Pre-session Summer 2018
(May 16-May 30) 
View from the Duomo Venice from the train station I promise this is a fence Trapped by rain in a dark tunnel with 30 schoolchildren. Loud, screaming children that beat each other up with their umbrellas. The face that Night leans on
...Category: Things I Saw
I drew a picture of the gondolas on a canal in Venice. Taking a gondola is great, once you forget that you have to pay $100 for it and can only stay in it for half an hour. As you can tell by my enthusiasm I decided to walk Venice instead of the pricey gondola ride. Who needs a boat when there are endless alleys anyway? It was still beautiful watching the gondolas go up and down the canals even though I could not be in one myself.
...I drew a picture of the Ponte degli Scalzi outside the Venice train station. Walking outside the train station and seeing the bridge as one of the first things was amazing. From the bridge itself you could see up the canal in both directions and all the buildings surrounding it. It was a great place to take pictures of the surroundings, especially the gondolas sailing on the blue water.
...For this assignment I am posting about a couple things I saw while we were in Rome. I will first discuss the bottom image. As Roberto was giving us a tour of the Colosseum, he pointed out these three crosses that were engraved into the wall of the Colosseum. However, over time it has become harder to see them. The above picture was one of my favorite moments in Rome. It was the holy spirit at the very front of St.Peter’s Basilica. I loved this moment because its brightness brought me away from the confusion and noise to a silent moment with the present.
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These are some of the things I have seen while in Italy thus far. The top picture is homemade tortellini. My second drawing in the bottom left is a picture of a window I was sitting next to for a group dinner at Gianninos. My last picture in the bottom right is my perception of a classroom at the University of Rome. Enjoy!
...Ciao amici miei favolosi! For my very first blog post, I need to express my day-trip to Venice. Brandon and I walked to the Train Station to catch our 10:30 am train to Venice. The trip is 2.5 hours long. Unfortunately, Brandon is seated in a different car so I had a stranger next to me. While riding to Venice, I couldn’t help but watch the Italian country side and it really is beautiful! It may seem like people exaggerate, but it really is everything they say. Anyway, I fell asleep on the train and was woken up by the woman next to me because one of the train workers needed to validate my ticket. She spoke English so I struck up a conversation with her. It was such a nice conversation! I found out her name is Kerri and she is visiting Europe for her 60th birthday as a treat to herself. She visited London and has been touring all of Italy. She was heading to Venice too and I found out she is from San Francisco. She has a daughter who has already toured Europe and Kerri loves it as much as her daughter did. We talked about our lives, families, and life in general and I had such a nice time. It just goes to show what being nice to people and talking to people you don’t know can do! I hope our paths will cross one day again. Shortly after Kerri got off on her stop, I arrived in Venice and reconnected with Brandon where we saw Dr. Permenter and her cousin waiting at the station. Shortly after,”the girls” came because we had planned to meet them since they took an earlier train. We left the station and started walking around the city. Listen you guys, I cannot begin to describe how beautiful and perfect Venice is. There was not a single second that passed by I was not fawning over the place. It was beautiful with so many gorgeous churches, the streets were quiet because there are no cars or mopeds, the food was delectable, the canals were pretty, and the bridges were constructed beautifully. We stopped for lunch at this pizzeria called Sala Interna where I and my friend Ashley split a sausage, mozzarella, corn, and tomato pizza. While we were eating, we noticed how close the birds get to the people. They literally hop on your table and peck at your food. It seems menacing but it was actually kind of adorable. After lunch, we went to the Ponte de Rialto (The bridge in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice) and it was so cool to be on it. It is a majestically crafted bridge that gives you a great view of the main canal. After the Rialto, we went to Plazza San Marco. Holy cow you guys, the Plazza is one of the most amazing plazas I have ever been to. The buildings surrounding it and the church was magnificent and I cannot...
