This information pertains to Summer Session 2009. If you would like to be notified when information about Summer Session 2010 is available, please sign up for e-mail updates.
Imagining Rome: Art Studio and Creative Writing in Rome
May 21-June 19, 2009
The following information pertains to the last time this program was offered. If you would like to be notified via e-mail when new information is available, please subscribe to the Summer Session announcement list.
Travel
Air Travel
The departure date from North America is Thursday, May 21, for arrival in Rome (Fiumicino airport) on Friday, May 22, 2009.
February 25, 2009 is the deadline for making the $300 deposit for airline tickets and securing the group rate. Prior to that deadline, deposits are fully refundable. April 16, 2009 is the deadline for making the remaining payment for the group-fare ticket.
Students are required to book group-fare air tickets unless they receive permission from one of the professors to make other arrangements (see below). Typically, students leave for Rome from their home cities or from Ithaca.
Students arriving on the group flight will be met at Fiumicino airport in Rome and escorted to Palazzo Lazzaroni, the Cornell teaching facility, where they will check in, present their passports, sign apartment agreements, be given a tour of the facility, receive their apartment keys, and be escorted to their apartments, where they will make their own arrangements about the room allocations.
Students who receive permission to book another itinerary must arrive in Rome (Fiumicino airport) no later than the morning of Friday, May 22, 2009, so that they will be able to join the other students for the check-in.
Students who have been accepted to the program (after contacting one of the professors) should begin the air ticket booking process immediately by contacting Marcia Ervay at Baker Travel (607.273.7557) in Ithaca to reserve a group-rate round-trip airline ticket and to inquire about connections to Rome from the point of origin of their trip. Students also can reserve seats by visiting the Baker Travel/TravProf Web site.
While Baker Travel has no affiliation with Cornell, it has booked tickets for other Cornell travel programs, including the Cornell-in-Rome program administered by the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning during the fall and spring semesters.
The group-rate tickets available from Baker Travel agency will be released only to students who are enrolling in the Imagining Rome program.
See the tuition page for information about ticket deposits.
Passports
Students should check to see that their passports are good through July 2009, or else apply for passports as soon as possible.
Each student should make a PDF copy of his or her passport suitable for uploading. One of the professors will ask you to forward the scan once you have registered for the program. The passports scans have to be sent ahead to the Cornell in Rome office, so that the staff there can prepare paperwork required by Italian law.
Cornell students who are American citizens may secure forms and apply for passports at the Tompkins County Courthouse on South Tioga Street in Ithaca. For more information, visit the U.S. government passport Web site.
Note that if you are applying for financial aid, you may include the cost of your passport in your itemized expenses when making application for aid.
Visas
As of January 2009, American students do not need visas for the Imagining Rome program, but others students may. Please identify your citizenship when you contact the professors so that you may receive up-to-date visa information.
Packing Tips
What to Pack
Prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs and sundries. European medicines are calibrated differently than medicines in the United States, and the drugs themselves are often different. Plan on taking only American drugs, and bring all prescribed drugs with you, along with a copy of your prescription(s). If you use over-the-counter U.S. drugs or devices, bring those, too. Bring drugs that you use only on occasion, such as allergy medications. Also consider bringing any drug or drugstore item that you might need while traveling, such as aspirin, Imodium, Pepto-Bismol, Band-Aids, Monistat, and decongestants. There are very high taxes on international drug shipments.
Contact lens fluid and glasses. Bring your own contact lens fluid (it costs more in Italy). Bring an extra pair of contacts or glasses if possible.
Walking shoes. You will be walking every day in Rome, over rough cobblestones and up and down great numbers of stone steps. Bring walking shoes, preferably not white ones.
Clothing. Remember that you are going to Rome as an artist. You do not need to wear a new look every day. You should be prepared to wear a few things many times rather than many things a few times. Wash-and-dry clothing is recommended. Anything that you can hang to dry easily will be especially useful. The apartments have both washers and dryers, but the wash-and-dry cycles on Italian machines are unexpectedly long, and you will not want to heat up your apartments on hot days. The Romans themselves often line-dry their laundry indoors on a rack called a stendino.
Those who do not want to do their laundry in the apartments will find dry cleaning and laundry establishments nearby. Like American establishments, they are expensive.
Please note: Italians dress up more frequently than Americans, and they do so for just about every occasion. Their casual clothes are as impeccably cared for and as pressed as their formal clothes. Bring one nice outfit, and plan to keep cleaning your shoes during the day. Most of the people you will see wearing shorts, flip flops, or backwards-facing baseball caps are Americans. Although the Italians wear jeans, they often do not wear them to restaurants, unless the jeans are dressed up by the rest of the outfit, and they almost never wear shorts in the Centro, where you will be living.
The weather in May can be warm and mild with occasional rain showers. The weather in June will range from warm to very warm to hot, and it will be humid. In order to enter the many churches we will see on site visits, you will need to cover your knees and shoulders. Shorts are unacceptable, and spaghetti-strap tops, although fine on the street, have to be covered with something like a tee shirt for church visits. Pockets are useful whenever you are traveling through the city—it's safer to go into a pocket for a little money than to open up a pack or drag out a wallet. Try to pack summer clothes with pockets.
ATM card with a four-digit (no letters) security code. Check the cost of using your ATM card abroad before you leave the country. M&T Bank in Ithaca recently raised its per-use charge for international machines to $5 per transaction, but there are still credit unions that will charge only $1 or $2 per transaction.
Alarm clock. Bring a small battery-powered one.
Writing, computer, and art supplies. Each student will be making daily entries in a writer's notebook or an artist's notebook. For writers, the first entries must be made before leaving North America; so all students should buy their notebooks before departing. Students also should buy memory media (stick, disc, etc.) before they leave for Rome. Artists will be buying all of their supplies in Rome.
Shoulder bag or pack. Bring a small bag or pack for full-day and half-day outings. Leave your big backpack in the United States or in your apartment, especially when you are boarding a public bus.
Dictionary. Bring a pocket-sized Italian-English dictionary. We recommend the one published by Oxford.
Shampoo, cosmetics, other sundries. It will be cheaper to buy these before leaving home.
Hair dryers, curling irons, etc. The apartments have hair dryers. If you wish to use your own hair dryer, it is best to buy one in Rome rather than use one with an adapter (they tend to break down). Ditto for most other hand-held health and beauty appliances.
Adaptor plugs. If you bring American electronic appliances, laptops, or iPods, it is up to you to find out before you leave which adaptors you need and get them. The adaptors for American devices are easier to get in the U.S. than in Italy. Most laptops now have built-in surge protectors and international current options that sort themselves out automatically, but you'll still need adaptors for the wall outlets in order to plug them in.
Camera cables and storage discs or cards. If you use a cable to download your digital pictures to a computer, be sure to pack the cable that goes with your camera model, because we have learned from experience that you may find it impossible to replace it in Europe. Also bring extra discs or cards for your particular camera. It's always hard to find the right match for your camera when you are traveling and in a hurry. Finally, don't forget your charger (and an adapter for the plug).
Bag, suitcases, duffels. There are now charges for checked luggage, another reason to pack as little as you can and plan to carry your luggage onto the plane. You'll also need to bring only what you yourself can easily and safely carry, so that you can get on and off trains and trams without losing anything. There is an 18-mile trip from the airport to the city center. Each person will be carrying and guarding her or his own bags. You will be traveling via train and then via tram, with walks up and down stairs and across uneven surfaces in between. Once you have checked into the Palazzo (it is only 100 meters from the end of the tramline), you will have to carry or pull your baggage to your apartment. If you are planning to stay in Europe and travel after the program, you should bring even less than if you are returning immediately.
As you pack, remember that airlines will allow you to carry only two items onto a plane. A purse counts as one item. A computer bag also counts as one item. You also will not be able to go through security points with more than two items, including a handbag or a computer case.
If you are able to avoid checking your luggage, you will save at least an hour at the airport when you arrive.
There is at present is a three-ounce limit on the liquid and paste items that you may carry on to the airplane (shampoo and lipstick both count as "liquids").
Zip-lock bags in different sizes. You can use these to flatten out and pack your clothing and to separate it from your shampoo and toothpaste, which might leak in flight.
