trieste, my new home!

-Ciao