ever since knowing i was accepted into the genoa program, i had been so excited to come to europe. i was nervous about leaving the country and being away from home for so long without even option to visit home if i had wanted. knowing almost everyone else who was coming (most students here are from my year at clemson) made it easier. if they could do it, i could do it. a lot of my friends had studied at the barcelona program last semester, so i had seen all of their pictures on facebook last fall. i was ready to make memories of my own!
living here for four months has been indescribable. the ability to hop on a train or get a cheap flight to visit a different city or even country for the weekend is awesome. i am a pro traveler. subways, trains, planes, metros, buses, funiculars, you name it and i can figure it out, even in different languages. checking in at the airport, passport checks, going through customs…it’s all become a way of life for us. balancing our travels with our work was challenging at times, but visiting the different places gave us an opportunity to explore, see, feel, experience, SKETCH even more. It sounds dorky, but all of the classes we take here relate somehow, and mostly show architecture from around europe. so the point of almost all of our group and individual travels are to see what we’ve learned about. seeing it in pictures in a slide show during a lecture and being able to walk around the building, go inside, see other people seeing it, is on two totally different levels.
bernhard, our professor in residence here, has told us countless times about the importance of traveling. he’s encouraged us to continue it back in the u.s., even if it’s to a place two towns away from where you live. he flew to chicago for the first time early in the semester (he was born in romania and lived in germany for most of his life), and immediately sent us an e-mail telling us how incredible it was to be in a new city. it was kind of ironic. it was one of the first weekends that we had free travel, so while all of us were exploring parts of italy, france, and germany, he was in america, in a city a lot of us have visited before. and we all had the same sense of awe and excitement. bernhard has been a huge reason as to why this program is so great. this was his third (and last!) semester in genoa. he spent a semester in clemson prior, and will be returning to sc in the fall.
there are no words to explain living in the villa. last semester, there were eleven students living here. this semester, twenty one! we are split into six bedrooms and share four toilets, six showers, three washer and dryers, and one refrigerator. like i said, most of us knew each other prior to coming. there were little ‘cliques’ when we arrived. people hanging out with the same people all the time. after living together and especially being on our nine-day trips with each other twentyfour/seven, you learn to hang out with new people. i’m so glad we had a big group this time. i’m so much closer to the people i knew, and have made great friendships with people i met four months ago. sharing this experience is something we will have in common forever. no one else is going to understand climbing hundreds of steps every day, the daily ‘luciaaaaa’ call, or grunting like serverio. there is an infinite amount of inside jokes, secrets, and memories that we can call our own. i’ve never lived with more than three people. i must say that i lucked out and got a pretty big room to share with three girls with our own balcony facing the port. unfortunately, i did not luck out when it came to the bathroom. upstairs where our rooms are, there is a wall of bathrooms. the two end ones are connected to bedrooms, each to a room with three girls, where they have the ability to lock the door of the bathroom that opens to the hallway. that leaves three bathrooms to the rest of the house. only two of them have toilets (the third has two showers in it, weird? yes.) that means that fifteen people share the two full bathrooms. that means that my three female roommates and i share two bathrooms with eleven guys. as bernhard has told me, ‘poor ashley’. and i must say poor bernhard, because his wing is on the main floor, where all of our studios are, located a floor above the kitchen and dining room, and below our bedrooms. so bernhard hears everything. and i know he’s had many sleepless nights, especially those nights we are too lazy to climb the hill to go out, so we just stay in and drink and play games in the kitchen. we have the next professor to take over genoa for a few semesters visiting us this week. one of the first things he said to us was that he was a light sleeper. bernhard just laughed and said, ‘then you will not sleep.’
the past four months have flown by. i thought by now i would be homesick and ready to come home, but honestly, i think i could do this for a few more months. don’t get me wrong- i can’t wait to see all of my family and friends! and i know that my wallet wouldn’t support ANY extra time here (thank you mom and dad for helping me out, and aunts and uncles-you know who you are!) but i know all of us definitely feel at home here. living in genoa was perfect. it was not the touristy rome or florence. it was the quiet little town between a port and a mountain, filled with adorably dressed little kids and the cutest old people, where they only speak italian and look at you in a funny way when you wear shorts, even though it’s seventy degrees out.
well i’ve gone on longer than i planned. i guess i had more to say than i thought. time to start cleaning up and packing. thank you all for reading my blog this semester and sharing all my travels with me. i have tons of other stories i can’t wait to tell you when i see you :) arrivederci!!
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