Traveling abroad, especially under the Italian summer sun, is an unforgettable way to learn new things about old cultures.

This summer, I had the opportunity to study abroad at OU’s campus in Arezzo, Italy with the President’s Community Scholars. The program was only for about three weeks, but it was easily one of my favorite memories while I have been at OU.

Our group had a class on art history and did a community service project at a train station. We had a lot of down time to go exploring all over the city of Arezzo and even got to take some day trips to other cities in Italy! The art history class allowed us to travel to some of the larger cities in Italy, like Florence and Rome. Seeing authentic artwork from iconic artists like Michelangelo was almost surreal. The artwork there was more detailed and extravagant than I had expected. Even the buildings were a sight to see.     

Arezzo            

Arezzo is an amazing place for OU to have a campus. It’s not exactly the campus that you may picture. I was expecting the campus to be somewhat secluded from the city and be a bit of a walk to get there. However, it is on the main street of Arezzo, called Corso Italia. It just blends in with all of the other buildings and the classrooms are upstairs. It is such a cool building!                        

One of the coolest parts about Arezzo is that they host a joust event twice a year, in June and September. Each of the four quadrants of the town come together for this huge event and battle it out for the prize and bragging rights for the rest of the year.                        

As a group, we took a pasta making class. Making pasta from scratch was a lot harder than I thought it would be! Regardless, it was so much fun to do as a group and experience that together. We even got to feast on all of our pasta goodies at the end!            

Florence             

Florence is a great mix of a small town feel and a larger tourist town. The architecture there is just unreal. Something cool about Florence is the leather market. It goes down one long road with all kinds of leather bags, wallets, purses -- basically, anything you can think of. It is really fun to haggle with the vendors to try to get the lowest price possible for all of your leather goodies!            

Rome              

Rome is absolutely amazing, but it was the hardest town to navigate. It was definitely the most touristy spot that we visited. More people spoke English, here, than in the other towns we visited. At first, I wasn’t sure I would like the smaller towns we were planning on going to because I knew there were not going to be a lot of English speaking people. Once we got to Rome, I was kind of disappointed when I heard other people speak English. I really had enjoyed immersing myself in the Italian culture and actually attempting a language that I have never spoken before and trying things I have never tried.           

One of the first nights we were in Rome, we found out that the Rolling Stones were in town for part of their European tour. Of course, we had to go! We didn’t have tickets, but we got to hear them from far away. Even back where we were, people were completely covering the blocked roads. What is even cooler about this concert is that it was so close to the Coliseum.                

One of my most memorable moments of our trip is when we went to Vatican City and saw the Pope. A group of us woke up super early to get seats for his weekly blessing. Every week, people from all over the world come to see the Pope and bring any kind of item and the Pope blesses everything in a mass blessing ceremony. It was so cool to go to. If you ever go to Rome, going to the Pope’s blessing ceremony is a must-do regardless of your religion.           

Traveling               

On the days we had the opportunity to take day trips, we would take the train system to Arezzo’s surrounding cities. On one of our first day trips, we wanted to visit a lake. The train stopped at the arrival city, and our group took a little too much time making our way to the doors, so they closed on us just as we were about to get off. Good thing our whole group was still on the train! We decided to get off at the next stop and it happened to be the smallest city that we went to the entire trip. It was fun trying to navigate a whole new city without any kind of help.      

Another town we went to -- my favorite -- was Assisi. A big group of us went there and spent the day walking around the cobblestone streets and exploring the city. A few of us saw a castle in the distance and decided to find it. The view from the top of the mountain was incredible!           

On our last day in Italy, a lot of us decided to go to the beach. It wasn’t Capri, but it was so fun to see a real Italian beach. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but it really wasn’t much different than a beach you would see in America. The beach was full of rocks and the scenery was beautiful. Traveling from place to place is probably my favorite memory of the entire trip.          

Food               

As you can imagine, the food in Italy is amazing. It’s fun to try a variety of different things and compare it to America’s version of Italian food. Actually, America’s version of Italian food really isn’t too far off. The only difference is the freshness of the products. Everything, from produce to pasta, is extremely fresh.

Italians do not even begin to eat dinner until 7:30 p.m., at the earliest. That was definitely an adjustment for me because during the school year, I’m used to eating at 5 p.m. If you study abroad in Arezzo, you will most likely have meal vouchers. They are life savers. Instead of going to a restaurant and having to pay for your dinner, our program gave us dinner vouchers that we used so we could spend our euros for other things besides food.          

If you went to Italy and didn’t eat gelato, did you even go to Italy, am I right? Gelato is something you absolutely cannot pass up when you study abroad. It’s even socially acceptable to eat it twice in one day!      

Jet Lag              

Jet lag is the realest of all things real. Going there, I was not jet lagged hardly at all, but coming back was a different story. I had to miss all the things going on in my hometown because I was fast asleep by 6 p.m. When I first got back, I would wake up at 7 a.m. and then it slowly progressed to 9 a.m. I’m the type of person who goes to bed at 2 a.m. and could easily sleep until 1 p.m., if I don’t set an alarm, so going to bed and waking up so early was a new concept for me --especially in the summer.               

When I came back from being abroad, people would ask me, “How was Italy?!” I never really knew how to answer that question so I would just say it was awesome or amazing. It is so hard to answer a question like that with a one or two word response. How do you even begin to describe a foreign country in one phrase?           

Studying abroad taught me so much more than my classes. It taught me to be spontaneous, to go with the flow, and how to communicate with people despite a language barrier. Make studying abroad a priority during your time at OU!