Last Thursday, Samantha and I, with our friend Maggie, started our Campania region adventure in Pompeii so we could have enough time to visit certain sights. The next day, we joined our school group and visited Capri, Sorrento, and Naples. Pompeii We stayed a night in Pompeii to have enough time to climb Mount Vesuvius […]
One of the fundamental experiences of living on your own is cooking. It’s usually cheaper to prepare meals from groceries than to eat out most of the time. A few times a week Samantha and I go to Conad, an Italian supermarket chain, to get ingredients and food. We go so often that we know […]
During spring break, Samantha and I stayed at a hotel in Milan for a week and went on day trips to Turin and Lake Como from there. After we returned to Florence, we went to Livorno with our friend Jen. Milan [metaslider id=10570] We walked so much on the first full day. I burned about […]
Samantha and I took the train for the first time on Sunday: our destination was Pisa. We had no difficulty buying tickets at the automated machines, and just as our friend recounted in her traveling story, the machine loudly warned us in English of pickpockets and to ask only station staff for information. We had […]
As you’re walking along the Arno on the Duomo side at night, you may notice a strange pillar with a clear turquoise base and zodiac symbols glowing in the same color on the ground. They are part of a giant sundial built in 2007, according to Luise Schnabel and Filippo Camerota’s design. Samantha, Jen (a […]
Afternoons of clicking away on Optitex ended last week. Optitex is the pattern-making software I learned how to use during my three-week intensive course, CAD (computer-aided design) for Fashion/Advanced Pattern Making. Optitex has tools for making darts, joining pieces, adding pleats, adding seams, and adding buttons. One of the most confusing things about the program […]
Samantha and I have an 8:00 a.m. Italian class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Our classroom is about a 20 to 30-minute walk, which means we can sleep in a little, but waking up early enough to prepare a simple breakfast is difficult. To congratulate ourselves for attending class, we agreed to go to Fedora “dopo […]
This spring semester, I’m studying abroad in Florence, Italy. My friend, Samantha, is in the same program too at Florence University of the Arts (FUA). She has a blog about her experience, too! I’m very excited to share my experience with you. Thus, this DIY blog will go in a slightly different direction due to […]
As I sit here writing this piece, I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m sitting on a couch with a bright orange blanket covering the worn down fabric, in the apartment I’m living in, on a narrow road filled with tiny art galleries and shops called Via Maggio, in Firenze (Florence), […]
On Saturday, June 6th, 2015, I was able to take part in school day trip to Nizwa fort, in Oman’s old capital city of Nizwa, and Misfat Al Abreyyin–a 4,000 year old continuously inhabited village. It was about a two-hour drive away from Muscat. Our driver, Munthir Al Nomani, was dressed very casually. It made […]
