Hello, my name is Elaina Snow and I am studying abroad in Sienna Italy.  I am going for three week for the deaf studies program,  I will be taking three classes; Italian sign language, Spoken and written Italian, and deaf history and culture.

I picked this program for a couple reasons.  I am an ASL interpreting major so I was hoping that this will boost my ASL skills both signing and receptive. I want to meet more signers and deaf people to get different perspectives on signs.  Also I have always wanted to go to Europe so this is the perfect chance.  Lastly my grandparents are from Italy and they always cook authentic Italian food and it is so good,  and they talked about how pretty it is so  I decided to pick this program for both educational and personal reasons.

Well as soon as I got off the plane it was raining, probably harder then it does in Oregon, except it was warm rain so that was nice.  As for shorts and skirts; nothing almost everyone was wearing pants and tee shirts.  I probably looked pretty crazy for wearing shorts.

I needed a phone because mine couldn’t find wifi so I asked a desk at the airport and they said that they do not let people use the phones and that i had to use public phones outside,  that just struck me as odd.

When I was trying to get to my hotel I had a car pick me up from my hotel.  These Europeans drive crazy!  People where cutting each other off squeezing in everywhere they could it, it was insane. Another thing I found strange was that there was people trying to sell stuff to drivers that were stopped in traffic,  they were just walking around in the middle of the street.

The last weird thing to me was my Hotel I expected that to be pretty normal, but it was not my hotel was in the middle of a building with other business I had to go to the 5th floor out of 10 to reach the reception office to check in,  There was a really creepy elevator, that only let one person at a time on it was pretty much something out of tower of terror.  It was just strange only one person at a time

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Sorry its sideways I couldn’t figure out how to rotate it.  It looks like it is out of tower of terror right!

I think Italy will be fun but a total culture shock.  I think there will be tons of smoking everywhere, pick pocketing, and supper crowded.  I’m guessing it will be hot and sunny most if the time and people will be wearing shorts or skirts.  I think that most places like restaurants have someone that speaks a little bit of English but not all of them.

I plan on trying to dive right into the culture trying to learn words as I go,  seeing historic places, and talking to new people.

I am supper nervous because I have never left the country and I will be alone in a place that doesn’t speak English.  It is also really stressful because of the money situation,  I didn’t have  extra money laying around to get plane tickets and everything else I needed and Financial aid doesn’t come in until June 19th and I start school on the 20th.  Plus learning how euros work,  I’m sure that will be a fun adventure

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This is going to be short and quick I have tests coming up and assignments due. Alright here is a quick recap of my last two weeks. Last week our whole class had dinner with both our KLI teachers, and half of my group of friends went to COEX mall. A mall that has gifts and a lot of things from the SM entertainment. SM entertainment is a music entertainment business that has idol groups that I have started to listen too. The dinner with the teachers was awkward at first, but we got comfortable after a while of making questions and trying to speak with our broken Korean. This week is dead week. Next week are finals! Not going to lie Korean is kicking my butt. I am trying so hard to get a passing grade, learning a language is hard and when it is intensive the class goes fast. It is also hard to ask questions when your professor only speaks Korean. However, I will not give up! I am going to study my butt off and practice my Korean as much as I can. I am pretty sure I am missing some things that have happened, but time is going by so fast and I am trying to keep up with the time and school. Wish me luck guys!

P.S I forgot to add I went to jjimjilbang… sorry

Alright so starting off the subway system is super difficult, and unfortunately for my friend who invited us to stay at her house, we can’t help her with figuring out the transportation. Although she does live there, she even gets lost ㅋㅋㅋㅋ, We left Korea on Thursday afternoon and arrived around 10 o’clock to her house. A two hour flight with a 4 hour bus ride to her hometown, to another subway ride, and then finally a taxi. Yeah, a long ride and many transfers, but it is worth it. Yuogang, my friend who invited us over, has been showing us around and been going sightseeing it is beautiful. Let me just tell you being a tourist is hard. A lot of walking and not a lot of resting. When we arrived it was sleep and get ready for the next day. So yesterday we went to Osaka and went hiking to see monkeys on a mountain. They roam free and we can go into this shed type area and feed the monkeys. After that we went to the bamboo forest and Chabeli and Annie decided to ride the carriages pulled by tourist guides (mainly men). We raced the guy who was pulling Chabeli and Annie around. The guy had told Yuogang that we weren’t going to beat them, but Kellie, Yuogang, and I are pretty competitive. So we proved the guy half way wrong. He met up with us half-way through the forest and when he saw us he said we walk fast. We took some pictures and the guy offered to take pictures for us. Which we took advantage of and since Yuogang can speak Japanese she asked other people that day to take pictures of us. We ended the night with going to go eat shabu shabu at Yuogang’s favorite restaurant. The food was great and it was pretty fancy looking too. Her mom, treated us to the dinner and we are so thankful for the delicious food. When we went back to Yuogang’s house, Chabeli mentioned how she wanted to dress up in the kimonos. As a collective decision we all said yes and today that is what we did. Before that though, we want to a palace and went on another hike to get there. The palace was beautiful and the view of the city was gorgeous too. We were late to the appointment of the kimonos, but we had a great time walking around in our kimonos and taking pictures in random allies and taking 셀가’s (selfies). I am so tired but tomorrow we go to universal studios! I am so excited but so tired at the same time. This trip is a nice break from school, but I have a feeling this break is going to catch up to me. Well got to go, we are going to get ice cream at the convenience store. It has become a tradition in our group to get ice cream at night.

대박!!!! AKARAKA was amazing!!!! So much energy, great company, and we ended the night with eating meat at our spot! I didn’t mention this last week but one of my friends, Annie, has a hurt ankle and needs help going up and down the hills at our campus. This also includes the stairs she had to take when getting to the stadium. First off the this whole week there were many events leading up to AKARAKA, festivals, and parades, as well as events to have get togethers’ with your friends. A lot of those events included alcohol and games. About yesterday or today I should say, so many artists went. I didn’t know half of them but the other half I had heard songs from or known about through tv shows I got into while I was here. I wish I could post all the videos I took while I was there. It was an amazing event, but when it was over my group of friends and I realized we hadn’t eaten all day. So what do we do when we are super hungry? We go to our spot! It’s a Korean BBQ restaurant in which we have become friends with the lady who works there. She sometimes gives us 서비스 which is service (free food). It is not always free food but sometimes she forgets a cider for us and makes that up by giving us 순두부 찌개 sundubu jjigae. Which is tofu soup with veggies and sometimes meat. It is really good with rice! Before we got to the restaurant we had to walk all the way to sinchon and as I mentioned my friend is hurt. We convinced her to go with us and it did take 30 to 40 minutes to get there, but it was worth it. We contemplated going to somewhere closer because of Annie, but she said since we were already half way there might as well go all the way. At one point we had to make a circle around her so we people would be more aware about our friend. Interesting discovery, not many Koreans here care if you are hurt or not they will still shove and push to get through. The video about AKARAKA should be on youtube if you want to see what I am talking about. Also on the day of AKARAKA it was teacher appreciation day. On this day many students give their teachers a carnation and chocolates. I don’t really know the meaning of the carnation, but it is very common. Anyways I have to work on my Korean and my homework from psychology. Talk to you guys next week 안녕!

P.S. I forgot to mention, but my friends and I are going to Japan next week!!!! The next post will be from Japan! On a side note sorry the video is side ways I don’t know how to fix it.

So this week we went to the beach. It has been super hot and we thought we deserved a break. So we came to the beach. A long 4-hour bus ride but they wait was worth it. We went to the fish market and got bought fried food from a lady who totally convinced us to buy her’s instead of the ladies next to her. We wanted crab but the was expensive, we are students and how the lady said we probably wouldn’t of been able to afford it. We could of but we didn’t want to spend 50,000 won on a king crab. The girls wanted to go in because of a celebrity child that had eaten there. Not going to lie I wanted to go in too, but our pockets said otherwise. So what are we going to have for dinner? I don’t know we are going to have to order in and ask for help probably. Our Korean is not that good yet. By the way next week is AKARAKA! I am so excited I can’t wait to see what artists will go to our school this year. Speculations are that PSY is going to be there. Well time to relax after a lot of exploring.

P.S it is cold, it feels like the coast in Oregon, the water is cold and I didn’t bring warmer clothes thinking it was going to be hot ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

Last week we had our midterms, and that let me tell you. I don’t think I have ever studied so much for a midterm. I want to say that my KLI midterm may have been the hardest one. I studied for that midterm about one and a half weeks. My mind was so focused on how well I had to do on all these midterms that I didn’t really think about anything else. I want to say that I didn’t even leave the dorm for a week, because all I was doing was studying. Now that I don’t have a job, I find it easier to find time to study, and meet up with friends. Midterms in any school is a pain, but having a midterm in speaking is even more painful. Especially when you don’t know the language that well. I was scared I would walk in and not know a single thing the professor was talking about. Thankfully I managed to understand everything, but my responses weren’t well thought out. I need to work on making complete sentences.

On to a better weekend! As a way to reward myself for surviving midterms I went to two concerts last week. I also had to educate myself on who they were. I had heard about these groups before, but I never really listened to them as much. Thanks to my friends though, I ended up liking these groups, and I think I will listen to them often. The groups are Epik High and Big Bang. The Epik High concert was a rap beat show, so it wasn’t only Epik High but also other rappers. Granted I did not know all the songs, but I still had so much fun and the people I went with also had a great time. I was close enough that I got some pretty good videos, my pictures weren’t so good so I had to get rid of them. This concert happened Friday night and the Big bang concert was on Sunday. For the Big Bang I was also prepared enough to know more than half of the songs they played. Leading to me fangirling a lot. The only bad thing was that, it was super hot. Summer is coming in early I believe and the weather has been hot and humid lately. Something an Oregonian like myself is not use to. Anyways these concerts were the first concerts I had ever been to, and I still can’t get over the music and the atmosphere. I find myself humming their music and just remembering that day with the people I went with. Here are three of the people I went with to the Big Bang concert. Yuogang was sitting in subway. All in all last week was the most dreadful,as well as the most memorable week of my life. Thanks ladies for an amazing weekend!