I want to start this off by saying, do what’s best for you!!! What works for me may not work for you, but I wanted to share with you how I work through my busiest day of the week while living and studying abroad!

When you study abroad in Europe, it’s almost expected that you travel to different countries on the weekends. And there are plenty of different ways to do that. Some people choose somewhere to go every weekend, others (like me) are more selective with where they go and spend more time in their home city. Sometimes it’s to save money, others it’s because you have a lot of studying/work to do, and even sometimes because you just want to get to know your home country better!

For this blog, I thought I would share some fascinating information about the history of Siena, and its unique charm that sets it apart from its neighboring cities like Florence. Siena boasts an incredible amount of preserved culture dating back to the Middle Ages, and I have had the privilege of learning about this rich history through our Italian student companions, classes, and instructors.

As I said before in my previous blogs, we do multiple day trips as part of both the Study in Tuscany and Business and Economics of Italian Wine and Food programs with IES Abroad. Some trips will correspond to classes, but if you want to attend a trip that is not specifically for your class, you are more than welcome to!

Following the first trips to Chianti and Bologna, we went to Florence with the art history and gender studies professors and classes to go to the Innocence Museum (Museo degli Innocenti) and also to go to the Opera Duomo Museum.

Breaking news: packing for a semester abroad is hard.

We all know the basics, of course — clothes (fewer than you think), your medications (more than you think), some school supplies, some books. And IES Abroad’s provided packing lists can help. But there are so many iterations of programs in so many different parts of the world that it’s hard to know exactly what you’ll need.