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.