Ciao,

This week is more about my emotions and the fact I have two weeks left. I have now been living in Florence for about three months and I can’t quite comprehend where the time has gone. Knowing I have such little time left I’m convinced I will be traveling here again. When I originally applied for this blogging position, I knew I struggled with homesickness. I experienced a lot during my freshman year of college. With that knowledge, I assumed I would experience the same thing when being abroad. Therefore, to help myself track my progress with homesickness I applied for this job. Fast-forward to the present and I sit here writing in shock that after the first 24hrs of arriving in Florence I was comfortable and stayed that way. I would like to give lots of credit to my host mom for that as she made it very clear that the house was my home, and I should never not feel comfortable coming to her. As always, I want to remind my readers that no homestay experience will be the same and I’m so grateful I ended up with mine. I also want to credit my easy adjustment to my pre-abroad self for working so hard to have all the accommodations I have at Whitman. Understanding what’s important for you and not letting others convince you of otherwise is important. Whether that’s housing or academic aid taking care of future you can make a world of difference when abroad. One of my pre-stressors for going abroad was money and being cost-aware when traveling on weekends. Not everyone will have the same budget and the Syracuse program brings a variety of students (Although I will say mostly white) together. Each student will come from a different economic/social class here and if you want to travel on a budget I wouldn’t stress. It may take time but I’m confident you will find the right friends within this program. To return to my experience or lack thereof with homesickness, this post doesn’t mean I didn’t struggle mentally during my stay. For those who struggle with mental health, the options abroad are disappointing. The “MY SSP” app Whitman provides isn’t adequate for anyone who is struggling with long-term mental health. It feels more adequate to help people who are experiencing new emotions that want a quick solution. Syracuse in the same light doesn’t offer options for people with long-term mental health either. The staff are supportive, but they aren’t certified nor legally confidential. Furthermore, going to an English-speaking therapist in Italy will be out of pocket and not covered by the school’s health insurance (though possibly reimbursed by your insurance once back in the states). When I first got here, I wanted to check out all my possibilities and although I had tough times my host family and friends were a much better option. On a more positive note, being in Florence has been overall wonderful and I’m very proud that my blogs are different from what I had intended. If you are planning on going abroad, I would like to give the piece of advice to neither assume nor ignore that having homesickness could happen. It’s not a bad thing and if anything, it’s a sign you are growing. Try to learn more about yourself through those feelings. Don’t condemn yourself to homesickness nor believe yourself too grown up to get homesick.

Can’t wait to be back on campus,

Rebecca

Chiao,

This past weekend I visited Trento and Lake Garda on an overnight trip led by Syracuse. It was a two-night trip with breakfast provided at the hotel. This was my first time in a hotel in Italy and it was more of a learning experience than I expected, the best advice I can give is to insert your key card into the wall of your room to turn on the lights. Although the hotel was a bit dim at first, the trip itself was radiating with beauty! Syracuse was not lying when they chose to call the Mountains and Lakes, though I did imagine a little more nature exploring than we did. The activities they crafted included tickets to a small museum, a boat tour, a guided castle tour, and of course pretzels (this region shares roots with Germany)! The cool thing about them taking us to Trento is it isn’t a touristic town, and it is a place where locals go for vacation. That is something all the tours I’ve gone on have in common; they are places students don’t normally visit mostly because they aren’t easily accessible without a car. Additionally, Syracuse tends to give students time to explore on their own. On this trip lunch and the evenings were left open for us to find food or activities without the entire group. It was an overall wonderful trip and I highly recommend it if you aren’t a fan of touristic locations.

Switching gears, my art courses have all been going very well and I enjoy all of them for many different reasons. I finally feel I have a good understanding of Drawing 1 Observation Florentine Sketchbook and want to share my experience if you are also interested in the course. To be totally honest the course started out on a not promising note. On the first day, a girl dropped out after the class was asked to line up our sketches and say which we think was the most and least successful. It was an intense and jarring task to outwardly say in a sense whose we thought was the best and worst. Each class is organized by meeting at the studio, then being given a location, a medium, and a time to be back by. After returning to the studio, we line up our work and are given a prompt to critique our own experience with the medium and our favorite drawing/ the most successful drawing for the assignment. I don’t want to discourage anyone from taking this course, but I also don’t want people to go into the course without this information. After the shock of the first day, the group became a lot closer and I grew to enjoy the professor’s sarcastic sense of humor. My fellow students are from all different levels of drawing knowledge, and all have experienced improvement. That being said, I wouldn’t consider this a class to learn how to draw. There are no lectures or lessons on perspective or proportions. Part of what I now understand, being three weeks away from the end of the semester, is that the first day’s jest is to show how some of the less successful students are now being chosen as people’s most successful. I guess to summarize if you hold through the first week and be vulnerable this course holds so many possibilities for you. It is one of my favorite classes.

Distinti saluti,
Rebecca

Olive oil is a well-known product in Italy. Tuscany especially has many grooves of olive trees surrounding its countryside. In the late 14^th century, the region of Tuscany couldn’t partake in increasing world trade due to war and thieves, therefore they invested in themselves by planting olive trees and grapes. One of the school trips is called, gives you a brief idea of what olive farming looks like. They took us to a small town right outside Florence called Impruneta. In the city, the school bought the group coffee and took us to a historic church that had been rebuilt after being bombed during WWI. The countryside is beyond beautiful, and the visit ends with a guided tour of Antico Frantoio Doglia which is an olive oil production farm run by two young sisters. They explain the deep rich history of their land which goes back to the Roman Empire and the planting of olive trees dating back to the Renaissance. The tour also included seeing the modern technology and the green methods of recycling waste they use during each stage. Whether that be creating mulch or sending leftover pulp to a factory that will use the gas from the breakdown of the olives to produce green energy, nothing is wasted. After the tour was complete there was an olive oil tasting. The olive oil tasting would be my only critique of the trip because we each only got two golf ball-sized pieces of bread with oil, cheese, and tomato. Everything was terrific but I wouldn’t consider it an olive oil tasting. More of an oil sample, because we only tried one of their products and very little of it. Once all is said and done, it was a great trip!

To switch topics, time is flying by so fast that it feels surreal to have been here for almost two months. Although that doesn’t mean I haven’t met my fair share of mental challenges. Weirdly enough I haven’t had any homesickness yet, but I know I’m not out of the clear. Before beginning to speak on my what has caused these mental challenges, I want to remind people this is based on my personal experience and what I’ve heard from friends. I also have friends in homestays that haven’t experienced these issues because every homestay is totally different. For me living in a homestay has caused a few cultural shocks/ challenges. Italy is known for its sense of family and food. So, if you have a complicated relationship with food, I’d beware that some host moms do push eating lots of food on you. Though I always try my best to remember it is a way they show love and not a control aspect. My host calls my roommate and I “her little chickens” because she claims we never eat food after eating 2 or 3 servings for dinner. Also, because most of my friends here are in homestays it seems very common that you’ll have a better relationship with your host family if you keep them informed about when you’re going places/ when you’ll be back. In addition, I know that cleanliness is another issue that has come up with my friends and my roommate. The “normal” level of cleanliness of a college dorm room will most likely not pass here. A bunch of the families hire people to clean. If your room isn’t picked up it can cause tension with your family. In the end, I still would choose a homestay over any other living situation option. Hotel/dorms are a 25-min walk from campus and only one kitchen works in the entire building. The other option is an apartment, but that seems to work best if you’re going with a group you already know. Being a singular Whittie who didn’t know anyone before coming, the homestay was definitely the best option!

Ciao,

Rebecca

Salve!

I had the most eye-opening experience about how ingrained being multilingual is in Italy during my drawing class. A little boy about seven years old came and sat with me in Piazza Massimo D’Azeglio. I was drawing the main fountain in the Piazza for an assignment with a felt tip inking pen. The boy had brought his own sketchbook and started drawing the fountain as well. Intrigued by my competition I pointed to his sketch wanting to see what he was drawing. He said, “would you like to see” and couldn’t help but feel stupid for assuming the boy wouldn’t be able to speak English because he was so young. As we talked more, I was really taken aback at the level at which he could communicate, and we continued to draw together for the rest of my class. He ended up drawing a simple strip of comics about the birds in the fountain and titled it in English for me to read. There is so much I uncovered from this experience, one is the value of speaking more than one language, two is the European school system’s impressive emphasis on languages, and finally how much you can learn by connecting with local people.

The Italian language can be easier to pick up on especially if you’ve taken other romance languages before. After being in Florence for about a month now I have seen my French help me with a lot of menus, but also hider me. For when I want to say something in Italian I think in French. Though I wouldn’t say that it’s necessary to learn Italian to get around Florence since most people speak a decent level of English as I described above. Nevertheless, Syracuse requires its student to take a language class while in the country of their center. All the Italian courses at Syracuse Florence are very individually based on the professor’s preference. Each course is two and a half hours long which is personally a little straining for my attention span. Furthermore, it is only twice a week which makes it hard to consistently practice when you don’t necessarily have to use it to get around. This doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable to try. I honestly feel that Italians are one of the most caring people and you can tell they appreciate when you try to speak Italian to them instead of English. So I highly recommend learning at least the basics.

Ciao,

Rebecca

I want to start off on a good note because I got to go on my first trip through Syracuse this weekend. It took us to the Tuscan Coast to visit Baratti and Populonia. It was my first time seeing the warmly sparkling Mediterranean Sea, and surprisingly the sand sparkled too because of the blue iron deposits! The trip was pleasantly structured so that the time slots compensated perfectly to not miss out on anything. We started the day with a guided tour of an active archeology dig which was uncovering the tombs of the Etruscans who built a civilization off mining iron on the coast of Tuscany. Then we had free time to go swimming at the beach and find lunch. In the afternoon we made our final stop in Bolgheri. The school bought us local gelato and set us free to explore the quaint town, that resides just an hour out from Florence. It was full of unique little shops and restaurants that served some of the most popular wines of the region. I highly recommend going if you get the chance. The trip was a great experience, and I can’t emphasize enough to sign up for the provided trips if you’re going to the Syracuse Florence center.

On a different note, I believe support for people with disabilities is important to talk about in relation to the Florence center. The main point of contact for disability accommodations at the Florence center requested to meet with me. (To add some personal information, I was recently diagnosed with dyslexia, and asking for accommodation can still be quite scary). I want to inform my readers that during a meeting to confirm my accommodation that semester, there was a strong lack of privacy. The room had an open plan design, so there were three other employees in the room and the disability advisor left the door open to a busy hallway of fellow students. I can only speak for myself, but I found this uncomfortable, and I wish I knew going into it that there wasn’t going to be the level of discretion Whitman provides. Furthermore, this could be a cultural difference, during our conversation they explained that the professors at the center are great because normally Italian school students don’t get these sorts of accommodations so it’s impressive that they are so accommodating to students who come from the states. This is a nice sentiment in one light, but I couldn’t help getting the impression I was supposed to feel grateful for my necessary accommodations. I felt affronted by a comparative look at the Italian vs. the U.S. education system. In the end, I still feel uneasy about the interaction but I’m challenging myself to be more curious if it comes from cultural stigma about disabilities or if disabilities don’t require accommodations due to a well-designed education system.

Until next time,

Rebecca

Hello readers,

 Being my first blog post I think it’s only appropriate I include some general details about my choices in going abroad. To give a general description, I’m in Florence, Italy, studying studio arts, and living in a homestay. I’ve only been here for about a week and a half, but I’ve gotten to get to know my host family well and had a full week of classes. My Family consists of an older couple, and I have a housemate from my school as well. The hosts are much more welcoming and supportive than the Syracuse Abroad Program orientation implied. The couple really values making the other student and I feel part of the family versus a long-term guest. I can’t emphasize enough how smooth they have made my transition to living in a foreign country. My host mother speaks English well and my host dad is less so, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to interact. I would say some downfall to the homestay which is more related to Italy’s expensive electric bills is my host family doesn’t have constant Wi-Fi. They’ve asked us to only turn it on when using it.  If you’re like me and stay up late doing homework or watching TV, it can be a tough adjustment when the Wi-Fi is turned off by the host parents who think you’re probably asleep. My solution has been just pre-downloading anything I might watch or listen to at the end of my day.

 As for my first week of classes at Syracuse Florence, I’m content with the quality and usage of the historic city around us. My courses are as follows: Italian Renaissance Art, Painting 1, Drawing 1, Silk Screening 1, Italian 1, and Mapping Italy (a Syracuse-required travel tracking course). The Italian, Renaissance Art, and Drawing course all have built-in site visits around Florence. Most are structured, so one day of class is in the Syracuse main building and the next is at a relevant site to the course. I will say the most difficult part about the courses (which I normally struggle with) is the website the University uses to post assignments and syllabuses. Unlike Whitman, Syracuse uses a program called Blackboard which is equivalent to Canvas. Although it has the same function there are a bunch of differences which has taken me a little bit to adjust and find everything. Another noteworthy point for other studio art students interested in the Syracuse Abroad Program is taking three studio courses is very time-consuming. Each class is 3 hours long and the required Italian language course is 2hrs. That said, we don’t have school on Fridays, which extends the weekend for traveling and hopefully extra time to get work done outside the studios. I personally am trying to get my schedule changed because taking Drawing and Silk Screenings for a straight 6 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love both courses, but it is hard to power through, especially when there’s no time to eat a snack in between. 

Well, I hope my early impressions of the Syracuse Florence Center have been helpful for some!

-Rebecca