Written By OEs Rachael & Adam Greetings Terra family, friends, and fans! This is the final blog by your OE’s Rachael & Adam. It has been an honor herding your kiddos through airports and train stations for the last couple months! We have shared many a laugh, lots of gelato, weird dance experiences in a yurt, some tears, and met and loved many donkeys along the way. We started in… Read More

Written By Riley START It is raining outside. The campfire is smoldering. Two of us help our Irish contact, Colm prepare breakfast in the outdoor kitchen. The rest of us sit on the outside tables, in the yurt, or huddled around the campfire, waving off the smoke. We eat delicious chestnut pancakes (made with Paladini’s own supply of chestnut flour), scrambled eggs (not without lack of eggshells), and Colm’s delicious… Read More

Written By Riley Ciao! This week the group got a healthy mix of suburban, urban, and then rural living, as we moved from the suburbs of Florence, to central Florence, to our current camping spot in Garfagnana. By last week, each member of our group had gotten the chance to step into the role of group leader and so the group devised a council system to equally split up group… Read More

Written By Nick & Charlotte For this week during our trip we went trekking along the Via Francigena. We started out in the city of Gambassi Terme and finished in the city of Siena while making our way through the country side of Tuscany, staying in Abbeys and Convents along the way. Our journey started off with bread making and a 14km hike to the city of San Gimignano. We… Read More

Written By Jack & Cedar Salutations to our beloved fans! My, what a week it has been! Following a challenging week at Re-Green, we returned to Athens for the afternoon. After dropping our bags off at the AirBnB, the very stinky group scurried over to the trusty laundromat, followed by lunch at our favorite souvlaki place (for the 100th time). The group then went their separate ways- some of the… Read More

Written By Riley & Ethan This week we boarded an early morning flight from Crete to Athens to explore the independence of Greek city life. After settling in to our spacious AirBnb on Loulianou Street, afternoon free time was spent napping, locating laundromats, vintage shopping, and sampling the wide variety of cheese pies Greece has to offer. That night, the group dined together at a local souvlaki restaurant where we… Read More

Written by Natalie & William Greetings Carpe Diem enthusiasts, Our group had an excellent second week in the mud houses in the mountains of Crete. The week was focused on further Greek exploration. We continued our Greek classes with our teacher, Maria. Our lessons focused on more common sayings and greetings which were useful on our trips to local towns. We even learned some traditional Cretan dances – made even… Read More

Written by OEs, Rachael & Adam Yasus Terra friends, family, & fans! OE’s Adam and Rachael here writing with an update. We can’t believe it has almost been a week since the group united for the first time in NYC. We went straight into a loooooong journey from JFK to Amsterdam to Athens to Crete to a two hour drive to our destination. We arrived in stormy rain and cold… Read More

Dear families and friends of the Spring ’22 TERRA group, After a full day of travel, the TERRA group has made it to Crete. They look forward to settling in, getting some sleep, and then to waking up and diving in to their orientation. They’ll spend the next few days focused on getting to know each other, the program, and getting an introduction to Crete! They’ll post an update about… Read More

Hello family and friends of the Spring ’22 TERRA group, We’re happy to report that all TERRA students have arrived safely to JFK and connected with Adam and Rachael. They are all together as a group for the first time and are already enjoying starting to get to know one another. They are looking forward to their adventures together – and we are all looking forward to following along. We’ll… Read More

Written By OEs, Adam & Rachael Yasus Terra Crew and family and friends who will be following us on this journey! This is Adam and Rachael your OE’s writing from training in Portland, Oregon. On this blog from here on out you will be hearing directly from students about our adventures and their experiences! This week we have been enjoying seeing old Carpe friends, getting out and about in chilly… Read More

Written By Sheldon & Lauren A funny thing happened after a north to south traverse of Italy (with a brief detour to Venice, almost), from “La Dotta, La Grassa, La Rossa” on the Emilia Romagna plains to the chestnut covered slopes of Tuscany, from the David to the Sassi, the overnight voyage with Greek and Albanian truckers across the wine dark sea, to Hellas, and Athens, and Kriti, and finally… Read More

Written By Sebastian Waking up early and being on time for transition days has not been our group’s strong suit and our transport day to Crete was no different. We rushed to the subway station near our Athens hostel 15 minutes late and crammed into the train just as it pulled out. We took a very small plane to Crete and met our local contact Xeno. We spent the afternoon… Read More

Written by Maya S. When I first heard that the ferry from Italy to Greece was supposed to take 17 hours, I thought I was being pranked. But as it turns out, I was not. Now I’m not gonna lie, I was asleep for roughly 14 of those 17 hours, but I’m sure everyone had a great time. And the long boat turned out to be worth it because we… Read More

Written by Mallory & Anna Terra group made their grand debut in Matera under cover of darkness. We first met our Matera liaisons Andrea and Birgit at 9 at night in a murky bus stop somewhere in Matera. They shepherded us to the farm, or Masseria, that would become our humble abode for the next seven days. We all piled into Andrea’s van that would also become our home away… Read More

Written By Emma L. Where to even begin. This week was one of the most beautiful ones yet and I think we all enjoyed being more connected to nature with some of the crispest air I’ve ever consumed. Starting on day one, another tough travel day. Shuttle to bus to train to train to bus to walk, Carpe has us absolutely mastering the Italian public transportation system. Arriving in a… Read More

Written By Gracie Where to even begin… We arrived on October 8th, after two bus rides we made it to the city of Siena, for about an hour we explored the winding roads and got lunch. My classic plate of straight meat never disappoints. After lunch, we returned to the bus station and boarded a van to Spannocchia. Let me just start by saying, it was nothing we could ever… Read More

Written By Emma and Sebastian On Friday, half of the Terra group took a 3 hour trek down from Paladini to the train station while the others enjoyed a nauseating bus ride scaling the side of the mountain! After what some would call an eventful start to our journey, we refueled with Caprese sandwiches on the hot train platform. All was well though, and we made it to our hostel… Read More

Written By Emma Arrivederci Bologna, buongiorno Paladini. The group woke up early Saturday morning to walk a mile with packs on to a bus to a train to another train to another bus to another 1 mile walk to arrive at a campground with a composting toilet situated halfway down a mountain. Here, we have been spending our days around a campfire sitting on old tires wrapped with rope and… Read More