Amherst College Global Education Blog
PRECURSOR: I do not talk about Russian typical food. You know what I mean: borscht (beet soup), blinchiki (pancakes/crepes), olivier salad (it’s a mess to describe), katleti (meatballs), etc etc. I’m not talking about kitsch – I’m talking about experiences. Food is so important in Russia – so so so important, as any food is pertinent to any culture. While
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Saint Petersburg acted as the capital the country for 2 centuries, where aristocracy full of military and government officials did their jobs and flirted at balls, and artists and musicians all flocked there too. Best international talents also coursed there at the request of the aristocracy stuck in this swamp and needing some beauty – the designers of SPb were
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(Places I visited before the episode in this post happened. Paris really is a beautiful and enlightening city to live. All my thoughts and experiences below are very personal, and can be different from what most other people have felt here.) Ni hao? Korean? Annyounghaseyo? Yeppuyo! said the guy standing behind the
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When I first started my Sustainability program at the Siena School, I was told that, when talking to Italians, saying that I just studied ‘sustainability’ would not be sufficient. Sostenibilita in Italian is much less a coherent concept than it is in English, which is saying something. Usually I introduce it as agricultura sostenibile, but even that still gets some confused
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During the 20-minute break in my 3-hour Soviet Cinema class, I catch Professor Dvinatina for a quick question. After a couple minutes of discussion about how well Petersburg About Love (2016) captures the state of the modern Russian film industry, she elegantly responds, “Dasha, it’s lovely to talk to you, but I really need to smoke right now.” Which is
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“Do you eat to live, or live to eat?” I was asked by Amy, an American ‘casualty’ of her 1970s Study Abroad program that I mentioned in a previous post. Amy currently lives with her husband, an Italian, at La Comune di Bagnaia, a commune about 30 minutes outside of Siena where I stayed for two weeks as part of my
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Petersburg’s cold air comprises of poetic verses and brush strokes. That’s not quite so apparent when struggling with closing an umbrella while opening up the door to a coffee shop’s warm pastry atmosphere. The efficient cashier raises his eyes as I shrug my wet hoodie from my head and try to order that weird M-something untranslatable-berry–flavored latte on the almost-gone
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During the first three weeks here in Siena, the curriculum was centered around an intensive Italian language course on which we spent three hours a day, usually from 10 am-1 pm. In the afternoons, we’d alternate between viewing Italian films, exploring the city of Siena with our encyclopedic tour guide-cum-teacher Roberto, or having introductory classes to our courses for the
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First Impression Despite its fame as the number one tourist spot in the world, Paris has a much relaxed vibe than I expected. I was born and raised in one of the busiest cities in the world, in which everything has to be automatic, fast, and user-friendly. I had an expectation that most other big cities would be similar, which
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CW: Anxiety On September 1st, 2016, I sat at a long dinner table at Fattoria San Donato, a family run vineyard/”agriturismo” on the rural outskirts of San Gimignano, Italy, rapidly bouncing my leg up and down while playing Titus Andronicus loudly in my head, as I often do when I feel anxious. It was my first dinner with the people
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