One of my favorite Caps from graduation was my friend Jordan’s, she is also a fashion major and her cap was inspired by Chanel.
My Cap for Graudation:
As a fashion major I wanted to be creative when I was designing my cap. Since I work for Tory Burch and she is my favorite designer I decided to put her signature gold logo as my center piece and from that my theme was formed: gold & glamorous. I added swarovski crystals as a finishing touch and represented my class of 2013 with a classy fashion forward cap!
How Did I End Up Here?
As this is my first blog post about my travels I must explain a bit about who I am. I was born and raised in a small farming community in Upstate New York famous for horse racing and its apples. I am currently a senior studying International Business at the downtown Providence campus with concentrations in Sociology and Human Resource Management. I grew up working in restaurants and have a strong passion for cooking and for food in general. 
Fresh oysters on the half shell in La Rochelle, France.
It is times like this that it’s so important to reflect on the crazy and wonderful events that have happened over the last few years that have landed me here in Italy today. Honestly the first people I must thank are my parents and second are the unbelievable professors and staff at Johnson & Wales University that pushed me to do more rather than tell me I couldn’t.
I was fortunate enough to be accepted into two different study abroad programs. The first was the French Language and Cultural Immersion, which allowed me to spend the 3 months of Spring Trimester living with a host family and studying the French language at a local university. The second program is Human Resource Management in the International Context of South Korea where I am able to spend a month in Seoul studying South Korean culture and business. 
My day trip backpack.
The first program began March 1st and ended May 1st and the second program doesn’t begin until the second week of June. For the time in between I made the decision to work two jobs for the past year and save money so that I could travel throughout Europe in an 80L backpack. So far I have traveled to France, Ireland, Great Britain, Switzerland and Italy. On May 29th I will continue my journey as I leave Rome, Italy for Seoul, to continue on to the next leg of my journey. 
Planning my adventure.
I have traveled a great deal before this trip but by far this is the adventure of a lifetime. Johnson & Wales presented the opportunity and I just ran with it. I have learned more about various cultures and people than I could have ever learned in the classroom. I will continue to post about my experiences and the people I have met and places I have seen. Please check back and join me on my journey.
“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
One last blog post for junior year! My mom came up last night and we spent the night at the JWU Radisson on my favorite Sleep Number beds. Those things are SO comfortable, I go to the lowest setting and just sink. We woke up and ate breakfast at the Liberations Cafe (run and served by JWU students) and got delicious pancakes and home fries beofre we headed back to my house to pack up and head back home to New Jersey.
Junior year was…an experience to say the least. I’m glad I got to experience off campus housing for at least 1 year of my college experience. Even though I am 21, I would still rather have lived on campus but it was still fun!
This was also my first year of strictly academics. I took macroeconomics, food in film and literature, modern US history, psychology, accounting I, spanish, marketing, hospitality law, accounting II, food service management/human resources, food writing and news writing. I must say, some classes I absolutely hated *cough cough spanish* but some classes I absolutely LOVED and would happily take again *like food in film, news writing, marketing, and food writing!
I personally went through A LOT this year.. I had an absolute blast this spring trimester; I loved going to class and got back into my academic swing of things, got back into my clubs and activities, and went out instead of sleeping the day away. Yes I went through a lot, but at the end of the year I learned a lot and overall still had a great year at JWU. I loved being a Disney Culinary Program Campus Rep, blogging on here for JWU, exploring more of JWU and what we have to offer.
And now, I’m officially a rising senior! 3 amazing years done in the blink of an eye!
No Car? No Problem!
Jerry’s Artarama is conveniently located at 14 Imperial Place which is right near the Providence down city campus (only about a 5 minute walk). It offers a wide selection of art supplies, everything from paint to poster boards. With all of my fashion projects I was able to shop at Jerry’s and get everything I needed!
Here is the link to the website!
It’s been a busy week for me here with getting ready for finals and doing last minute meetings and get togethers and already there is so much to add to a week in review, definitely a busy time here at JWU!
Last weekend, in addition to my trip to the Chocolate Bar, it was also Wildcat Wahoo! This is an end of year carnival (think kind of like the ending of Grease) hosted by the University Involvement Board. You get unlimited rides; this year there were bumper cars, spinning rides, kite rides where you lay down on your stomach, a scrammbler and the zipper. You get 2 food vouchers where you can get popcorn, cotton candy, fried dough, and drinks like pepsi. You also get 5 game tickets and novelty tickets to get free items such as spray painted sunglasses and hats. And it’s all free!
Then this past Thursday I had my roommate’s Bistro 4061 class. In the FSM Bachelors program there is a course where you run a bistro. You rotate between the back of the house, serving, seating, you name it. My roommate was the front of the house manager and invited us to experience the menu that her group put together. They had a Mexican-themed menu complete with corn bread, fajitas and even chili chocolate mousse. This class mainly sets to provide you with front of the house skills but you also get to put out delicious food!
This weekend I was getting ready for our Disney Culinary Program Send Off Party. I did my first program last year and am doing my second one in July but in between I serve as a Campus Rep. We get together before each term to have a party to welcome those who got accepted into our team and send them off to Florida. I thought it would be cute to make them their own Disney name tags to match ours :)
And finally, my roommate and I just came back from a night out to Boston. We walked around, shopped in Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, went to Mike’s Pastry (as a Jersey girl, I do have to say Carlo’s is my pick!) and saw the city all lit up. We took the MBTA from Providence to Boston, $20 round trip so a trip to Boston is fairly reasonable. We came back late starving and it’s good to know there is a place around town that delivers til 2 AM!
My 5 day weekend has ended and it’s time to start finals..in a few hours. I have Accounting II and News Writing tomorrow and Human Resources and Food Writing on Wednesday. Then it’s Jersey bound on Thursday!
Flash Back Friday!
Have you ever analyzed a garment and wondered how long it took to construct it? Or have you ever asked yourself is the garment you’re buying actually good quality? Well if you have the opportunity to take Apparel Quality Analysis you will get to find out for yourself by doing the deconstruction project! In this photo you can see the before and after pictures of the garment, girls capris. The pants were completely deconstructed until every last stitch was out! This project teaches you how much or how little work can go into construction and truly lets you analyze garments like you never have before.
Last weekend was a chocoholic’s dream. The Baking & Pastry Arts Club went to the Chocolate Bar at Cafe Fleuri in the Langham Hotel in Boston MA.
I love everything about chocolate, how it’s made, working with it, making showpieces or dripping strawberries, and I also love eating it!
The Chocolate Bar is ALL chocolate, they even have chocolate soup! There were truffles, tarts, mousses, ice creams, a crepe station, fondue bar, cakes, cookies, brownies, if it’s chocolate, it was there.
They even had a potato chip and popcorn bar to cancel out some of the sweetness with a kick of salt.
A normal ticket to the bar costs about $40, but with the Pastry Arts Club if you attend a certain amount of demos and community service projects you get a discount. My mom and I already saving up because she wants to go before I graduate next year!
Cookies! Peanut Butter, Molasses, and Chocolate chunk :) #JWU #bakingandpastry
Just another day in the Baking and Pastry labs of JWU.
(via srubin93)
On our second day in Stockholm, we decided to devote it strictly to seeing the royal palace. Pictures were not allowed once inside the palace but it is too hard to describe the beauty that it was. We went into the treasury where all of the royal jewels and crowns were held. We also saw the apartments and rooms inside the palace. Of course everything inside was covered in gold and extremely guarded. My favorite part of this day was going underneath the palace and seeing the ” old palace”. Inside told the histories about the palace including all the fires that happened. There were also things like the original wells that were used and the dresses that the royal family used to wear. After a packed weekend, nobody was ready to take a 7 hour bus ride back to Gothenburg. In my opinion, this study abroad trip should be in Stockholm because there is so much more Swedish culture there.
