I honestly cannot believe that my perfect study abroad experience is over, I think I am still expecting to wake up in Orvieto, turn on Mtv music, eat a doughnut and then go to class. My final week in Italy was a roller coaster of emotions so I'll do my best to help you all live it.
Monday June 22
Alright so the beginning of the week was rough because our wifi was out. We spent very little time at home because of this. In order to work on final projects and papers and other assignments we hung out at bars and cafes during the day. And then at night when we weren't tired enough to just go to sleep but everything was closed, we sat outside of a restaurant next to our house... very exciting.
Monday Julianne wanted to take a group shot of the program. Unfortunately not everyone got the facebook memo, and unfortunately I am really struggling in these pictures...
Brandi really wanted some pictures with the U of A flag.... I don't think I have what it takes to be a sorority girl doing cute poses with flags, but Brandi is a pro at it.
Monday was also the deadline for the photo competition, which I was totes stressing over, but luckily I found the pictures I wanted to turn in so everything was A-OK. That's just about all I remember from Monday besides going to class from 2-4.... sorry everyone lol.
Tuesday June 23
Last day of my photojournalism class... kind of (we all voluntarily went in on Thursday for a final critique of our final projects).
At night me and my roommates went to an art show put on by David Alfie (one of the art teachers in the program). There were drawings and a poetry reading in both english and Italian. While we were there this cute little Italian girl just came right up to us and stood next to us. She didn't speak a lick of English so we had Joe (one of the students in the program who is a pro Italian speaker) do some translating, and we found out she is Serena's (one of the Italian coordinators) daughter. Alba told us that Cecilia (the daughter) loves the Arizona girls and thinks they're so pretty. So obviously we all became best friends. She played lots of little pranks on us, and it was just a fun time even though no one understood what the other was saying. Isn't she so freaking adorable though? We did find out that it was going to be her birthday on Thursday, so we arranged with her mom to take her out to lunch or gelato on Thursday, and she was totally down to hang out with us, despite the language barrier.
Wednesday June 24
Wednesday was an "Explore Orvieto" day. There were different workshops like cooking, hiking, pottery and leather creation fun. I went with the leather creation fun time workshop. The workshop was at a local leather shoemaking and other fun goods shop in Orvieto. The owner, Frederico, and his wife, Hannah, taught the workshop and gave us a fun lesson on leather. We got to design and make our own REAL leather journal covers, and then attached them to a journal.
Leather is one of my favorite smells, so I was REAL excited about my delicious smelling journal cover
Hannah is from Ohio and came to Orvieto to study abroad once upon a time. A few years later she was asked to come back to work for the program. While she was living here she needed her leather boots fixed. So she took them to Frederico's shop so he could fix them. Everyday she would come in to his shop to pick up the boots and he would say "oh they're not ready yet, come back tomorrow. But since you're here, do you want to get a coffee?" He ended up keeping her boots for a whole three months, with her returning every day to check up on them. And now they are married and work in the shop together. Super adorable.
Thursday June 25
Around lunch time we picked Cecilia up from the school and decided we wanted to go to lunch. It was quite the adventure trying to figure out where Cecilia wanted to eat, or what kind of food she liked to narrow down the restaurant choices. We ended up walking into a bookstore to find someone to translate for us. We finally went to a restaurant just to find out she was going to lunch later with her mom so she didn't want to eat, so Brandi went and bought her some gelato... which she didn't end up eating more than 5 bites of. But it was her birthday so she can do whatever her 8-year-old heart wants.
Thursday was also the last official day of classes for the program, which meant it was my last day for my digital photography class.... that glorious 3 hour long class. Just like the past 2 classes we spent the entire time critiquing everyones collection of photos. Unfortunately (because of my R last name) I was one of the last people to be critiqued. By the time they got to me everyone was tired of the class and didn't care to participate... so I really didn't get any solid compliments or suggestions. Oh well. The worst part was that since this was the final critique, Jim really wanted all of us to actively participate so he banned all electronics for the class period.... talk about torture. My computer is the only way I have made it through that class without sleeping the entire time.
Friday was the last official day of the program, so there were a few fun and emotional things happening: the student's art exhibition, the photoshoot, and the farewell dinner. Oh and we got our housing deposits back on Friday CHA CHING $$
Holy crap I thought this was the coolest day of my whole life. My work from both my photojournalism and digital photography class were on display for everyone to see. I was especially excited about my digital photography project because my images were actually printed out, unlike my photojournalism projects which were played on a slideshow (still cool). Photographs can look amazing on a computer, but it is 10000x cooler to actually have tangible photographs.
The photojournalism work was awesome as well, and Brandi was really excited about this photo (which ended up coming in second place in the photo competition by the way, she's a journalism rockstar)
Cecilia was at the exhibition too, she rocks
After the exhibition we all celebrated a months worth of hard work with some gelato.
Then there was a small break before everyone met up to take some final photos of the group before dinner
Newton's Angels
I don't know how I got so lucky to have such amazing girls as my roommates, they went from school colleagues to being two of my greatest friends.
During the photo op time I taught Cecilia how to use my camera, and she became such a pro. Future photojournalist right there. Here are some of the photos she took:
Then it was time for the dinner. We had a whole 5 course meal and you would be shocked to know that I just about ate the entire thing. There was bread, appetizer dish, a pasta dish, a meat dish and dessert. It was very delicious.
At the dinner the finalists for the photo/art/video contest were announced. I made the top 10 in the photo contest section and Brandi ended up coming in second!!! Right before they announced the winners I turned to her and said "I've got a really good feeling about your photo" and that feeling was correct! I was so happy for her, I totally forgot that I didn't win.
When the dinner was over we found out that there was a major dance party in the government square of the city. There were people of all ages there dancing their booties off to 80s music, it was awesome! Apparently at the end of all Italian parties they like to send everyone home with the YMCA, they seriously played the song for ten minutes, it was so hilarious. The best part of the party was afterwards when all the students huddled up together (very emotional) and all together sang "Bear Down", I seriously almost cried. I couldn't believe that my study abroad was coming to an end, but this was the perfect way to end it.
Saturday June 27
Saturday was very depressing. Danielle left early in the morning to go meet up with her family in Rome. And Brandi left later in the morning to go to Rome with Alex for her flight home the next day. That meant I was home alone without my girls. I spent the day packing, cleaning, and doing some last minute souvenir shopping for everyone. I also slept a lot, a very lazy day. Looking back on it, I wish I would have done more since it was my last full day in Orvieto, but it was a nice break regardless.
Sunday June 28
The day I feel like I officially entered into adulthood. I was staying the night in Fiumicino because of my flight on Monday. This was my first time actually traveling alone in Italy, I was very nervous about it, but I think I handled it like a champ.
I took a cable car down to the Orvieto train station, hopped on a train to Roma Termini station, hopped on another train to go to the Fiumicino airport where my AirBnB hosts were picking me up. All of that with a very heavy suitcase, a backpack and a camera bag. But I did it.
On Saturday EJ told me that I could not go to Rome without going to see the Colosseum and that I needed to find a way to get there while I was there. So I asked my AirBnb hosts the best way to get to the Colosseum. My options were taxi or train and subway. Taxis are crazy expensive but a little bit safer, and trains and subways are infinitely cheaper but kind of sketchy. I went with the cheap sketchy route. My hosts were awesome and drove me to the train station where I bought a ticket and hopped on a train to go to another station in Rome. When I arrived at the station I had to find the subway station, buy a ticket and get on the right subway car. Well I did it everyone, and when I came up from underground I was immediately struck with this wonder:
Since I was by myself, I had to take selfies to prove I was there. I was attacked by many selfie stick salesman because of this unfortunate situation.
Monday June 29
Two flights: Rome-Philadelphia (about 10 hours) & Philadelphia-Phoenix (about 5 hours). Both very long and I barely slept on either of them... in fact I didn't sleep at all on the first one. I watched movies and tv shows the entire time, and peed a lot. I had a lot of close calls at airports and some mini panic attacks but I finally made it to Phoenix.... to find out that my family wasn't at the gate.... hahaha but they were at the airport, we found each other somewhere in the middle and it was a joyous reunion.
I am very happy to be home but I still cannot believe I am here! Going to Italy was the greatest decision I have made and I wouldn't trade my panic attacks, the traveling, the memories, the late nights, the endless diavola pizza, new friends for absolutely anything.
If you want to see my photojournalism work here is the link: sydneyrichardson.wordpress.com
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