Hi friends!

Long time no see. That’s because school has me kicked into high gear reading books like a madman and scribbling out essays like it’s my job. Luckily,  two weeks ago I  was in  Venice, Italy enjoying a week-long study tour that focused on Venetian art! My goodness, it was beautiful.

Many people say that Venice is an overrated city due to the crazy amount of tourists that visit each day. The latter may be true, but that doesn’t make Venice any less special or magical. I think in order to appreciate Venice for more than the canals and gondolas, it’s important to understand Venetian history and art. The city has a foundation like no other and frankly an architectural feat. The facades of the buildings alone are considered magnificent art.

Each day, we visited churches, museums and/or schools of art to marvel at the pieces we had been studying in class for weeks. To do this, we walked all over the island, hence why I put 10 miles in the title (we walked at least that each day). Totally worth it. I don’t want to totally bore you with art history talk, but it’s pretty incredible the ways you can analyze a piece so that you truly understand it. What was amazing too was seeing ginormous artworks in the places they were made for, not hanging in a gallery. The feeling of walking into the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari and seeing the altarpiece The Assumption of the Virgin by Titan was indescribable and the painting…breathtaking.

Let’s talk about Italian food. That’s something that’s not overrated by any means. I’m not kidding when I say I had eleven cones of gelato because it was DELICIOUS as well as refreshing on the sunny days. We ate pasta and pizza for lunch and dinner, which I’m not sure how sustainable that is, but my taste buds weren’t complaining. The prices were much more wallet-friendly in comparison to what I’m used to here in Copenhagen.

I enjoyed getting out at night because my cohort member Sebastiano is a native Venetian and knew the places to go and drinks to enjoy. He also allowed us to pet his dog which temporarily cured me of my puppy withdrawals. His mother, a Wake Forest graduate, works at Save Venice, a nonprofit that restores the valued art of Venice, and was kind enough to take us behind the scenes of the Carpaccio St. Ursula cycle restoration lab. Because of my knowledge of Venetian art, I was so much more appreciative of this experience and being up close and seeing in detail the paintings from long, long ago.

If anything, this trip deepened my thirst for travel and experiences. I’m so grateful for this opportunity to collect these memories that I will hold the rest of my life.

An update from Copenhagen: it’s getting darker and colder as we speak. No worries, I have a coat that withstands even Denmark’s weather and enough fake candles to light up our “hygge” apartment. Although it’s October, the Christmas decorations and shops are popping up and making me so excited to go home to my family in Alamaba celebrate Christmas with them. I get to see my sweet parent’s faces in less than four weeks and I can’t describe how happy that makes me. Also, this Saturday I’m leaving with girlfriends to explore Belgium, Hungary, and England!

(Also, putting pictures here is really quite difficult so check out my Facebook or Instagram! @chrisann.timbie)

Till next time,

Chrisann