After I and the UGA students had arrived in Rome, we headed to Cortona where our campus is located. At the Kehoe center, I saw the beautiful Cortona view. The view was amazing, and I was speechless for seconds.  In addition, the whole city was like a medieval age city because of elegant and classic architectures. I felt like I was time traveling.

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This study abroad was all about wine. We learned so much new information about wine, such as plant pathology, horticulture, positive and negative health effects of drinking wine, wine processing, wine regulation, Italian wine culture, and the history of wine. That was really valuable information. My favorite part of this course was the sensory labs. The sensory labs were amazing labs that I have ever taken. Before we started actual wine sensory tasting, we did aroma training that helped to describe our wine tasting. In every sensory lab session, we tasted at least four different wines. I wrote down what I smelled, what I tasted, and what I felt by tasting those wines, and then shared my personal opinions with other students. Since each person has different tasting experiences and different ways to describe, it was really good to listen to others’ opinions.

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In addition to wine sensory labs, I was happy to taste other Italian cuisines and desserts. I tasted different types of pasta, diverse flavors of gelato, soft and sweet tiramisu, Italian style iced coffee (Caffe Shakerato), pizza, amazing appetizer bruschetta, risotto, perfectly cooked pork, cannoli, cheese, and panini. When I tasted Italian foods, I was really impressed by the flavors. Even though they used very simple ingredients with no special culinary techniques, they created wonderful combinations of flavors.

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During free weekend, I would like to recommend you go somewhere, such as Rome, Florence, and Venice. I and my friends went to Florence to travel.  Florence was quite close to Cortona. It only took one and a half hour by train. We went to Accademia Gallery, Uffizi Gallery, Giardino bardini, and other tourist attractions. It was a great experience to see Italian masterpiece arts, statues, and architectures.

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