October 26, 2005
Ciao Tutti
Europe is still amazing. I just got back from my fall break,
we got a week to travel, and I ended up going to Amsterdam
for two days and than Prague for the rest of the week. I
really did not like Amsterdam that much but Prague was
unbelievable. Its real old and its not like western Europe
culture but it definitely has the eastern European thing
going on. We only have 5 weeks of classes left here and than
one week for finals and things are getting pretty tough.
This program is a lot harder than I thought and most people
I talk to in different programs do not have it this tough,
but it is still enjoyable and you learn a lot. Our class
will be going to Rome for 3 days in mid November which will
be awesome. Its good to hear the football team is doing so
well, keep up the good work and good luck in your upcoming
games.
October 4, 2005
Hello everyone at MC, friends, family, and
anyone else!!!!
What is going on? I am over here in Firenze,
Italia (Florence) and its pretty sweet. This is my first message on this board
so I will try to sum it up in a quick message.
The classes: For the first 4 weeks, we only
have Italian from 9 to 12:40 everyday. It adds up to about 80 hours of Italian,
which is nuts. It was very different than what I am used to at MC. The class
is really effective though, the teacher barely spoke English which in a way made
you learn the language or else you were in bad shape the rest of the semester.
After Italian, you have 3 other classes and than Italian for only 4 hours a
week. You usually do not have classes on Friday and that allows everyone to
take side trips.
The night and social life: It is sorta
different over here than it is at MC. The bars are super expensive for the most
part. I know when I got over here; I was so pumped to go to a pub that I did
not care about prices and than it hit me pretty hard a week later when I looked
at my bank statement. For a pint of beer here at a pub, it is about 5 euro
which in dollars is about 7 dollars. Yea that’s a lot. But most my friends and
I just buy wine at the market and go to a piazza and hang out. That is what
most Italians do. Italians do not like to drink to get drunk; they do it more
as a social thing. There are secret clubs here though, where you have to pay to
be apart of. I have become a member at these places because it is a lot cheaper
and it gives you the chance to meet Italians, rarely any Americans go to these
places. There are about 3,000 students here from the US, and they flood the
pubs every night, which is cool sometimes but you can do that anytime in the
states, so why not something different? But, everything at the supermarket is
very cheap. Chianti is about 3 euro and a bottle of Absolute is about 7 euro. Firenze is also a night life city. The Florentines usually come out at about
10:30 and stay out until the morning. There are rarely any places over here
to watch American sports so you better start loving soccer because it is intense
over here.
The people you meet and what to expect if you
travel: One of the best things of this trip is everyone you meet. I have had
so many conversations with people from Australia (which are the coolest people
ever), English, Welsh, Irish, Swedish, etc… Everyone I talk to just opens your
eyes to a whole bunch of philosophy that it is cool. Most people I meet are
backpacking Europe or they have moved to Firenze to work for a little bit. They're always talking about how they are taking a year off of school just to
find themselves and stuff like that. But, almost everyone one of the people I
meet (except the Aussies) hate Bush. I think Bush is alright, but when you are
an American and you have some foreigner telling you your country sucks, you get
pretty mad. But you just have to hear their perspectives on things. I found
out that no one hates America, they just extremely hate Bush. Italians also
hate Bush as much as they hate this guy Berlesconi, but that is a different
story. I have only encountered one person who hated “Americans” but I better
not post that story, e-mail me if you would like to know about it
rbay@monm.edu. You will also get the chance to travel. I have already gone
to Rome, Venice (the best city in Italy, and Pisa. I will be going to Amsterdam
for a week soon to see the sites, which I am sure will be nice.
So that is it for now but I will more later.
Ciao Everyone!
