Blogging
From Abroad

Wow. What a ride it’s been. When I left January 20th I had noooooooo idea what I was getting myself into. How much I’d grow as a person, how much I’d see, and the number of great friends that I’d make. CIMBA not only gave me the opportunity to go and see part of the world that I had not seen before, but it helped me find myself as well.

Thursday I finished with my finals (ughh. NOT FUN OR EASY) and that night we all celebrated at the pizzaria and the bar in town. I went to bed that night dreading the next day… I really did not want to say goodbye to all my new friends. Friends that don’t just live an hour or two away, but friends that live in like Iowa, Kansas, Florida, Alabama…

Friday I got up early and Iwona and I pretty much sat outside all day saying goodbye to everybody. All in all, it was pretty much just a cry-fest. My friend Jamie was the first to leave. And as the day went on more and more of my friends got on the bus to leave for the airport. We had our last lunch in the cafeteria, we bought our last tabbacchi sandwhich, and took my last walk around campus. 10 of us stayed the night in Venice because our flight out was on Saturday. It was a good night to end with. We went into the city, finished up gift shopping, and had a great dinner. I’m actually mad at myself for not exploring Venice more when I had the opportunity.

Saturday morning we woke up at 6:45 because my friends Amy and Alicia were leaving to go catch their plane. Again, the cry-fest started. Once they left none of us could go back to sleep and we laied there talking about the first time we met each other, the first time we arrived at CIMBA, and we watched videos that we all had made throughout our stay in Paderno del Grappa. The morning just seemed to drag on and on, and finally at 11:15 the rest of us left to go to the airport. One by one people left us until there were just 4 of us left- Me, Iwona, Sarah, and Lauren. We all were on the same flight to Chicago. We bought a few bottles of wine at the airport to take back with us (which were taken from us when we got to Chicago because those security people are mean- grrrrrrrrrrr I was so mad at that), had our last scoop of gelato and boarded a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. We ended up getting to Frankfurt at 4 and had to stand in line to go through security to get on a USA flight for so long that we JUSTTTTTTTTTT made our 5 flight. We were pretty much the last people on it. (ps. USA security is the worst- I’d defintely take an EU country over ours in that respect). After almost 9 hours- no sleep- 2 movies- and some gross airplane food… we arrived in the United States of America. I started singing America the Beautiful in the airport but Iwona and Sarah made me stop because they said I was being embarrasing… whaaaaaatever. Lauren went to meet her family in Chicago, Sarah got on a flight to St. Louise, and me and Iwona boarded our LAST FLIGHT to Pittsburgh. We FIIIIINAALLLYY arrived at our final destination 15 hours after leaving Venice. We were greeted by hugs and kisses, by our family and boyfriends- and we both were very happy. Of course Iwona’s one suitcase didn’t end up making it from Chicago to Pgh, but they told her they’d deliver it to her ASAP.

That night I finally went to bed around 3:30am and I woke up at 6:30am not being about to sleep anymore. Ahhhh stupid time difference. I got up and made omlettes for everybody- something that I definitely missed. I spent the day with my family and at 5pm I passed out. I had every intention of waking up around 8, but woke up at 6:30am once again and I have not been able to fall back alseep. I better get on a normal sleeping pattern soon!!!!!! So now It’s 8 am, but my body thinks it’s about 2 in the afternoon.

Wed I’m going back to Morgantown to see all my friends and I can’t wait! :-)
I really am happy to see all the people that I have missed, but just looking out my window I miss seeing the beautiful Dolomite Mountains and the georgeous italian landscape. Come this weekend I’m going to miss hoping on a plane or train and going to a new place. I really miss just walking down the hall and seeing one of my friends, or just going and sitting outside at the vending machine with them.

My study abroad adventure was everything that I could have wished for and wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more. It’s so hard to say what my favorite place was because everything I saw was so different from the next. If you’re a business, communications, or journalism major – I HIGHLY SUGGEST STUDYING ABROAD WITH CIMBA. This program really fine tunes every detail that you could want, gives you so much traveling time, provides you with great professors for classes, and sets up an environment that is unlike anything that you will ever experience. It’s so sad that this semester is over- but I look to the future with so much enthusiasm. There is so much of the world that I have left to explore- and I will explore it.

Thanks for reading my blog over the last 4 months!! I hope it was entertaining for you and I’m so happy I got to share my experiences with other people!! Thanks to WVU too for giving me the chance to blog! I have some greeeeeeat footage too that WVU will be using to make some video diaries – so everybody make sure you check them out!

Arrivederci e grazie mille!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ciao <3 Julie!