I leave for my study abroad trip next Wednesday. On Jul 16th at 12:46 I board my plane in Cincinnati and start my summer 2008 study abroad experience.
For those of you who do not know..this summer I am participating in a summer abroad program through my school, The University of Cincinnati. I am studying Urban Planning and the program is part Urban Planning part Architecture.
I am flying over to Europe a little bit early. I will arrive in Frankfurt, Germany on July 17th (my sister's 21st Birthday). My very first college roomate ever, a girl named Phin, is from Germany and she is living in Frankfurt this summer. I am going to visit her for a couple of days, and then travel to Berlin. On July 24th I fly from Berlin to Rome, to start the university study abroad program.
The program officially begins at noon, in Rome, at Termini Train Station on July 24th. There are about 25 students from my school participating in the program. We are each responsible for finding airfare to Rome and arriving at the main train station at the designated time.
The program this summer can be split into three sections, punctuated by location and acticity. In the first section of the trip, I'll be in a seminar class called Reading The City taught by a professor from my school. This class will be all fieldwork, taught outdoors at various sites in various cities around Italy.
We spend from July 24th until August 3rd in Italy, going to various sites and museums and sketching them. I have never drawn before, and I think being able to see something and then translate it to paper is a useful skill for an urban planner. In the future I will be able to conceptualize design ideas to colleagues. In this part of the trip we will visit Rome, Florence, Siena, and Venice.
August 3rd is the last day in mainland Italy. I then have a couple "free days" for travel and the only requirement is that I be in the next group destination, Istanbul, but August 7th.
I will be traveling to Basel, Switzerland with one of my friends going on the trip, a girl named Jessie. From Basel we will fly to Istanbul.
When we get to Istanbul, we meet up with the study abroad group again. This is the 2nd portion of the study abroad program. We will be in Turkey from August 7th until August 27th. Once we get to Istanbul we will spend a couple days in the city, doing more drawing. After that we will visit some cities in the Turkish countryside, including Troy. For our last week in Istanbul, we will spend one week at Marmar University in Istanbul working on an urban design project with Turkish students. I will get credit for the course and the credit transfers back to my school and counts toward my graduation.
On August 27th I have another "free travel" time. Jessie and I will be flying from Istanbul to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We will stay in Amsterdam for a while, then fly to Milan, Italy. On September 1st we will fly to the Island of Sardinia to the city of Alghero.
When we arrive in Alghero we being a two week long intense urban design studio at University of Sassari. This is the 3rd and final leg of the study abroad program. I am excited for the time in Alghero because we will be in one place, the same hotel, for two whole weeks. I'm sure that after a summer of being in a new city every couple days I will be exhausted!
After the study abroad program finishes on September 14th, I am flying with Jessie to London and we will be staying with her Aunt for a couple days. After that I have to make my way back to Frankfurt, Germany for my return flight to the US. I plan to take a train from London to Paris, and then Paris to Frankfurt, but we'll see. My dad doesn't like that idea too much!
In my next post I will put links to the universities I'll be studying at, as well as a link to urban planning work I have done at my school in the past, so everyone can see that kind of work I produce.
Ciao,
Brittany
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