{"id":2172,"date":"2016-02-25T11:45:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T16:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/?p=2172"},"modified":"2016-11-18T12:10:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T17:10:40","slug":"hannah-when-abroad-life-imitates-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/2016\/02\/25\/hannah-when-abroad-life-imitates-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Hannah: When (Abroad) Life Imitates Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here it is — my Abroad Com Blog. I always knew I would end up writing one, but I wasn\u2019t sure when or from where. Now, it\u2019s spring of my junior year and I\u2019m blogging in (drum roll, please) London!<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s day one of my internship, and I\u2019m surrounded by movie posters. At Umedia, where I work as a legal intern, framed posters decorate an exposed brick wall, opposite the large arched windows that let sunlight flood the bright white workspace.\u00a0 I\u2019m the newest addition to a team of five here in the London branch of Umedia. Based in Brussels and with offices in London, Paris and LA, Umedia finances and produces films through its own fund.\u00a0 Film production comes with a number of legal and business transactions, so as an assistant to the head of legal affairs, I\u2019ll get my feet wet in media law and the entertainment industry here. (I\u2019m so excited about it!!)<\/span><\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s the first day at Umedia, I\u2019m at the start of week six in London, and I\u2019m in no way ready to leave. Living in London has been everything I imagined: tuning my ears to charming accents, learning about British history while at historical sites, crossing streets with extra caution (they drive on the left?), being aware of my Americanness everywhere I go. Also, socializing in pubs almost every night, honing my professional skills daily, and friending BU students I never would have met.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a whirlwind in the best way.\u00a0 It\u2019s also been lots of quick flights on the weekend to parts of the world I never thought I\u2019d see. Convinced I\u2019d study abroad in Ecuador for the Latin American studies program, I figured I\u2019d have to stick to watching movies to learn about European countries. For me, watching foreign films or movies featuring Americans abroad has been the closest thing to actually travelling overseas.\u00a0 Great way to visit a place on a budget — until now.\u00a0 Once I chose to study British culture and law in London, I placed myself in prime real estate for accessing other cities. So far, I\u2019ve seen Copenhagen, Paris, Florence and Rome.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Princess Anne in <\/span>Roman Holiday<\/span> says: each city, in its own way, was unforgettable.\u00a0 And as I spoke with locals, ate traditional food and soaked up as much culture as I could, I would compare everything to what I\u2019d seen on the Big Screen. I couldn\u2019t help it! My passion for entertainment has apparently travelled abroad with me.\u00a0 But I think it\u2019s something we all do. \u2018<\/span>It\u2019s just like in the movies\u2019 <\/span>has crossed all our minds at some point in life. When your first encounter with a place is through a film, it\u2019s impossible not to seek out that same experience once you\u2019re really there.\u00a0 And so life imitates art.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before flying out to these cities, my only references to them were from cinema.\u00a0 When I arrived in London, I immediately thought of <\/span>Love Actually<\/span>, in which intertwining storylines take the audience to landmark locations across the city.\u00a0 In Copenhagen, I looked out onto the waterfront and thought of Ariel, from Disney\u2019s <\/span>The Little Mermaid<\/span>, the childhood movie that first introduced me to the landscape of Denmark. At Versailles, I geeked out over the chateau, not only for the history of its royal residents, but also because it was just how I\u2019d seen it in Sofia Coppola\u2019s <\/span>Marie Antoinette<\/span>.\u00a0 My roommate and travel pal, Kelsey, quoted Hannibal Lecter in <\/span>The Silence of the Lambs<\/span> as we sipped on Chianti, Hannibal\u2019s drink of choice, at a vineyard in Tuscany.<\/span><\/p>\n

The comparisons didn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0 Since I come from an Italian family, Italy was my number one destination.\u00a0 But as the site of two movies crucial to my childhood, Rome in particular was about more than connecting with my ancestry.\u00a0 Rome was about fulfilling my dream to be Lizzie McGuire and having a holiday like Princess Anne\u2019s. I wish I could put into words what <\/span>The Lizzie McGuire<\/span> <\/span>Movie<\/span> and <\/span>Roman Holiday<\/span> mean to me. When I saw <\/span>Lizzie McGuire<\/span> at age 8, and then <\/span>Roman Holiday<\/span> shortly after, I became convinced Rome was the city where anything was possible.\u00a0 An ordinary middle school graduate could try out life as a popstar, or an overscheduled princess could have a go at being a free spirit. Since Rome was never within reach, I hadn\u2019t considered what would be possible for me there.\u00a0 Visiting Rome was for me, in every cliche way, a metaphor that nothing is out of reach, and childhood dreams do come true. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that I Veni Vidi Vici\u2019ed in Rome, it\u2019s time for some new dreams.\u00a0 Right now, in my internship phase of study abroad, I\u2019m dreaming of an interesting and influential career in media.\u00a0 Whether we realize it or not, the media we consume has an undeniable impact on our lives, from our opinions of today\u2019s social issues to our knowledge of the rest of the world. To work on the legal side of a television network or a production company would be a dream come true, and Umedia is only the beginning. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here it is — my Abroad Com Blog. I always knew I would end up writing one, but I wasn\u2019t sure when or from where. Now, it\u2019s spring of my junior year and I\u2019m blogging in (drum roll, please) London! It\u2019s day one of my internship, and I\u2019m surrounded by movie posters. At Umedia, where … Continue reading Hannah: When (Abroad) Life Imitates Art<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44323],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2551,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions\/2551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}