Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

I can honestly say that I love Florence and that I’m very glad to be spending my time abroad here, but sometimes it seems a little small. Rome, on the other hand, has somehow been able to maintain the feel of an enormous living and working city [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

Up until now, I’ve spent many an evening Skyping, IMing or Facebooking with friends and family back in the United States. Nonno and Nonna do not have Internet and are not computer-savvy (Nonna thinks computers are “diabolical”) but I’ve been stealing wireless from some unknown benefactor. I’ve [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

For over a month, almost as soon as I had arrived in Florence, plans for fall break had been in the works. Five other girls and I discussed every detail and booked all of our flights, trains and hostels, and the intention was to visit Dublin, Amsterdam [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

At this point, I’ve been living in Italy for a little over a month and a half. I’m able to find my way around most parts of Florence without a map, and my Italian is (slowly) improving.  The extreme heat has finally subsided: fall arrived with a [...]

A student studying in Italy learns the awful realities of the still-present Mafia in Sicily.

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

Let me preface this by stating that normally I do not like beer. Unless it is involved in a game, I will go out of my way to avoid drinking it. But could I pass up the opportunity to go to Oktoberfest, one of the most famous [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

There I stood on the edge of the cliff, 40 feet above the water. My heart pounded, and my entire body trembled, while my friends shouted encouragement from below. I was the last to take a turn. ”The boat is leaving! You have to jump,” the tour guide yelled. [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

Florence never gets really cold, at least not compared to Chicago. Nevertheless, I’m trying to take advantage of the late summer weather while it lasts by exploring locations in Italy that showcase the natural beauty of the countryside.
Cinque Terre, literally meaning five towns, is a place said [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

When I first think of Italy, the Vatican and the Pope do not immediately come to mind. It is a fact, however, that the most prominent religion here is Catholicism.  Many Italians attend church every Sunday and are strong believers. I myself am not religious, and when [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

Now that I’ve been here a little over a week, I feel like I can accurately report my first impressions on the culture here and Florence in general .
Italians seem to stress being environmentally friendly. There are recycling bins next to every trash can and recycling dumpsters [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

It was time to meet my host family in the Villa Rossa, the main building on campus. My roommate Kate and I sat among a mix of American students and Italian adults in a large lecture room, and I couldn’t help but look from face to face [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

And the luggage difficulties continue. After an agonizingly long and stressful day with lengthy layovers and even longer flights, I touched down in the Florence airport to find that one of my suitcases was missing.
The program instructions said to pack one suitcase to take to the hotel, [...]

Kari will be in Florence, Italy until Dec. 17.

In approximately three hours, I will be embarking from the Detroit airport on the first leg of my journey to Italy. First is the two-hour flight to New York’s JFK airport, where I’ll be meeting up with a group of students from my program. Following a four-hour [...]