Italy

Since the bus was leaving at 9:15 am today, we were all glad to be able to finally get a really good night’s sleep. From the bus, we headed to the Basilica of Saint Paul. This Basilica was built outside the walls that once surrounded Rome. We were told by our tour guide, Maria,...

This morning, instead of boarding our spacious bus that we had grown accustomed to, we squeezed ourselves into a van to navigate the morning rush hour in Downtown Roma. Once we arrived at the destination, we were greeted by the ruins of ancient Roman arches, buildings, and the arena. Carla, our local tour guide,...

We started our day with a 6:45 am wake up. We went down for breakfast and had our usual Italian spread. At 8 am, we hopped on the bus after loading up all our suitcases. Most people slept deeply on the journey. We stopped in Cortona, an Italian town situated on the side of...

After waking up ridiculously early (7:25 am), we had breakfast and coffee before setting out for our charcoal drawing class. We entered an art school and warmed up our drawing skills with a few exercises where we drew our hands and faces without looking at our papers. Our final art pieces were close-ups of...

Today was our first full day in the beautiful and bustling city of Florence, or Firenze in Italian. The day started with a lesson on the history and significance of leather in Florence and in Italy as a whole. We learned that gladiators in the Roman Colosseum wore leather vests both as a symbol...

Day 1, Part 2: AromasAfter landing in Milan we met our tour guide Maria and our bus driver Ivano. On our long bus ride to Parma many of us fell asleep, despite trying to stay awake to avoid jet lag. Our first destination was the parmesan cheese factory. Though the factory itself was pretty...

Day 1, Part 1: TakeoffWe started our trip with Chick-fil-A and pizza. After we made our way to JFK, we arrived at our gate;however, just before boarding was supposed to start, we were told that we were missing one pilotand we would have to be delayed 3 1⁄2 hours. We were all relieved once...