Athena Blogs

It has been way too long since I've blogged last. It's nearly impossible for me to grasp that the end of the semester is coming near so I'm spending even more time appreciating where I am and less time sitting on my computer. SO MUCH has been going on! School, island life, people, work... It's overwhelming and exciting. I can't even talk about actu ...

Sorry it's been forever since my last blog! Between finals and the reliability of Greek internet, I haven't been able to spare a single moment. Our trip to Santorini was an actual blast! The group met the teachers at the port, and as a pleasant surprise, we found out that Sigrid, George, and Cameron were all coming with us. Barry Cooper, who is a ...

I feel so bad for not blogging this time while on Paros, like I must say I’m overwhelmed by my surroundings even though I’ve been here for 2 months already.  Still loving my classes and my teachers, Classmates are THEE best!!!... But where do I start? Well I did not attend the Turkey trip with the rest of the HISA crew yet I met some pretty i ...

What an amazing spring break. Our entire school went to Istanbul, Turkey for a week and it was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my entire life. I tried to change it up this time and let the pictures (and video) speak for themselves mostly... enjoy :) We took the smallest plane to Athens due to the possibility of ferry strikes on Paros. I ...

What a week! Istanbul is absolutely crazy. After living in a small town for most of my life, going to a small school (in a smaller city), and then moving to Paros which is a pretty small island, Istanbul's 14 million population really threw me. At first it was really refreshing, always seeing someone on the streets and knowing that there are actual ...

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Jaime and Brad Kuntz are Athena's first sibling bloggers! Jaime attends Chapman University, while Brad is enrolled at the University of Southern California. They are blogging about their study abroad experiences in Rome, Italy. JAIME Barcelona The weekend before finals, and after our 4 papers were due, I flew to Barcelona to meet up with some ...

Brad Monday: Futurismo & Rainy Dinner On Monday evening, the gusts of wind through the Roman cobblestone streets did not fail to turn Jaime's cheap street vendor umbrella inside out on multiple occasions.  Nevertheless we arrived at the gallery across from the Quirinale just as the rain really picked up, with umbrella intact, and just in t ...

Brad Terme di Caracalla Roman Baths & Museo Palazzo Venezia Jaime and I, Queen and King of Frugality, did our best to take advantage of the free monuments in Rome for the week.  Monday, after Italian class, we hopped on the metro and traversed Southeast of the Coliseum to the Terme di Caracalla Roman Baths.  They were kind of gargan ...

Jaime: Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari Tuesday instead of meeting In the class room for our Italian Family class, we met at the Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari (National Museum of Popular Art and Tradition) in Rome. It was located about 9 metro stops from our apartment, so it was in a very different part of Rome t ...

We have officially finished our last weekend excursion, and it took every muscle in my body to step off our last train once it was done. I didn't want to leave our Cinque Terre weekend behind me. The Cinque Terre is a region of the Italian Riviera on the northwest coast of Italy that consists of five villages connected via hiking trail, boat, and ...

Even though we are not traveling to far-reaching destinations in Italy during the middle of the week, it is no less exciting and entertaining. The ideal location of Tuscania lends itself to many short excursions. For example, after dinner on Monday evening we decided that we wanted to try a new gelateria. One of the local waiters, who has become ...

Steph and I are continuing to have the most delightful time here in Italy! After a somewhat eventful train experience, we were able to spend a day in Venice. I know we thought we had mastered the train system here, but we were proved wrong. We began our trip with a 20 minute bus ride to Viterbo where we were supposed to take a train to Orte, then ...

Last night as we sat on the sand of Lake Bolsena, we were star gazing at some of the same stars that we see in America. We all pointed to the Big Dipper, and then spotted Venus. I even laid eyes my first shooting star. There is so little light pollution here that the stars are so much more visable. Our new Italian friend offered to drive us to Ma ...

The adventure here in Italy is continuing with flying colors! Steph and I spent our weekend in Florence and Cortona and had a marvelous time! This chapter of our adventure began on Thursday evening after class, when we left Tuscania for Florence. We took a taxi to the train station in Orte, where we would take train all the way to Florence. Howev ...

Hello all!!! It has been a long time since my last post. Sorry about that! Things got busy here with midterms and what not.  This past weekend my dad visited! We had such a great time. He was here from Friday night until Tuesday morning and we did so much! We hit the major spots like the Duomo, saw the David, and the Ponte Vecchio. ...

Over the past weekend, I finally had a successful weekend trip! It was more amazing than I ever imagined it would be. I went to Interlaken in Switzerland and it was such an adventure.  After an eight hour bus ride, we got in around 3:00 in the morning and went straight to sleep. The next morning I woke up with butterflies knowing it was the d ...

Hey everyone! This past week has been a pretty great one. I traveled, classes become more fun, and there was a LOT of chocolate eating. CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL Last Friday Florence began its annual week long Chocolate Festival. My roommates and I went and it was SO great. There were booths and booths with tables covered in piles of all kinds of chocol ...

All of my life, I have been a disaster in the kitchen. From lighting things on fire to melting meals, the kitchen and I have never gotten along. I even have trouble with frozen foods. No matter what I do they seem to end up exploding in the microwave. Photography, on the other hand, I love. Developing my pictures in the dark room is actually relax ...

Last weekend, Zach and I attempted a trip to Rome that was, unfortunately, a huge failure. It was cold in Florence, and my classmates told me that Rome is almost always warmer than Florence. I decided to trade my boots in for flats and my warmest coat for a slightly lighter one and got on the train without looking at the weather forecast for the we ...

Computer Problems I apologize for such a gap between posts, everything got crazy moving to Rome and leaving immediately for break...during which my computer decided to crash on me.  I retrieved it from the apple store (which was some what of a treck) yesterday.  And sadly enough...my hardrive had to be replaced so all my pictures of Ital ...

Sorry for such a delay in posts and the lack of pictures! School got VERY busy with school and my photo application is not working on my computer so I cannot currently upload any photos. Last week for classes I had a midterm in History, so I spent a lot of time the weekend before studying Greeks and Etruscans. On wednesday of last week we had a wo ...

Unusual Weather Ohio has been warmer than Italy the last week ... actually it's the coldest weather that Tuscania has experienced in 27 years. We had rain and snow (and REALLY cold winds) this last week. The whole city (and the surrounding ones) got very nervous about the icy conditions, which in reality are nothing compared to Ohio, or even the s ...

It has been an incredible and exciting week!  I arrived in the Rome airport where I spent several hours meeting other people arriving for the Tour of Italy program and the Semester in Tuscania progam, as we all waited for the bus to get us all.  After settling into our apartments we all met at school for our welcome dinner.  It was ...

  Plane ticket...Check!   Passport/Visa...Check!   Room assignments...Check!   Packing.......almost check....     Its hard to believe that all the planning and imagining is about to be brought to life!  I have begun my final preparations for my journey and subsequent adventures overseas.  It is ...

We arrived at our next destination... Nice, France! A city we didn't know too much about, but heard wonderful things. Our curiosity was racing, not knowing what to expect. I had ideas and expectations of what I thought it would be, and it turned out to be far beyond that. A city with history, beauty, character; I know I have said this countless tim ...

It's been quite awhile since my last post, my month of April was a pretty boring one. I spent much of my time working on final projects and assignments for my classes, and preparing for my final exams which take place this week. April 26, 2012- May 7, 2012 A friend and I took a twelve day trip to Spain and France, our first destination: Barcelona ...

WARNING! St. Patty's Day in Ireland is CRAZY. to say the least.... Anyway, we started off the festivities with getting ready and dressing in all green, obviously... and then we headed down down for the Parade! Which was impossible to navigate, there were SO MANY people!! It was unbelievable, I thought that St. Patty's day in Chicago was wild, th ...

Scotland by far is one of my favorite places I have visited so far, Edinburgh is like a city lost in time. It’s so beautiful and historic, all of the buildings are from another time, centuries ago. That’s what I loved most about Edinburgh, unlike all of the other cities trying to keep up with all of the latest technology and architecture, this litt ...

London was quite the experience, but a wonderful one to say the least.  Definitely some place to put on your bucket list, but I don't think I could ever live in the UK, the currency over there is awful! Dollars to Pounds is worth nothing, so I ended up spending so much more money than I planned... London is a HUGE city, it's so big it's split ...

This past week, I went ice skating in an indoor hockey rink in Sydney, where I skated on ice for the first time! I also attended one of the final Formal Hall ceremonies of the quarter. To explain formal hall, it is similar to a professional ball where there is mingling before and after, formal attire and clothes, and fancy eating and etiquette. ...

Hello from Sydney! Australians are known for their love of adventure - this weekend I decided to join in and go white water rafting! I went to Penrith Whitewater Stadium which was the location used for the 2000 Olympic canoe and kayak slalom events. I have always been interested in the Olympics and am glad I got to go through this course. The r ...

Hello from Sydney! Life Down UnderContrary to popular belief, not everything is backwards in Australia! Of course, the seasons are opposite and this means their school year ends in November; and seniors graduate at this time. The entire bachelor's degree is a 3-year program, not 4 like in the U.S. While the cars, water and weather can seem very st ...

G'day! Monday night we had formal hall at Campion. It was really fun. I’m definitely glad I got to experience it because we have nothing like it at Edgewood College. We had to get dressed up and then wear black gowns that were provided for us. There was a head table with faculty and staff member, with Father Fleming and Dean Kaiser from Seton Ha ...

G'day Mates! A group of Campion students went on a harbor cruise with the band Scythian playing on Friday night. It was amazing. We cruised around Sydney Harbor until about 1:30 in the morning until we had to catch a bus back to Campion College so we could rest up for the big campout that happened last night. The bus ride took forever because no t ...