Flavia Bonifacio, a vivacious student and friend of SPSCA from Spoleto (Perugia province), spent a couple of months in Seattle over the summer of 2009. She made many friends, and loved our city enough to win a chance to study at the UW this spring and summer - so she'll be back!
Read what Flavia says about her time in Seattle:
My name is Flavia Bonifacio, I’m 23 and I’m a student of the University for Foreigners of Perugia, even if my family lives in Spoleto, 40 minutes distant. I had the pleasure to spend the most exciting summer ever in Seattle and for the time I was there (ten weeks) it’s been a wonderful experience.
I’d like to tell you something about it but first, let’s start from the beginning: I met Donna and Mike James in Summer 2005, when I had just graduated from high school and we talked about the Seattle – Perugia sister cities relationship. After less than two months I was leaving for my first big trip to the Emerald City, unaware that after 4years of college, I would go back there again.
Seattle was as beautiful as I remembered! Thanks to the wonderful weather we had, the city had a great vibrant and happy atmosphere and my favourite hobby was walking downtown.
But, since I was also looking for something to keep me busy during the day, I volunteered first in a fancy downtown hotel and then, thanks to the interest of Anni Fuller, in three different University of Washington offices.
During the time I spent in Seattle, Donna and Mike introduced me to a lot of their friends and they were all very kind and welcoming with me, and it’s thanks to all these wonderful people that I had a lot of adventures during my summer. My long time friend Josie De Lellis took me on a fantastic trip to the Oregon coast and we just had a great time; Mike made me discover my (innate maybe) ability for golf and I’m still looking for some friends to play with here in Italy because unfortunately it’s not a very popular sport for young people, and I even had the chance to house sit for a whole weekend and it’s been fun even if at first I was a little bit worried about taking care of the family's three dogs! I went to San Francisco for five days and got a good exercise walking up and down those hills and I took part to a real Italian family gathering, thanks to Valerie Yurina. But you can easily understand that it’s impossible to tell all the things I’ve done in 10weeks: I could go on saying that I went to three baseball games (and the Mariners won each time), took a seaplane ride and celebrated my first 4th of July watching fireworks and eating a cheeseburger. I’ve been invited to several BBQs and went to the Seattle Sounders-Barcelona game with my friends Jamie, Juan and his cousins. I met people from Turkey, Japan, Libya, Spain, England, Taiwan and China working at the University and I tried different types of food like Japanese, Mexican or Thai.
But, as I write, it’s a lot difficult to decide what is worthy enough to be included in this report, but the truth is that everything I’ve done has been great and fantastic and fun…and…and…. probably the most important thing is that I was feeling happy and at ease while I was doing them.
However, I always kept in mind who I was and where I did come from: I tried to keep a good communication with the homeland as I used to Skype with my family & friends two or three times per week. When you are so far from home you definitely appreciate more the things that you have, but not because are better than those you’re having at that moment, but because you realize how much the far ones mean to you. In 76 days I probably felt homesick three of them at least, as sometimes I did not even have time to think about my dear ones. Mike and Donna have totally been like my American parents, taking care and ready to be of help in case I needed it.
And after more than two intense months, right when I was starting to think: “I don’t want to leave anymore”, the last week suddenly arrived, which, as you can perhaps guess, was the most contradictory one: I was somehow happy about meeting my parents and friends, my little brother and even the dog again, but on the other hand I was sad about leaving all the friends I made, and the new word of Seattle, even with its pros and cons, that I liked a lot.
But I left, at the end of August with, in addition to the one I previously had, a second 35 lbs bag, full of memories, laughs and wonderful times plus a golf club, a gift from my first golf instructor.
The time I spent in Seattle has helped me take an important decision also: applying to the study abroad program of my university to the UW. I even convinced my parents who have always considered “study abroad a waste of time”. But not for me. The moment I got home I started to prepare myself for the tests and interview I would have gone trough. And I made it.
So thank you Seattle, I’ll see you soon!
Flavia
