Follow up pictures of Italy

This is the view outside my window of my apartment.

Last day in Florence

Our journey has come to an end. We leave very early in the morning on Friday. We leave at 3:00am for a four hour ride to Milan. Today we had class in the morning and after that we all had lunch at Dr. Morrison's house so that she could use all of her left over ingredients. Tonight we plan on having dinner all together for the last day in Florence.

On Tuesday, we went to the Uffizi, which is a museum of art, which was absolutely beautiful. After the museum, we had class from about 1pm to 3pm and then we all took a cooking class. We were taught how to make gnocchi, which is a type of noodle made of potatoes, eggplant parmesean and crepes with lemon creme in the middle. Everything turned out amazing and we all had so much fun at the cooking lesson. That was my favorite activity that we did in Italy asside from going to all the schools.

Wednesday my roommates and I cooked dinner for all the other girls and Dr. Morrison's nephew and Hjordis who is an employee of the KSU Florence program. During the day we had class from 10am to 1pm and had the rest of the afternoon to finish up our individual investigations and do some last minute souvenir shopping.

I hope all of you enjoyed going on my journey to Florence with me. I hope I covered everything you wished for! I will also be posting a video tour of what my apartment looked like so that future students can have an idea what apartments look like here in Florence. I will be posting more pictures from the trip so make sure you check my blog even after I'm back. It was my pleasure filling you in on my journey as a student from Kent State University to Italy!

some corrections

I have made some corrections to some previous blogs, but so you don't have to go through all the blogs, one is a correction is about Dr. Steven Micheal who is the Vice Provost not vice president. Another is a spelling correction which it is supposed to be separated and the final that I have noticed was when we visited the primary school that I called Costanza's school. Costanza is the daughter of Marchello who is employed with Kent-Florence.

Day 12- Florence

Well,I only have three more days left in Florence. It is very nice to be here but I am ready to go home. I'm beginning to miss my family more and more, but I'm still hanging in there! Today was beautiful outside. It was about 90 degrees and sunny. My jeans that I washed only took a couple hours to dry, because we don't have any dryers here. We had class two times today, once at 9am and then again at 1pm. We had a scavenger hunt today to express reinforcements that we are learning about in class. We had to find six things around the school and the first one back to the school won. After class we had time to do our individual investigations and perhaps a little souvenir shopping. After that I came home and have been resting and doing a little bit of research for my investigation. Now it is just time to relax and watch a little bit of Italian television!

A video and some pictures of the Remedia Center

This is a video of some of my peers and I making music at the Recycling center in Reggio Emilia. The reason there is no actual picture was because I wasn't supposed to take any pictures but I could record sound. Dr. Morrison convinced the lady to allow me to take pictures later on in our visit, below and to the left is a picture of us making music using the materials at the Remedia center, and to the right is me in a pair of recycled glasses!!!!

Day 11- Florence

Today is Sunday the 25th of May and I just got back from a Tour of Tuscany. We took a bus around Tuscany in the foothills of the Alps and it was absolutely breathtaking! No picture or words will do justice in a place like Italy. All the open fields and the amazing views of cities or villages were absolutely beautiful. We saw many vinyards and fields of some plant that I don't know. We saw many rose bushes and lavander bushes. I rubbed my hand across the lavander bushes and my hand smelled so good!!!! That is a must if you ever come to Italy. I also was feeling a little homesick and really wanted American food, so what better to eat than a nice BigMac from McDonalds! It was delicious and cured my craving for "American food" and also my homesickness!
I failed to mention the Remedia center in Reggio Emilia. The Remedia center is a place that would be compared to our recycling centers. The Remedia center collects all the unwanted materials from around the city and then teachers from the Reggio schools come to "buy" whatever they want for their classes. This is how the Reggio schools get their materials. They all use recycled materials for their classrooms to help reduce the amount of garbage in the city.

Pictures of Pisa!

YAY!!! We made it to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!!!

Me hugging the Leaning Tower!

Me holding up the Leaning Tower!!! It takes really big muscles to be able to hold it up!!!!

Pictures of schools and others

A flower from the Boboli Gardens

The kids from Costanza's school

Gelato...Italian ice cream....it is so delicious!!!!

The group and the President of the High School we went to on Monday!

The vice provost, Dr. Steven Micheal, and I at Dr. Morrison's for dinner.

The kids at Costanza's school

The kids at Costanza's school, which is Marchello's daughter who goes to this school we went to on Wednesday danced and sang a song from High School Musical. Marchello is a man who works for the Kent-Florence program.

Day 10- Florence

Today is Saturday the 24th of May. Today we had to ourselves and we used it to explore a place of our choice. Some girls went to Venice and they said that they had an amazing time. They took a gondala ride and made the Gondalier sing to them. They fed the pigeons and had a great amount of fun! The girls who didn't go to Venice, decided to go to the Boboli Gardens. I chose to go to the gardens. I am so glad that I chose to go the gardens because they were absolutely gorgeous. There are many statues and greenery. In the city, where my house is, there is hardly any greenery. It was nice to go to a place and see trees and plants and flowers. In the gardens there are many museums and for only ten Euro you can spend as long as you want and go into the museums. There was a family who actually used to live in this house and they made it into a museum of clothing, fine china, and art. I will be posting pictures of the gardens on so that you can see what I am talking about. I was not able to take pictures inside the museums, but I could of the scenery.

Yesterday, the ninth day of our trip, we all went to Reggio Emilia which is a city in Italy. Reggio Emilia is a famous place in Italy for how the schools go about teaching their children. The children and teachers are on the same level and basically the children come up with the curriculum. For example, the kids were worried that the birds didn't have anything to do and the kids didn't want them to get bored, so the kids designed a bird amusement park and presented their ideas to Architects and the architects built the bird amusement park. The community is heavily involved in the childrens lives inside and outside of school. While we were in Reggio Emilia, we were able to see a model of a play area in Reggio Emilia schools. The schools in Reggio Emilia are very conscience about who they let in their school because the technique they use on the kids is highly liked by many and the people of Reggio were taken advantage of many times by outsiders who claimed in books or articles that these ideas in Reggio schools were their ideas. So we were not able to visity with the kids at the schools. In Loris Malguzzi, the center that teaches outsiders about Reggio Emilia schools, they have photographs of some work that the children have done and we were able to see that. We spent the majority of the day in Reggio Emilia and when we arrived back in Florence we were all so tired that we went to bed.

Thursday, the eighth day of our trip, we had nothing planned except for class. We had class from 9 to 1 and then had the rest of the day for ourselves. We usually have two classes in a day and they are usually from 8 to 10 and again from 1 to 4. Dr. Morrison decided that since we have been working hard and going non stop every day that she would give us the night off. I was so tired from going everyday from early morning to late at night that I came home and took a nap. Around 6pm we all met at the others girls' house for dinner and a discussion about Reggio Emilia. Then we were off to bed because we had to be at the train station at 7am Friday to catch the bus to Reggio Emilia.

A word of advice for future students who study abroad. Check out several exchange places before you choose one because they all charge you different amounts for exchanging. I had a bad experience as well as one of my room mates that really made us angry. I found the best way to exchange money or to get money is to use the atm machines because they don't charge you any extra fees.

Day 7- Florence

Today is Wednesday and it is the seventh day of our trip. I'm starting to get homesick but the girls that I am with are great with making me laugh to keep my mind off thinking about my family. Today I went to a primary school which is in relation to our elementary schools, so that was right up my alley! I had so much fun playing with the kids. They showed us a dance, that is posted, from High School Musical and they sang and danced for us in English. In return, we taught them a game that we, my peers, used to play when we were their age. It was a hand slapping game that went a little like this: Down by the banks were the hanky panky and the bull frog jumped from bank to banky with an eeps, ops, ohps, ops, eeps ops ohps ops and it goes kersplash!!!! After the school we had the day for investigations. While on this trip, we all have to do our individual investigations on something we find interesting in Italy. Mine have to do with the class sizes here compared to the sizes of classes at home in America and also the relationships developing in classrooms in Italy compared to the relationships in America. Since all my research is done inside the schools we visit, I decided to go to Pisa to look at the Leaning Tower along with a couple other girls. It took us an hour by train to get to Pisa for only 5 Euro, which is really good!!! We had to take the pictures of us holding it up and actually it isn't that easy trying to get the picture perfect. It took at least five minutes to get our hands right so that it looks like we are holding up the tower. We only stayed in Pisa for about two and a half hours then went back to our home in Florence.
On Monday we visited a High School here in Florence. This was the week of the students final tests so we were not able to visit with the students but we did get to see the school and some of the empty classrooms. There are many different high schools that students in Florence can attend to help prepare them for their University studies.
Tuesday, Dr. Morrison cooked us a delicious meal and to our suprise the Vice Provost of Kent State University, Dr. Steven Michael came for a visit to Anne's apartment. It was very nice to meet him and have dinner with him. He explained a few of his ideas and they sound very interesting and I hope that he follows through with his ideas about expanding our study abroad horizons.
That is all I have for now!!!
Good Night!

Pictures of Florence

This is Michaelangelo's Statue of David.

This is a line of Vespa's, which are a main mode of transportation in Italy.

This is the dome part of the Duomo at night. These pictures do no justice!!! You need to see it with your own two eyes to believe how beautiful this building is.

This is one side of the Duomo, the big Catholic church I went to on Sunday.

Some pictures of Rome.

The Vatican.

The Colossuem.

This is the train to Rome.










This is the group that is joining me in Italia!!!

Day 4- Florence

Today is Sunday and this morning a couple girls and I went to the Duomo for church. As I said in the last blog, the Duomo is a massive Catholic church. The mass was spoken in Italian and it was absolutely beautiful in the church. There are four alters off of the main alter in the center of the church. After mass we went and got a coffee and pastry for breakfast. In Italy, there is not a bacon and egg breakfast. Everything is pastry and coffee. After breakfast we as a class decided to have a class today which would give us a day to explore later. Usually we wouldn't have class on Sunday, but we all decided to have a day off later instead. After class I went to my apartment to relax and I read my book. I ended up falling asleep until about ten to seven. My roommates and I went to the other girls apartment to have dinner. We all decided that we will cook for eachother a couple nights to save money. Everything is really expensive here, so advice for future Florence students-by food from markets here and cook for eachother instead of eating out every night which gets a little pricey. After that, we all went for a stroll around town and took goofy pictures of eachother infront of the windows of shops. I will be posting some of my pictures as their own blog so be looking for them. Now it is time for bed. Good Night!

Day 3-Florence

Today we had class at 10am at the Kent Florence campus. The campus is actually right across the street where I live, so it is great because I can sleep in and literally walk across the street to campus! The apartment I live in is very nice. It has two rooms each with two beds. There are four of us in our apartment and the other six live in a different apartment that is not far from us. Our apartment also has two full bathrooms and in the one bathroom is the washing machine which we all thought was really strange that they would put a washing machine in a bathroom. The kitchen is very small with no oven but a microwave and stove.

After class we all had a cheap lunch in a "bar" which is a place to get drinks, small snacks, and tobacco. After that, we all went to a market where there were many small shops and did a little bit of shopping. We went to dinner and then seperated to our apartments for the night. My roommate Karie and I decided that we wanted to find the internet café so that we can check our e-mails and also so that I can type my blog. We had such an adventure trying to find this café! An Italian, Stefano, stopped us to talk and called us Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. He asked what my real name was and I told him Julie. We got so lost around the big and beautiful Duomo which is a Catholic Church. We stopped so many waiters to ask where the 99 cent store was because the café is right near the 99 cent store, but they led us to the wrong one that was on the complete opposite side of the right store! It took us two hours to find the café!!!! We were so relieved to be able to sit down once we found it. Now it is time for bed! Good Night!

Day 2- Florence

Today we travelled to Ambrit International school where infants as young as three and individuals in the seventh grade all in the same school. This school is an English as a first language school which means that everyone, no matter what nationality, speaks English. I encountered many students from many different places around the world. One of the girls who is on the trip with me was introduced to a student who was from Shaker Heights, Ohio (which is right around the corner from Kent!!!). The kids in this school act very similar to the children in America. I noticed that there are different groups of students who "hang out" together. The classrooms in this school are very small with a small student teacher ratio. There are probably between ten and fifteen students per one teacher. I think this is great because the students get so close to their classmates and also with their teacher. This school also very diverse because it is an international school with children from all over. Many of these students, even the kindergarteners, are multilingual. After the international school we took a train to Florence, which is where I am now. We arrived at about 7:30pm which gave us enough time to get settled into our apartments. After settling in we all met for dinner at a place that is translated into the Cat and the Fox. I ate a calzone which was amazing, and cheap! So, now it is about 11:30pm and I am about to go to bed! I am still a bit jet lagged!
Good Night!

Day 1-Rome

Today is May 15, 2008 and I am in Rome, Itlay. After a long two movies, two episodes of Still Standing, and three chapters of my new book, I survived the longest flight of my life! There was so much turbulance while flying over the ocean I almost got sick! Once we arrived in Rome, we picked up our luggage and exchanged some US dollars for Euros. From there we took a train, which was quite an interesting ride, to our hotel. From there, myself and the nine others went for a quick bite to eat at the nearest pizza shop. I ate the white pizza with only mozzerella and parmasean cheese on it which was probably the best pizza I have ever eaten! After lunch, we all took a bus tour around Rome and ended up getting off near the Ancient ruins. This was by far my favorite spot of the day. The colluseum was absolutely breath taking as well as all the other structures around it. After walking for the majority of the day, we all decided to go back to the hotel and clean up and rest for a bit before dinner. After dinner our tour guide took us to some of the "hot" spots of Rome! It was a long continuous two days that has finally come to an end!!! Good night!!!