Cinque Terre

Hi!

So everything has been crazy as usual and I'm behind, but here is the update on the week after Barcelona. I think I told y'all that I'm in 3 classes. The first is Art History. We have one 2 hour lecture and 2 tours every week. We've been all over Florence and have seen practically everything. My favorite so far is Santa Maria Novella. We walk past it every week because the train station is behind it, but we finally got to go inside last week. It's really pretty. I didn't have my camera that day, but you can google the pictures!

Our film class meets twice a week. We watch a film and have a discussion on both days. We've seen some really weird movies. Last week we watched a western featuring Clint Eastwood when he was really young. It's been interesting because I would never see these movies on my own. However, we have class right after lunch and there's no a/c so it's really difficult to stay awake...

My journalism class is really fun and is the reason why I'm doing this blog. We have a lot of class discussions on our readings, but we also have had some guest speakers come in. During the first week we had a writer from People magazine. He has written all kinds of stories, but he has most recently worked on the Natalee Holloway case, so that was interesting to hear an insider's view on the whole situation. We also had some Italians come and speak on the Italian mafia which was really interesting.

Last week we had a fashion day for journalism class where we got to take a field trip to the Polimoda Fashion Institute. It was a long day of presentations, but I learned a lot. We were able to tour the school and hear about their different programs. Lizzie definitely would have liked it!

Afterward, we had two Project Runway contestants speak to us. I know we watch the show in our house, but in case you aren't familiar with it, it's a reality TV show on Bravo. The contestants are given different assignments and then they have to come up with an outfit to show on the runway. They've had to make everything from an outfit for Barbie to an outfit made out of plants. Althea Harper was on the most recent season and is from Dayton. She went to UC and talked about the internships she's had over the years and just how she came into the world of fashion. Nick Verreos was the other speaker and I had actually watched the season that he was on a few years ago. He went to school to become a Diplomat like his father because he was too scared to tell him he wanted to be a designer. After he graduated, he secretly applied to fashion schools just to see what would happen and was accepted to all of them. So he decided to go to one and when he called his dad to tell him, his father obviously already knew that art was his passion and was just waiting for Nick to figure it out. So it was a good message about following your dreams and he's absolutely hilarious.

On Friday I took a train to Cinque Terre. It is an area comprised of 5 small towns that are connected by trails. My friend Tiffany and I had some issues with the train situation and ended up missing our first one. When we finally arrived in the first town called Riomaggiore, our hotel reservation never came through so we were homeless for awhile. However, the owner was nice enough to call another hotel in the town so we had a room. Of course Cinque Terre is full of hills and our new hotel was at the very tip-top of the mountain. We literally had to claw our way up the hill with our backpacks and had to use the rest of the day to recover from our ordeal.

On Saturday we decided to hike all 5 trails. You're supposed to start in Monterosso al Mare b/c it's the hardest and then work your way towards Riomaggiore. We didn't want to figure out the train system to get us to the beginning so we decided to work our way backwards. It was definitely a mistake. We made it to the 4th town, but couldn't make it to the 5th. It was ok because we saw some amazing views, but when we're in Italy next year, the 4 of us will be doing all 5!

We came back Saturday night so that we would have Sunday and Monday to do homework/sleep. Of course I got sick so I stayed in bed the whole time and got even more behind. I went to the doctor Tuesday and found out I have a sinus infection, but they gave me drugs so I'm fine. This past week we had a film exam which I thought went well and a bunch of papers due. I'm definitely glad everything is out of the way, but it's all starting back up again this week since we only have 2 left.

I'll try to write about my weekend trip to Croatia sometime this week. Hope everyone's doing well! Miss you all!

MH