A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E - Colby-Sawyer College

Florence, Italy. The Basilica di Santa
Maria del Fiore, dominates the cityscape
of Florence. To the left is the tower of the
Palazzo Vecchio.
I think we feel like tourists when we go
to another town and we all have our
cameras, but I feel more like a resident,
especially when I go grocery shopping and
carry everything back to my apartment.
Sometimes we just walk around and discover
streets we don’t know. There are a lot of
those. It’s so weird how the city’s mapped
out. You turn here and there’s the Duomo,
and then there’s the river. It’s smaller than
you think; it looks huge on a map, but
you turn a corner and you’re back where
something looks familiar.
– Jessica Walton, Mass.
abroad initiative
to date. These firstsemester
freshmen are learning
to see not only from a college
student’s perspective but also with th an expanding di worldview ld i
as they commence their college careers far from New London.
FITTING IN WITH FLORENCE
Firenze, as Italians call Florence, lives behind walls of stone
and windows framed by green shutters, and for three months,
the Global Beginnings students have a key to get behind those
walls and into their apartments at 7 Via Ghibellina, just minutes
from Santa Croce and the Arno River. Many of them seem
to pretend their time in Florence will last forever, putting off a
trip to here or there until “later,” even as they count the days
to family visits and their own departures.
Others, though, are only too aware of how rapidly time
is passing and do all they can to immerse themselves in the
Tuscan hills that soon will be replaced by Colby-Sawyer’s windy
hill, in the restaurants that will be replaced by a dining hall,
and in the unity of the group that will be tested when they
return to new roommates and classes full of freshmen they
have never met.
Amanda Martin, from Bennington, Vt., and Paige Estabrooks,
40 COLBY-SAWYER ALUMNI MAGAZINE
of o Hingham,
Mass., M spend
a lot of time
together to exploring
in the city, and
Paige Pa is very
clear cl regarding
how h she feels
about ab the experience
ri just five
weeks w in: “I love
it,” it she says. “I
don’t d want to
go back home.
Time Ti is moving
too to fast. We’ve
been so on the go, with with visits to Siena and Assisi—and Assisi— we know
we’re going to the Alps, Rome and Venice—that this weekend
we’re actually going to stay home so we can go to more of the
museums and things right here in Florence.”
Amanda concurs, marveling, “Some people can’t wait to go
home, but I dread thinking about leaving, I feel like it’s gone so
quickly. I was talking to my dad last night and told him he was
going to have to visit. He said, ‘I thought I wasn’t allowed to,’
and I said, ‘If I accidentally miss my plane and end up living in
Florence forever, then you’re allowed to visit.’”
On this morning, walking to the Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio,
where locals know to find the freshest produce in Florence,
Amanda is proud to realize that the black cowl top and dark
jeans she’s wearing—even her boots, which she picked up
during a recent weekend in Switzerland—were all bought in
Europe.
“I don’t feel I look European, but I’m trying. I hate sticking
out like a tourist,” she says. “We’re here for three months, so I
want to blend in as much as I can. We’re somewhere between
tourist and resident, really.”
Both girls studied Spanish in high school, and though that