One minute, the UGA program associate director was reading us a letter from the Mayor of Florence (sent to all study abroad leaders) saying that Florence was fine and that students and faculty should feel free to travel there. This was exciting because we had a 4-day excursion to Florence planned for 2 weeks from now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, not more than 5 hours later, we learned that UGA was canceling the program and sending students home – tomorrow<\/strong> (Sunday, March 1)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though it seems to all of us (and all the Cortonese) that everything is fine and it\u2019s \u201cTuscany as Usual\u201d here, when the U.S. State Department raised the level of caution to a \u201c3\u201d for all of Italy, the risk management folks in Athens, Georgia (where UGA is located) decided that it was enough to warrant bringing the kids home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since our apartment is paid up and we have nothing of note to return for, Mary Pat and I are staying put here in Cortona until our planned departure date at the end of April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Frankly, we feel safer here than at home at this point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One minute, the UGA program associate director was reading us a letter from the Mayor of Florence (sent to all study abroad leaders) saying that Florence was fine and that students and faculty should feel free to travel there. This was exciting because we had a 4-day excursion to Florence planned for 2 weeks from … <\/p>\n