Maymester in Sicily

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Course Blog – Cultural Engagement and Exploration (2017)

Cefalu Cooking Demonstration

On Wednesday, we took a bus into the mountains by Cefalu to watch and participate in a professional cooking demonstration. The chef prepared four courses for us all, mostly using his home’s outdoor kitchen – first, two different types of arancini rice balls, with one filled with eggplant and cheese and the other Bolognese sauce....... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

A Walking Tour of Cefalù

Our walking tour of Cefalù with Vittoria began at Piazza Garibaldi, one of the main squares in town that has many small restaurants, a clock tower, and a bank, among other things. The clock tower is the most interesting building in the Piazza, as it still has large stones as a part of its infrastructure that...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Tourism as an Industry

During our walking tour of Cefalu, we discussed how tourism is making prices rise for the locals. As I walk down the streets to class, or even when I look down from our balcony, I can see little shops selling touristy goods such as mugs and magnets. As you can see, the walk from the...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Bernstein Blog #3: Navigating Communication When You Come to Sicily Not Knowing a Lick of Italian

When I first heard that I was admitted to this maymester, I decided that I was going to teach myself Italian using Duolinguo, a free language app. Long story short, I was not disciplined and didn’t have enough time in my busy schedule to teach myself a new language. I knew this would be a...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

A Tale of Temples and Pizza

Experience Blog 2 Last Sunday brought us all across the island, first heading to the interior to see Piazza Armerina and then to the southern coast to Agrigento. These sites would give us a look at how Romans played a role in Sicilian life while also show how they could preserve Greek temples. At first,...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

The One With the Temples

On Sunday, May 14, 2017 we traveled to Agrigento. After already wandering through the endless mosaics in the villa at Piazza Armerina, sleeping through several bus rides, and eating a buffet of pizza, I was honestly ready to embrace my food coma and go back to my bed in Cefalù. Despite my exhaustion and the...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Segesta

Greek culture has always been my favorite part of history to learn about, and studying the impact of Greek culture in Sicily is no exception. It has always amazed me how far the Greek sphere of influence reached in the Mediterranean. This was evident when we visited the site of Segesta, which holds a beautiful...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Would you judge Palermo by its cover?

On Monday May 15th, we had a free day. So what did we decide to do in Italy? ENDLESS SUSHI! However, the challenge of the day was actually getting there. Endless sushi was located in Palermo which is about an hour drive away from Cefalù. The only issue was that we don’t have cars here...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Sushi in Palermo

The other day, a few of the girls I live with and I decided to make the trek to a city, Palermo, about an hour away to get all you can eat sushi. After getting the name of the place and the address from our professor we planned to make a whole day out of...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Food for Thought

As gleaned from my previous travels and further solidified by the academic and cultural lessons learned throughout this course as well, it has become clear that the food markets and respective local diet of a given region are imperative in revealing its cultural intricacies and overall social practices.  Throughout the cobblestone streets that wind away...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Piazza Armerina: Villa Romana

For one of our site visits, we went to Piazza Armerina and got to tour Villa Romana del Casale, a villa built in the 4th Century. Although we have seen so many incredible sites on this trip, I still have trouble really understanding that what I am looking at was built so long ago. When...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Walking Along

Today our class went on a historical walking tour of Cefalu. Having spent the last week and a half exploring the city on our own, it was enlightening to learn about the history of the city. I was excited for the tour, as while we have explored most of Cefalu, I have been struggling to...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 17, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Villa Romana Del Casale

https://vanderbilt.app.box.com/files/0/f/23993086315/1/f_172958704673 https://vanderbilt.app.box.com/files/0/f/23993086315/1/f_172958569516 https://vanderbilt.app.box.com/files/0/f/23993086315/1/f_172958646582 We visited Piazza Armerina, an Italian commune in South Central Sicily, to visit the Villa Romana Del Casale.  Built in the fourth century AD, this massive atypical villa houses the largest collection of preserved Roman Mosaics in the world.  The unusual asymmetric shape of the villa is due to it having additional...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 16, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

An Italian Breakfast

This morning, I decided to eat breakfast with my classmates, Cynthia and Izzy, at Piazza Duomo. We had never eaten breakfast out before and were happy to have our first Italian breakfast (the most important meal of the day, as they say) together. We woke up pretty late for breakfast and left the villa at...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 15, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

Laundry & The Grocery Store

Sometimes I don’t realize how simple day-to-day tasks are until I am in another country and everything is foreign and confusing.  This is what I mean: I was reaching the end of my clean clothes and decided to try out the washing machine in our villa.  “Washing clothes in an Italian washing machine is probably...... KEEP READING

Posted by on May 15, 2017 in 2017 Blog post

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