Weeks 3-7 Update

Buongiorno!

Well somehow it's been over a month since I've updated!! We've been having a great time in Italy and I can't believe we only have 3 weeks left! Sometimes it seems like months ago that we first arrived in Italy and then other times it feels like it's flying by! We did a lot of traveling in our first 5 weeks and have saw Rome, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, Pisa, and the outskirts of Lucca! Since then, we've been staying mostly local - going to work, working on schoolwork, and going to Florence. It's strange to have been here long enough to not feel like a tourist so much anymore and just feel like a resident!

Clinic
After our first two weeks at Prosperius in Florence, we moved to our official clinical location, Villa delle Terme in Impruneta. It's a 150 bed clinic that is broken up into 70 beds for long term care and 80 ortho/neuro beds. For our first 4 weeks at this clinic, we worked in the neuro PT gym and now we are spending our final 4 weeks in the ortho PT gym. Janet and I are working with 3 different CIs because of the scheduling/vacations at the clinic which is a little difficult, but they are all great! We work primarily with geriatric patients at this clinic - in the neuro gym, we mostly saw patients post stroke and saw some other neurological diagnoses as well. In the ortho gym, we mostly see hip and knee replacements. It is a VERY different clinical setting than anything I've worked in so far for 2 reasons: 1. My last two clinicals have been in outpatient settings 2. Italian healthcare works very different from healthcare in the US. It took Janet and I a while to get used to some of the differences here that we would never see in the US - walking with geriatric neuro patients without a gait belt, working with 3-4 neuro patients at a time, no PT techs/aides, no documentation, not performing full initial evaluations, etc. Once we got used to the way this clinic works and got in a good groove working with patients, it's been great. We both have our adorable patients we work with consistently and we get to go help out with music therapy for patients in minimally conscious states on Thursdays which is definitely an interesting experience!

~Villa della Terme~

San Casciano
Still in love with San Casciano!! It's nice to come home to our little town after work or after traveling! And the views are incredible... :)

~Sunset from our window~

Zip Lining
A few weekends ago, Janet, Nichole, and I went to Canyon Park, a place where you can do zip lining, stand up paddle boarding, rafting, and river walks! We decided to do the zip lining and it was gorgeous! The whole day was only 23 euros and we got to do a 1 1/2 hour zip lining/rock climbing adventure then hung out at the "beach" with amazing views!

Rome
Two weekends ago, we went back to Rome to meet up with my dad on another of his Delta layovers so he could bring Janet and me some things from back home. We left straight from work friday and got there around 8pm. We grabbed dinner and gelato and walked around Rome some then headed to bed. Dad had to leave Saturday morning to head home so Janet and I took off to wander around the city. We went back to the Spanish Steps because they had been closed when we were in Rome in August for cleaning... and they were closed again!! After that, we had fun walking through all of the expensive stores in the area! We found our way to the piazza of kittens again (of course!) then made our way to the train station to head home!

~Dad!~

~Breakfast~

~Burberry~

~Burberry~

~Fendi~

~Kitties!!~

 

That Sunday night, a patient from the clinic is threw a big party and all of the PTs from our clinic were invited. We had no idea what to expect but this was our conversation with him Friday about the party:
Us: What can we bring to the party Sunday? (Not wanting to be the rude Americans that just show up without anything)
Patient: Do you like sangria?
Us: Yes
Patient: Do you like mojitos?
Us: Yes!
Patient: Good. Don't eat breakfast, don't eat lunch, don't eat any snacks that day. Come hungry.

We still didn't want to show up empty handed so we got his kids some present in Rome that weekend to bring with us!
It was such a fun party - his back yard was set up with rugs all over and tents and there was delicious food and drinks! The DJ played a great music and we had a fun time with our CIs and the other PTs from our clinic!

~Our CIs~

Last weekend, we went back to Florence city center! Friday night, we went to a craft beer festival with Nichole. Saturday, we had a picnic at the rose garden near Piazza Michelangelo, took in the views at the piazza, and visited Basilica San Miniato al Monte (beautiful church on top of the hill above the piazza).

~Picnic in the Rose Garden~

~Basilica San Miniato al Monte~

~Piazza Michelangelo~

This week, we just had work every day and have been working on our research papers for school at night.  Last night, we went to crossfit with one of our CIs then got greek food with her boyfriend!

~CrossFit!~

Today we are working on our papers and cleaning the apartment and tomorrow we are headed back to Florence. The first Sunday of each month, all of the museums are free so we are going to try to go see Michelangelo's David at Galleria dell'Accademia. There is also a super old and beautiful pharmacy we want to go see!

Next weekend, Janet's boyfriend gets here and they are going to Venice and I'm going to Zurich, Switzerland so it will be a fun weekend! Hopefully I won't let 5 weeks go by again without updating!! And I'm hoping get a vlog put together this weekend to post! :)

Ciao for now!

Week 2 Update: Dynamo Camp, Cinque Terre, and Pisa!

Clinic: 

This was our second (and final) week at Prosperius, the outpatient clinic we were set up at while our main clinic was down to bare-bones for Italian holiday. We continued to learn Italian phrases that would help us in the clinic and were able to work hands-on with the patients. However, because it it August and pretty much everyone in Italy goes on vacation in August, the patient load was very low which lead to lots of down time. We still had a great time at the clinic and the free time allowed us to get used to being in another country before jumping right in to a busy facility. Lorenzo (our CI) and all of the other PTs were incredibly nice and patient with us as we learned Italian!

~Me, Lorenzo, and Janet on our last day~

Dynamo Camp:

Wednesday, Janet and I were able to go visit Dynamo Camp, a camp for children with special needs who are unable to attend a regular summer camp! I. Love. This. Place. 

~Dynamo Camp~

Kids are able to go to the camp for free and the entire campus is amazing and brand new looking! We spent the morning in the pool with a group of the older kids - first they performed three dances in the pool in an X-Factor-like competition and we were dressed up in costumes and acted as the judges. 

~X Factor Judges~

~Reporting for duty~ 

~The entire campus is gorgeous~

After that, we just played in the pool with the kids until it was time for lunch. Lunch was amazing - it was family-style bowls of delicious pasta and veggies, and we each got an entire ball of mozzarella - my kind of meal! After lunch, we went and toured a long term living facility near the camp and met some other American PT students working at that clinic. When we returned to Dynamo Camp later in the day, we got a full tour of the facilities - a theater for drama lesson, pottery studio, ropes course, rock climbing wall, archery, pool, and a barn with horses, donkeys, and goats. Even though we did nothing PT related at the camp, it was one of my favorite days so far! The entire staff was so incredibly nice and the facility was just amazing! Janet and I decided we just want to live at Dynamo. :)

~Goat!~

~More campus~

Cinque Terre:

~Leaving Monterosso~

One of the places I was most excited to go in Italy was Cinque Terre for the hiking and amazing views - and it did not disappoint (though my legs disagree this week after all the stairs!!) My dad had another trip to Italy and this time my brother, Scott, joined him. We all met in Cinque Terre on Friday (after an eventful first Italian train ride - including missing our train) - by the time we got there, we just got dinner and gelato and walked around the town we were staying in that night - Monterosso.  The next morning, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel then were off on our hike to Vernazza. The hike took 2 hours with frequent rest and picture stops, including some of the most amazing views!!

~Stunning views the entire hike~

When we got to Vernazza, we stopped for lunch and then dad and Scott had to catch the train to Milan for their flight home. Janet and I spent a little more time in Vernazza to get in the water and cool off some! 

~Lunch~

~Cooling off before hike #2~

Then the two of us were off on our hike to the third town, Corniglia. This hike was much more difficult because it was steeper hills, more stairs, and much hotter now that it was midday! We took a lot of rest breaks and finally somehow made it to the end! 

~And then there were two...~

The hikes from Corniglia to Manarola and from Manarola to Riomaggiore were closed due to unsafe conditions (not that we had any energy left to even attempt these hikes) so we took the train straight from Cornelia to Riomaggiore where our hostel was for the night. It was our first night staying in a hostel and were a little nervous about the accommodations but the place was nice and had a great view from the balcony! The one negative about this place was we had to climb 245 stairs from the main street to get to the room which was quite difficult after how many stairs and miles our legs had taken us that day. (Also, having never stayed in a hostel before, we didn't know it was common knowledge that bath towels are often not included!! Oops...) We met a nice girl from Germany staying in our room and got gelato that night and breakfast the next morning with her! Overall, our first hostel experience was definitely better than expected.

~View from our hostel balcony~

Pisa:

~If you go to Pisa and don't take this picture, did you really go?~

After missing our nonstop train to Cinque Terre on Friday and needing to transfer trains in Pisa to get there that night, we got the idea to stop in Pisa on our way home Sunday! Everyone told us that we really only needed an hour or so in Pisa - "it's just a small town, the only thing in it is the leaning tower." So we assumed that the tower would be really close to the train station and we could just walk out of the station, check out the tower, take some pics, and be on our merry way. Wrong. First, my makeup bag fell out of my bag/got stolen on the train from Cinque Terre to Pisa, so when we passed a make-up store while looking for the tower, we made a pit stop in there for a bit. Then, everyone we asked for directions pointed us in a direction and said we were about 15 minutes away from the tower... about an hour later, just before giving up and going home, we FINALLY found the tower - note to self and anyone else planning to visit Pisa - this is not something you want to walk to, especially the day after hiking half of Cinque Terre! The tower was great and we got all of our stereotypical tourist pictures then promptly asked someone where to catch the bus back to the train station because we were not about to do that walk again! After the 3 hour "quick pit stop," we were finally back on a train headed home, completely exhausted!

Home:

After an eventful and jam-packed weekend of travel, we were very glad to be home! I love all of the travel we've done and getting to see different parts of Italy, but there is something about San Casciano that is just very inviting and it really does feel like home now! We got home just in time for me to walk across the street to the park and watch the sunset - my new favorite part of the day!

~Sunset in San Casciano~

We started work at our new facility on Monday and it is great!! But I'll talk more about that in my next post this weekend! We don't have any travel plans for this weekend yet - just planning to stay around town and rest up some after two big travel weekends!

Ciao for now!