Back to my study abroad fun! The majority of my trip that year consisted of classes through the week, and excursions on the weekend. Since it was several years ago you’ll have to forgive me if I get anything out of order… my Italian trips are starting to blend together, not that I’m complaining! From classes to Venice, I hope you enjoy today’s installment!
My host family was an elderly couple and a girl my age from Sicilia studying at the University of Siena. Host dad liked old american western movies and Walker Texas Ranger, and host mom loved to cook. One night we even made an American meal for them! She told me that the hamburger rolls were not done because they were soft! I had to laugh! Our host parents are used to hard crusty bread in Tuscany. Our host family didn’t speak a lick of English so we didn’t have a choice but to try to speak Italian at home. They provided us two meals every day, mostly breakfast and dinner. Those nights we planned to eat dinner out, we’d go home for lunch after classes were over for the day.
Classes
Classes were to start that following morning of our arrival. We needed to figure out on our map of Siena, where the school actually was. Turns out, we lived outside of the city walls and it took us about 25-30 min to walk to class every morning! We started at 8:30 and classes were over by 2 if I remember right. It was relatively early at the end of class and during riposo, (siesta). Most stores and restaurants were always closed on our walk home from class. We really should just do riposo in America, people would be a lot less cranky (myself included)
Our first week of classes was intense. Our classes were taught strictly in Italian, and it was scary, but all for the better. I became a better speaker because of it. After our first week of classes we spent the weekend in Venice.
Venice
Venice is absolutely beautiful! We took water taxis into the town which was the first time I’d ever done that. Small boats make me nauseous, but how else do you get to Venice?. Of course everyone at some point opted to do the typical gondola ride. It is very expensive so if you’re going to do it, do it once and be done with it. It’s fun, historical, and the typical thing to do when in Venice, but too expensive for what it is in my opinion. If you can haggle the price down, more power to ya. It’s worth it for the experience once.
Then we went to the Murano glass factory as a class, and it was phenomenal! Watching the glass blowers create things right in front of our eyes, along with an explanation of the history, and what it takes to become a glassblower was incredible. In minutes the glass blower giving us our lesson made a horse right in front of us as he spoke…from melted glass! I bought a pair of amber earrings that year and I still wear them time to time. We also went through the Doge’s palace which was mind blowingly beautiful. I snapped some pictures where I could. Technically, pictures aren’t allowed to be taken in the palace…oops.
The rest of our Venice trip honestly was a free for all. There’s great shopping in Venice, tons of trinket stores, mask stores, and more designer brands. I bought some beautiful Venetian masquerade masks from one of them. Be careful as you wander around. In Venice, it is easy to get lost. It happened to us multiple times within a 2 day time frame. This city is like a maze, with very small and narrow streets. There are no cars that drive through the middle of Venice. Keep a map with you and make sure you know where your hotel is before leaving the general vicinity. There’s also plenty of dead ends where you run into the canals, so just pay special attention at night.
Speaking of night, I’m sure some of you are dying to hear about the night scene. There isn’t much of one at least where we were in Venice. Here is a key reminder: it was in the middle of winter in January so it may be more poppin during the summer. We had a hard time finding bars with a bunch of people, music and drinks. That group I studied with loved to dance and there definitely weren’t any discotheque’s there either. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our outing and then packed up to head back to Siena.
PS If you haven’t read part 1 check it out here! https://amermaidscompass.com/italia-2011/
