Time is Flying

It is amazing to me how quickly time goes here. Today I was thinking back on my first week here, by the time that first Friday had rolled around, it felt to everyone like we had been here a month. Every day felt like a week. It just hit me today that the program is done in a little over a month, which was a huge wake up call. I feel like there is still so much I have to do, not only with traveling but with my responsibilities here as well. We just got back from our first long travel weekend and we still have one more as well as our second travel week. Words of advice for anyone in the future coming to CIMBA, plan well because the semester will go by before you have time to blink!

The Phi Beta Delta honor society had a tiramisu making event tonight where the Italian for travelers teacher showed us how to make tiramisu as well as baci di gama, which are little amaretto cookie ball type things. The food was amazing and surprisingly easy to make. I am definitely looking forward to making those back in the states. After being in the library for 3 days straight and stressing about my tests, eating tiramisu was a great study break.

This weekend I got the opportunity to go to Venice for Halloween weekend. My roommates parents came to visit and we stayed in an apartment with them, which was so awesome. Halloween isn’t big in Venice but we were told it’s becoming more popular in the last couple years. Our group bought Mardi gras type masks that they sell in stands all around Venice and wore them out on Halloween. Aside from a few random people and some children no one was dressed up at all. We went to the Hard Rock Café which was absolutely decked out in spider webs and pumpkins and all the servers and bartenders went all out with their costumes. It made us feel a little more like being home in the states. As drinks were pretty expensive at the Hard Rock, we made our way to a square by the Academia bridge where there seemed to be much more night life. We found this nice reasonably priced bar with plenty of tables and even some Halloween decorations as well.

One of my favorite parts of the night was meeting people from all around Europe. We met a brother and sister from Paris who very quickly proved to be unlike the stereotype of French people being stuck up. They were so fun and now when we go to Paris for the second travel week we are planning on meeting up with them to be shown around. We also met a large group of Italians from the southern part of Italy. Most of them spoke very little English so it gave us a great opportunity to use some of the Italian we had learned. They seemed to be very entertained by the fact that we had bought masks and were all wearing them out. After many pictures and switching around of the masks we decided it was best that we headed back to our apartment.

I don’t think I ever realized how big Venice actually is. I had always assumed that because it was an island it was rather small and easy to get around. Walking home at night in areas that you are unfamiliar with was ultra confusing. The whole city is like a huge maze, and it’s not like you can grab a cab back to the place you are staying because there are NO cars on the island. The main transportation options are water taxis (very expensive) and water buses which are a really good alternative but we didn’t really take the time to figure out the schedules and where they picked up and dropped off. So much of the weekend was spent walking around lost in that city, but by the end we had a pretty good handle on how to get where we needed to go. Nothing too exciting is happening this week except focusing on homework and getting ready for our second travel week which starts on Saturday. One of my friends from Iowa is flying in to travel around for the week with me so I am definitely looking forward to that!