A group photo of the Spring 2012 class Oratorio di Santa Cecilia
The Spring 2012 semester is underway! Students from colleges and universities from across the United States arrived last week. Since their arrival students have been attending orientation sessions, acclimating themselves to life in one of Italy’s greatest cities, and preparing for a semester of coursework. Today, students began a week-long period of intensive Italian language courses. Italian courses will continue throughout the semester but this intensive program was created to help students in the first few weeks of living in Perugia.
After this week of intensive language courses, students will attend courses as part of the General Studies Program at Umbra while others will take advantage of Umbra’s Direct Enrollment program. For more information on the academic offerings at Umbra, please visit our page https://www.umbra.org/academics/
Emily Swaine at a semester-end Creative Writing presentation.
We frequently hear from Umbra alums, both recent and not. Emily Swaine, a student from the spring 2011 semester, took the one-year anniversary of her departure to Perugia to reflect on her experiences.
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With the recent ringing in of the New Year, people around the world have marked the passing of 2011. They have thought about what has happened to the world and to them. They have recollected their achievements and perhaps their failures. They have remembered the people they met and the people they lost. Hopefully, most of them looked back at the last year and smiled.
While the world reminisced last year during the days leading up to January 1st and perhaps a few days after, it is today, January 6th that inspires me to think of where I have been in the past twelve months.
In the last year I have lived in three countries, finished the first half of my senior year of college, I’ve said a lot of hellos and I’ve said a lot of goodbyes. I pick today to reflect on the last 365 days because exactly one year ago today I began my first and perhaps biggest adventure of 2011; I boarded a plane to Italy. While this part of my year only filled the first four months, it was the defining period of the year. I arrived in Italy as a white blank page anxious to fill myself with new lessons, new experiences and new people.
With a year gone now from my initial departure, I am still confident in saying that those four months spent abroad were and will continue to be four of the best months of my life.
As I look back in thought and through photographs, I remember the places I traveled: Paris, Malta, Austria, and of course all over Italy. I remember the apartment I lived in and the walk up our giant hill to Umbra. I remember the food and the wine, the music and the sound of Italian throughout the streets. I remember the strength of the coffee and the crisp bread of the infinite panini at Ciao Ciao. I remember the smell of fried eggs and the sound of chatting that filled our kitchen in the mornings as our apartment became the breakfast spot since we all soon realized Italy had no concept of a real breakfast. It is all missed. The late night, or should I say early morning trips to the secret bakery, the lunches at the lake, the dinners at Dal mi’ Cocco, Friday afternoon lunches, Mumford and Sons streaming through speakers, and afternoons on the Steps.
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