Earth and Environment in Italy

English 

It is advised to have some gelato when reading this!

Benvenuto in Italia.
So, I have been here in Italy for three and a half week. I came here for a semester starting in Early August till late October doing The Earth and Environment in Italy Program. This year, the program is initiated by Luther College and is open to students from the Associated College of the Midwest (ACM). There are eight of us from Luther College, one from Macalester College, one from Lawrence, and three from Carleton College.

We all are doing sixteen credits which are divided among 5 classes/parts. The classes are
1. ENVS 230- Earth system and the environment.
2. ENVS 330- The geology of Italy
3. ENVS 389- Directed research
4. Art 105- Science and aesthetic
5. Italian 100- Basic Italian

I enjoy my classes as well as my time here in Italy. I have been to so many places, mostly in Lazio and Marche regions. I was in Rome for three days. The main purpose was to enjoy some of the many Piazzas as well as the Vatican city. Another important purpose to visit Rome was also to reapply for my F1 visa so that I could go back to the States. It got approved and I just received my passport with the visa two days ago. So excited!

Regarding my abitazione, I live in a contrada (sort of a ward) called Coldigioco in Mache region. I start my daily activity with breakfast at 8am (sometimes earlier than that) and leave for fieldtrips from 9am till 5pm. Then, I have like around an hour to relax before the Italian class starts again from 6-7pm. The dinner normally starts at 8pm and everybody are pretty much free after dinner to do whatever they want in town. Well, unless if you are on the food cleaning up team where you have to do some cleaning up in the kitchen for like 20 minutes or less.

Most people will hang out in the "pub." It's right next to the house where I live. Basically it is the place where people go and drink wine (we put the money together to buy two 5-litter wine, a red and a white), play foosball, playing cards, reading some fun books (with a bunch of travel guides) or even just to chit-chat among us.

Well I guess that's it for now and stay tuned!