How to make friends and travel to Venice

Last semester, I was lucky enough to make some amazing friends. A few were other American students, but most of them were international students (ie, not British students). I think this was partly because two of my classes last semester were upper level classes, so most of the students already knew each other and weren’t really looking to make new friends, and partly because I attended a lot of organised events for international students. We ended up forming a pretty big group and hanging out together all the time, which was great! But it  meant I didn’t meet many British students. This semester I met more British students because all of my classes are intro level or first year classes. I’m taking sociology, English, and criminology, and they’re all really interesting! I’ve become really close with one group of girls in a building close to mine, as well, and I met them through a girl I sat next to on the bus one day, and we just started talking! They’re all super welcoming and friendly, and they think I’m the “cool American” and make me pronounce things all the time, which I think is especially funny because that’s what I do to them!

But anyway, one of the girls I met last semester, who ended up being one of my best friends, lives just outside of Venice, and out of the blue, I was looking at flights and booked a trip to go see her on Fat Tuesday to celebrate Carnival! So here’s a few pictures we took of the trip (mostly spent eating and catching up!):

We got our faces painted on the street!

Venice was so pretty- I took about a thousand pictures that look exactly like postcards!

These babies are called frittelle, and they’re kind of like beignets, only with raisins and nuts and cream inside. Basically like little donut holes with nuts and raisins and a filling. They’re amazing!

We also had (delicious) pizza and gelato, and I stayed at her house and met her family- my favourite part of the trip was probably just getting to see my friend! And what’s better: she has two younger brothers, named Frank and Gio (Francesco and Giovanni) and MY brothers are Frank and Joe (Francis and Joseph)! So basically, we’re twins.

It was really wonderful to see her, and I know I’m going to miss all of the friends I’ve made this year. But I can’t get sappy yet, I still have another two weeks of class! I am getting excited to go home though- I miss my family and my friends at home, and I know that I’ll be able to come back. WOWAir has just put a new route in that goes through Iceland, making a flight from Boston to Iceland only $99, which cuts the cost of a flight from the East Coast to Europe more than in half!

School is starting to pick up- I have three big essays that I’ve just started for May, and I handed in an essay and a HUGE project this past Monday, and hopefully I’ll be able to start on my ICIP soon! For those of you reading along at home, the ICIP is an independent cultural immersion project, and you’re supposed to get an advisor at your host school and you write a paper and present it to them. However, Leicester apparently didn’t hire an advisor for us last semester? And we have one now, but he hasn’t really heard what we’re supposed to do… I keep stopping by and emailing, and I just asked the Holy Cross Study Abroad office for more information, and they told me WHAT I’m doing but I think it still needs to be approved by the advisor here. Hopefully that will be sorted soon, because it seems like everyone else has been working on their projects and meeting with advisors since September! But this year I’m definitely learning to adapt, because it seems like no one really knows the full story- I’m learning to take life as it comes!

I’m off for a scone and some tea (so English! And delicious…) so more later!

Michaela xx

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2015 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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