I saw London, I saw France...

I departed from Paris Nord train station this morning at 9:01am. I have never traveled alone through such a large city before. Clearly I gave myself more than enough time, but it’s better to be early then late. I had to take the metro from my hotel and transfer to another metro to reach my destination.  The moon was still shining and very few people were out. The sun didn’t rise until 8:45am, two hours after I woke up. Now I am on the train, heading towards Brussels, Belgium where I will be able to navigate myself through the city to reach my hostel. Only a few more days and I will be heading to catch a plane to Dublin then finally one last long flight back home to Colorado. It has been an adventure for sure.  In Brussels there is an International Festival of Ice Sculptures ‘Ice Magic’ and the sculptures are comic book characters. Four hundred and twenty tons of natural ice will be transformed creating the worlds of Tintin, Quick & Flupke, the Smurfs, Gaston Lagaffe, Asterix, Boule et Bill, Thor, Spiderman, Lucky Luke and many more. I plan on spending a few hours there. I have never seen an Ice Sculpture before. I am most excited to eat a Belgium Waffle. I hear they are amazing. Along with ice sculptures and waffles I plan on seeing the giant atom and the Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule. Belgium was never in my plans to visit until I had to figure out what to do after Paris for four days so why not just go to another country before I head home! There is also a comic book path within the city where I can walk and see graffiti artists’ works of comics on the sides of buildings. I am excited to see what the murals are. Other then that, I plan on relaxing and preparing myself to go back to the States and reflect on what I have learned while being abroad. 

New Years in Paris

Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile.

While my time is ending here in Europe, I can now reflect back on my experiences I had here. I celebrated New Years Eve in Paris, France. It was spectacular. I have never been in a large city before to welcome in the new year. Paris is by far an amazing city. The streets are clean and filled with small french cafes on every corner. France is something else. French Baroque is a form of Baroque architecture that evolved in France during the reigns of Louis XIII. The gardens of Versailles are grand even in the mist of winter. I haven't experienced any snow yet while being in Europe, mostly just rain. There has been a light shower every evening in Paris. The lights on the Eiffel Tower light up every hour and display a spectacular view for minutes. Every hour I just hope that I am in view of the tower. My favorite part of being in Paris is that I was finally able to visit the Louvre Museum and Rodin's "The Thinker" at the Rodin Museum. The Louvre really does take about five hours to walk through, that is if you don't examine every single piece of art. Obviously I crowded my way to the front to see the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was everything I had expected: small and not the best painting I have ever seen. Being an Art & Design Major, we have been told about the tiny Mona Lisa, but it was still cool to see in person. My favorite piece in the Louvre is the Lamassu (human headed winged lion) during the ninth to the seventh century B.C. in Northern Iraq. They were enormous in person. I saw so many of the most well known works of art and it was a little overwhelming. 

Eiffel Tower with the The Seine river in front.

I stayed the first three nights in the Louvre Youth Hostel about 3 blocks away from the Louvre. It was in the perfect location to see Notre Dame and hop on a metro and go anywhere. I took the metro out to see the famous " Mouin Rouge." There are markets all over Paris right now for the holidays. I think Europe in the winter is the perfect time to visit. The streets are all decorated and there is hundreds of things to do. There was outdoor ice-skating, concerts, delicious street food, and shopping. The french know how to have a good time. Last night, New Years Eve, I was able to bring in 2014 in front of the Eiffel Tower. Thousands of visitors and locals gathered together to celebrate the past year and look forward to the new year. 

I head to Brussels, Belgium tomorrow. It is my last stop before I finally head home back to the states. To see more photos from Paris, France please view Hannah Swick Photography- Paris, France.

Au Revoir Paris! 

The Louvre.

Fountain at the Palace of Versailles.

That’s a bunch of Turkey….Just kidding it’s Bologna

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This Thanksgiving I was in Bologna, Italy spending it with two friends from back home. While Thanksgiving obviously isn’t celebrated outside of the States, most exchange schools put on a dinner for the Americans. Miguel, Ashlynn and I had dinner at a restaurant that made a “Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner”. They first brought out bruschetta, olives and other Italian foods. Next, came the pizza! I know, it sounds like I didn’t have Thanksgiving dinner at all, but that was just the appetizer.  Finally, after two hours of eating Italian foods and chatting with Americans and Italians, the turkey came out with an American flag sticking out of it along with sparklers. It might have been the most American turkey out there! Spending time with my friends on Thanksgiving was fun!Friday morning we woke up early to head to Florence. Miguel and Ashlynn had never been there, so I showed them around. We climbed to Piazza de Michelangelo and visited the basilica San Miniato al Monte. It was beautiful. The basilica overlooks the entire city of Florence at one of the highest points. The Romanesque basilica is said to be one of the most beautiful churches in Italy and I can confirm that it is my favorite so far. Although it is not the biggest, it is the most decorated by far. Geometric shapes cover the tiled floor and stripes are on all sides.

Every church that I have visited in Italy has unique characteristics. Some are simple, some are extravagant and some are big and some are small. What I love about Europe is that everything is old. We have very few places in the States that have such beautiful architecture and nothing is as old, clearly because we are the “New World”. I am lucky to have been able to see the east coast in the States. I’ve seen Plymouth Rock and Jamestown. The States has a different beauty that I love.

Being the adventurous person that I am, I led Miguel and Ashlynn through the streets of Florence not knowing where I was going. As we strolled thru the streets, we stumbled upon a Synagogue and decided to see what one was like. I have never been in a Synagogue before the one in Florence. There were palm trees in the garden in front of it.

Being thankful for family is something that I appreciate more now that I couldn’t spend time with them this year.

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.