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Working it out in the world, and sometimes writing about it.

Monday, March 31, 2008

La Vita e Bella

I'm finally happy here. Yes, it took a while for it to happen, but a spark from nowhere finally found me somewhere in Assisi and my happiness just took off. Life is beautiful, I love where I am, I'm lucky and blessed and there's so much to do and be seen! I'm so thankful to have finally gotten here. About time.

Cortona

Lizards scuttled across the ancient walls like crabs. The black and yellow or green lizards started and then halted in our presence, like squirrels caught in the middle of the road, unsure of how to proceed. We walked further up the trail, paralleling the Estrucan walls of Cortona, towards la Basilica di Santa Margherita, which overlooks all of Cortona and affords a view of distant Lake Trasimeno.
Cortona was made famous by Frances Meyes’ Under the Tuscan Sun, though it’s always been thought of as one of the classic Tuscan towns of Italy. Cortona boasts a sparse population of under 2,500, but between Meyes’ book and the movie, Cortona’s population swells during tourist season, beginning in April and petering out in October.
My roommate, Jessie, has wanted to go to Cortona for a few months now. “It’s where Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed,” she said. That fact didn’t thrill me as much as the 2500-plus-year old walls that encase the hillside and hilltop town.
The small city is only an hour and fifteen minute train ride away, and we arrived around noon. We had read in both of our guidebooks that buses ran twice an hour from the train station, located below Cortona in Camucia, to Cortona. First, we noticed the tabacchi (literally, tobacco shop, but also sells bus tickets, train schedules, etc.) was closed, and then we saw that the bus schedule didn’t even list any times for buses on Sunday. We conferred with a German couple (who were toting heavy luggage…oof!) and decided to hike up the steep incline. It took me and Jessie just over an hour to get to the top, sans luggage. We never did run into the Germans; I wonder if they made it.
When we finally made it up to the actual city (we had been skirting the outside walls for a while), we were in awe of how quiet the town was. The town really is just this big, and the multiple piazzas the town has seem to run together. We had no plan for the day except enjoy the beautiful weather and explore the town. Once we figured out that we had already walked through the town in ten minutes, we decided to hike up to la Basilica di Santa Margherita. I really wanted to hang out by the walls (c’mon, they’re old, and awesome), so we took a trail up to the top lined with the walls. It was somewhat unnerving to run my hand along the sun-warmed stone knowing that some now-ancient hands had laid the stone there centuries and centuries ago. That, and bits of wall crumbled at the brush of my hand. No good.
The view from the top was everything you expect when someone says they had a hilltop view. Cortona sat directly below, and further down was Cambucia, spread out like an uneven blanket. The lake hung to the left in the haze, partly obscured by the hills (mountains? Foothills? Non lo so). We breathed speechlessness at the top and then headed down on the opposite side of the church.
On the way back down to one of the main piazzas, we ambled through the residential streets. The stones radiated cool air, impossible to imagine after our day in the sun. But Jessie and I decided were both bramasole, craving the sun, after the weeks of rain and clouds and Florence. Many of the stone buildings and houses seem to be original, from Etruscan times, or at least repaired and built up in the 15th century. Roofs sagged like a an old dog’s back and mortar sifted out of the walls, leaving tiny piles the size of ant hills. Roofs towered over others, verandas hung on tightly to the sides of houses. One thing in particular struck me—most of the windows we passed had curtains of lace hung in them. I didn’t know if it was a Cortona thing or if there was some other significance. I’m not the lace type, but they were all very beautiful and, if nothing else, surely attributed to the old-country feel.
Something I just couldn’t get over: Cortona felt a bit like Disneyland, or what I remember Disneyland feeling like when I was eight. I know that’s s terrible thing to say about such a beautiful place in Italy, but everything was so…perfect. It would have been irritating if it hadn’t been so beautiful.
We hiked back down after our walk through the town. We hoped to catch an early train, but after realizing the ticket booth only took cash, we were in a bit of a pinch. I was (and still am) Debit card-less (high-five, Visa!), and Jessie only had five Euro on her. After a brief uncomfortable panic, Jessie saved the day and we headed back on the train.
Cortona’s one of those places you want to go when you have literally nothing to do that day. I mean that in a good way. You have no time by which you need to return, no deadlines, no expectations. Yes, there museums in the town, recommended restaurants, but we skipped all of that and just spent the day outside. The only building we stepped into all day was a café, and that was only so Jessie could break her 50.
So here we sit, in our dim living room, brown as berries and no longer bramasole.

Matt's Visit

When someone asked what I was doing for Spring Break, and I didn’t include another country’s name besides Italy in my plans, people looked taken aback. Greece, France, Africa—all these places topped my friends’ lists, but not mine.
Weeks ago, I invited my friend Matt out to visit. I never thought he’d actually be able to come out, but I’m so glad that he did. Usually, spring breaks don’t line up the ways ours did. That and he could afford it. It all fell together.
Matt spent a brief six days here, but we certainly got a lot accomplished. I say it like we had a business meeting or something, but we literally did cover quite a lot in such a short time. He arrived on a Thursday during my midterms week. I had one test to go that evening, but I was too antsy to study for it, so I sat impatiently at the table and waited. My roommate, Ember, breezed out of the room, headed to some appointments, and I barely noticed. A few minutes later, about the time I was expecting a knock at the door from Matt, Ember called me, telling me she’d run into Matt and given Matt directions to our apartment. Long story short, Ember is not the most directionally gifted person, and Matt got lost. I still have no idea how she knew it was Matt—she’d never seen him before, not even a picture. But after a confusing and stressful 20 minutes, Matt was in my apartment.
It’s always weird when two worlds collide. It was the same way when I went to college in Colorado and I thought I kept seeing people I went to high school with; it was unnatural. And it certainly felt strange to have my Washington/home life pressed front to front with my Florence life. But it was certainly nice to have someone here for me. No one else but me. Selfish—yes. But still true.
I finished my midterm in record time and then Matt and I headed out to dinner with some of my friends at a local trattoria. When I’m with Amanda and Sara (both from Colorado), I get incredibly giggly and goofy. Poor Matt—I don’t think he knew quite what to do. But we had a delicious meal, followed by equally delicious one Euro gelato.
Friday we didn’t do much, I don’t think. Matt and I both threw on the pottery wheel in the ceramics studio while it rained outside and we chatted or sang along to Sara’s iPod. There’s nothing like playing with clay and talking and intermittently singing along to Flogging Molly. We went with Amanda and her boyfriend, Andrew, who was in town for 10 days, to Fiesole where we heard we could get cheap soccer tickets. Three hours later and ticketless, we came back home, after going up to and down from Fiesole, to the stadium, only to find out that only Tuscan residents can purchase tickets (what?!).
Saturday, Matt, Sara and I went to the Stibbert Museum, where this guy, Stibbert, collected an amazing assortment of armor. I didn’t know what most of the stuff was, but Matt knows almost everything about everything in that museum. I don’t know how he does it. The museum was a good three miles away from the apartment, and it was a beautiful walk to and from the museum. The sun was setting on the way back, and we passed a gorgeous park with a fountain. Sometimes, life in Florence is so beautiful it hurts.
Aaah, the infamous Easter Sunday. I woke up to the dizzy and sporadic sounds of an Easter parade passing on a street parallel to our apartment. We leaned out the balcony and saw men (only men) dressed in period costumes with instruments. It was quite a hoot, as my mom would say. We had heard that there were going to be some firewords at the duomo, which we can see from our balcony. The tradition in Florence is to open the giant doors of the duomo (it only happens on Easter), something about a dove, and then fireworks exploding from a cart in the middle of the piazza. We had planned on going to Elba, where Napoleon was held after the fall of Paris 1841, but we wanted to stick around for the fireworks. After a half hour of waiting, we took off and hitched a train to Piombino. It was a long train ride and, at one point, the train stopped and then went in the other direction. Matt and I were stunned. Turned out the train was only switching tracks to take us to the port town. My guide book said that the ferry ride from Pimobino to Elba was only 20 minutes, but it actually took an hour. By the time we got to Portoferraio, the port town on Elba, it was five. FIVE. We had done nothing all day. We looked (or thought we looked) at the schedule for returning ferries, and determined that we had an hour and a half to explore the fortress where Napoleon hung out.
The fortress is terraced, and there were quite a few switchbacks to get to the top. It was raining, but the sun was also setting, and slits in the cloud showed the sun just sitting on top of these hills across the way. It looked like a peach on fire. For some reason, it made me think of Peru and Ecuador, neither of which I’ve been to. It was another one of those painfully pretty moments.
After climbing to top and lingering to take pictures, we headed back down to catch our boat. After finding the only open ticket booth and purchasing our tickets, we realized the boat didn’t leave until 8:30 that night, over two hours away. No problem, we just ate at a pizzeria and talked for a while.
Once back in Piombino, we saw a blue bus pull away from the station. When we got to the completely deserted station, we looked at the monitor and discovered that the last train to Florence had left an hour before and that the last bus to Florence was the one that had just pulled away. After a few freezing hours in the ferry terminal and getting kicked out at closing, Matt insisted we get a hotel. I opted for walking around till the next bus at 6, but he basically told me that was stupid. He was right—that night, there was a thunder/lightning/rain storm.
We didn’t actually leave Piombino until 9:30 the next morning. The bus we wanted to take at 6 was a EuroStar bus, and there was no EuroStar kiosk at which to buy tickets, and the train station ticket office wasn’t open yet. What an amazing system.
We finally got home in Florence at 12:30, but we didn’t stop there. We hit the Boboli Gardens. We hiked up to the top and then stepped into the porcelain museum. Meh—same old thing, like the Belvedere Palace in Vienna. Hold on—am I becoming jaded? A little, I think. How lucky am I to be able to flippantly toss out a comment like that? Woah. Anyway, there were a few contemporary pieces there that both Matt and I loved. Huge abalone and conch shells adorned with silver…a silver face! It’s kind of impossible to describe, but nonetheless, it was the coolest thing I’d seen in a porcelain museum in a while.
While we were out roaming the canopied paths, it started to rain. The rain quickly turned to hail and we ran for it into the costume museum. The neatest thing in there (besides being dry) was Cosimo I’s burial clothing. I’m unsure as to why he was exhumed, but nonetheless, it was cool to see what he had been wearing. It was partially decomposed, but still there. There was also a chronological order to the garments, starting in the 1600s, and ending in the 1980s. Ugh. The 80s. The embroidery of the 1700s was incredibly impressive, though. It looked like it had been painted on.
To conclude one of the coldest 24 hours of my life, we went up to Piazza di Michelangelo that night. Pretty sunset as always and a beautiful hike up. And finally, a shower when we got home. Amazing.
Matt’s last day, Tuesday, was spent museuming. Lucky Matt, it turned out to be Art Week in Florence, so all the public museums were free for him (I have my Uffizi Card). We hit the Academia at 8 and got in quickly. Yes, the David is that cool. But so were many of the large paintings and plaster moulds held in a back room. Next, we did the Bargello. This was a weird one—it used to be a prison until 1837, I think, and then art donations started pouring in. The Bargello’s collection is diverse and eclectic, to be vague and broad. Renaissance sculptures and ivory carvings occupy the same spaces. But I hear that the Bargello is one of the most underrated museums in Italy, and sure enough, it wasn’t that crowded.
After the Bargello, we ate potato pizza in Piazza di Santa Croce, by my school. We ran into an American (?) Christian (?) chorus. They sang Bridge Over Troubled Water and maybe even won Matt over. J We trekked back over to the Boboli Gardens—it was another beautiful day. We roamed through Pitti Palace and the various museums inside, and moseyed through the gardens. We found a hedge of oranges—they were gated, but seriously, a hedge of oranges. I love Italy.
We finished up Matt’s visit with another gorgeous visit to Piazza di Michelangelo. Sunset up there is never disappointing, and even if you miss it, Florence is still alive and stunning at night. Some cities have all the luck.
I remember the beginning of the semester when everyone was talking about all the people coming to visit them. Parents, sisters, best friends…I felt left out. Granted, I wasn’t in the best of spirits when I got here, but as more and more people (namely, my roommates) had people come to visit, my heart ached a little more. I wanted to share this place with someone. I wanted to show someone my favorite places, meet the people I have grown to love, and see what I do here.
So, thanks, Matt.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Hey Wallet...I Miss You

I lost my wallet. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. I know I had it at the gelato place and then it was gone the next morning. I assumed Christy, Jessie’s cousin, had it and had accidentally left for Paris with it in her bag. We had gone out for aperitivo (you buy a drink—in my case, a 5 Euro glass of wine—and you get free food, buffet-style, lots of it) and I had asked her if I could put it in her purse because I didn’t want it snatched from my coat pocket while I was loading up my plate. Post-aperitivo, Christy handed me my wallet so I could pay for my gelato. And then it gets unclear about who had what and when. I thought I handed it back to her, but she swears up and down she doesn’t have it. I seriously doubt it fell out of my pocket on the way home, and its certainly not in the apartment, and I turned it upside down. I checked my account activity online—nothing suspicious at all.
I lost: my debit card; International Student ID card; $30 international calling card; 20 Euro; my Uffizzi card, a card that grants me free unlimited access to the public museums in Florence; and a card that handily had my passport number on it. The debit card situation is worked out, I get a new one today. But it does concern me that my passport number and an ID are somewhere out there. So I have to make a stop at the US Embassy tomorrow…awesome.
I know it’s going to turn up. Or at least, I hope so. Someone has it, unwittingly. But the sad thing is, eve if it miraculously did fall out of my pocket, the good Samaritan who would turn it in (if such a thing exists) wouldn’t know what to do with it. I have no contact info in there, and the police have no way of finding me, either, as our permesso di sigiornos won’t be processed until after we leave. How handy.
So, I cried, and then cut my losses. Fuck it, I have more important things to do.
But, hey, Wallet, if you’re reading this, could you come back, please? My Uffizzi card hasn’t yet paid for itself and you and I, Wallet, we have history together. You’ve seen me through some pretty rough times, and I’d like to have my friend back. I’m sorry about that scratch that’s on your back—I was being careless when I threw you in my backpack with pencils. I’ll do better next time, Wallet, I promise. Please come home? Give me another chance?

St. Paddy's Day Dash: Florence-style

I’ve been running the same race over spring break since I started college. Yes, I’ve only run it twice, but it’s something that I most look forward to when I go home for the week. I’ve got the altitude on my side, the training (if I’ve actually been training), and the thrill of running on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, overlooking the sound. The city closes down the Viaduct for the race, and every time I cruise on the Viaduct, on foot or in a car, I think, “I run here.” It’s a pretty snazzy feeling, to say the least.
I didn’t realize I would be missing the race because I’d be in Florence until it was all said and done. I was accepted to the program, had picked out my classes, taken out loans, bought the plane ticket, etc. Not that it would have changed my decision to go abroad had I remembered my Spring Break running tradition, but it did make me sad to think that my junior year of college would be the only year in which I wouldn’t run the race. Knowing this, I left my “Erin go brach” shirt at school, thinking I wouldn’t have a use for it.
I sat on my couch this past week running the upcoming dates through my head. Midterms on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Matt arrives Thursday, then Spring Break….but I realized I had completely forgotten all about St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not a drinker, so it’s never meant much to me at all (sorry Irish ancestors). The only thing about St. Paddy’s Day that sparks an interest in me is the race.
No, I wasn’t going to be in Washington for the race.
No, I wasn’t going to go to bed early and eat well the night before for race day prep.
No, I wasn’t going to get up at 7 AM, be at the starting line at 8:50, for the race at 9.
No, I wasn’t going to be running with over ten-thousand other Seattlites from the Space Needle to Safeco.
And no, I wasn’t going to get to see that great view from the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
But so f’in what?
I’d do it in Florence.
I’ve been running pretty regularly here, no thanks to my temperamental IT band that makes my knee seize up. I’m not in the best shape I’ve ever been, but those hour-long runs do something.
I roughly knew where 3.5 miles was on the out-and-back route I usually run (not a real 5K, which is 3.1 miles, because the distance between the Needle and Safeco is just over 3.1), so that was figured out. I had a green shirt, my mint-green CSU Rams shirt, proudly purchased from King Soopers in the Fort last fall. I didn’t need much else.
I thought about eating well the night before. I kind of did. I thought about going to bed early, but I read into the night instead. I thought about getting up early to beat the dense crowds that swarm the Ponte Vecchio later in the morning. Instead, I woke up, finished the book I’d started the night before, suited up around noon, and headed out the door. Maggie lent me her digital watch and I was prepared to run under 8-minute miles (like I said, not in the best shape).
I cruised. There weren’t thousands of other people running with me, but the view was certainly great. The Arno swept upriver noisily by my side and the Ponte Vecchio sagged with all the tourists on it. My first mile was something like 6:45. And my knee was shot. I tried to go out another half mile, almost making it halfway through my “race,” but by the time I got there, I was limping. Usually, I would’ve kept going. But this IT band wasn’t having any of it, so I walked the thirty minutes home. Awesome.
So it wasn’t the real Henry Weindhard sponsored race, but I still felt like I participated. I didn’t have a real timing chip attached to my ankle. But I was there in spirit and dammit, I wore green. No, I didn’t run the entire race, but I walked every step back. Things change, we adapt, we do the best we can. Sometimes the best you’ve got is a shitty IT band, a green school shirt, and you’re the only runner in your race. The greatest thing about it, though, in these kind of races you always win. I’m also aware that I also came in dead last, but I don’t care. I finished the bastard. Besides, who says I have to follow all the same rules? I’m in Florence and, as Amanda Williams says, “I do what I WANT!” I think I need to start adopting more of that mentality. I think that started today.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Quirky Things

There are many quirky things about being and living in Florence. So far I have noticed these:
- I would never want to drive here. There is no order whatsoever to turning left or even driving in a straight line. I have enough trouble as a pedestrian.
- Bidets are really popular here in Europe. No one in our apartment wants to use it, so we instead put a board over it so we have somewhere to put out clothes. I think it’s a vast improvement.
- Italian men somehow think it’s necessary to lean in close when whispering something to you in passing. Thank God for iPods and not being able to understand dirty Italian.
- Older Italian men are the best. I was in a shop a few weeks ago and I was trying to talk in Italian to the owner and I flubbed, and he let out a booming laugh, gently squeeze my cheeks with both hands, and patted my head. Our landlord, Paolo, does the same things, when we aren’t being too obstreperous.
- I don’t know how to squeeze by someone on the impossibly narrow streets. I never hear Italians say “Scusa” or “Scusi,” but I walk too fast and am far too impatient to get stuck behind a Sunday stroller. I must think of a solution.
- There’s a man who, once every couple weeks, decides to scream obscenities into the night between three and six AM. Due to Francesca’s tutelage on swear words, I know exactly what he’s saying. But by the time I’ve left my dreams and realized that someone is actually yelling “Go fuck yourself, you shithead” outside my apartment, he moves over to another block and restarts his whole performance.
- Male runners here seem to be the only males in Italy under 30 who don’t look twice at women. It’s awesome.
- Italian male runners love spandex.
- Italians definitely don’t yield to pedestrians.
- Getting any sort of helpful information is difficult.
- We have a library at school; that makes sense. But what doesn’t make sense is the fact that we’re not able to check the books out. We have to read them in the hallway that constitutes the library. Not ok. My professors recommend all these great-sounding books, but I’ll be damned if I’ll sit in the “library” on a sunny afternoon and read about culture shock. Balls.

Ceramics

When I told people I was taking a ceramics class in Florence, all they said was, “How are you going to get it all home?” I’m glad that getting things home didn’t deter me from taking the class, because it’s one of my favorites.
Monday mornings from 9-2:30 I play with clay, unless we flit about the city getting “inspirations”, getting espressos and gelato as a class, or visiting ceramic supply shops. Ray, our professor, is trained in wood and ceramic restoration, and has been teaching for a few years. He’s the most charismatic and encouraging person I’ve ever met, no exaggeration. He gives us a direction for the day, such as “create a bowl” or “mix two colors of clay”, and beyond that, we’re free to create whatever we want.
Today, I sculpted the lips of The David. Ray has a mold from one of the two copies of The David in Italy. I started sculpting the chin, then the lips, feeling around for slight declines or a soft ridge. Turns out David has some pretty luscious lips. His top lip fuller than his lower lip, and both corners of his mouth pull back a bit, like he’s about to smile. I sculpted this small portion (about 6x6) of The David for almost 3 hours, and I’m not done. I get to go back tomorrow during studio hours and play there as long as I like.
Most days, we have a project to complete, but last week, we walked into class and Ray told us we were going on a fieldtrip. We grabbed out jackets and walked to Santo Spirito church to get “inspirations.” This was short-lived however, and our small class sat around a table near the church sipping cappuccinos. Then we visited a ceramic supply store and picked out new glaze colors, and on the way back from there, we got gelato. You could assume that we wasted a day milling around Florence, but I learned more about Ray and Italian culture in those few short hours than I would have about ceramics in the studio.
What I like about Ray is this: today I asked him what his wife did for a living, and he launched into a 20-minute story about how he and his wife met. You never know what answer to what question you’re going to get with Ray. This, I love.
I also love the idea of creating something. I’ve always loved that. I also like using my hands, evidenced by my affinity for drawing, knitting, jewelry making, etc. And I liked ceramics, but today, for some reason, sculpting is what did it for me. I have lots of free time here, so I could feasibly spend hours in the studio, which I just might do.
So, for all you skeptics out there: I will be bringing David’s lips home. How, you ask? Very carefully. And I just might kiss them as soon as their fired and glazed. Just watch me.

Free Time in Florence

At first, I had no idea what to do with my enormous quantity of free time here. I was also pretty down, so I filled it with episodes of “Will and Grace.” When that ran out, I slept. Finally, I started meeting people and forcing myself to get out and do things.
I’ve started getting back into running. I stayed away from it for a long time, and now I’m doing well again. Hour-long runs along to Arno provide great thinking time and also observing people. A few runs ago, I was coming back and I noticed some water trickling down the trail embankment. I noticed it, but didn’t think too much of it. I went another thirty seconds into my run and literally ran into gushing water. I climbed the embankment and found water gushing from a split pipe at street level. Water covered the sidewalk and pooled in the street. The tiny Italian cars seemed to carefully tiptoe around the massive paddle so as not to get their Smart Cars dirty. There was a tulip truck (seriously, a tiny truck full of tulips) parked right in front of the burst pipe. I was sure it was going to float away. The owner unlocked the door and tossed something inside, and I was sure he was going to climb in and try to make his way out of the growing puddle. Nope—he tossed the keys on the seat and went back to the sidewalk, watching the small sea grow. People accumulated around the water and watched. No one seemed stressed about it at all, but no one seemed to be calling anyone about the increasing water level. I like Italians. I got my shoes soaked hopping my way out of the wetlands, but I didn’t care.
As long as the pipes stay intact, I hope to be fit enough to run a race while I’m here. I have yet to investigate it, and my friend Ross insists that we should do the Torino marathon. He’s never run one yet, and neither have I. I can’t seem to convince him that it’ll take more than a month and half to get ready for one. I’m thinking a 10K. Never run it before, and I’d like to here. That’s my goal.
I have also joined a jazz club. I wish it had a cool Italian name, but alas, it’s called Jazz Club. So sad. It’s a good walk away from my apartment, but the music is well worth it. Every night is something different, but Tuesday nights feature NYU students on open mic night. I ordered my first mixed drink here, Sex on the Beach, because it sounded less painful than the rest. I can barely handle a glass of wine (of which I’ve only had two since I’ve been here) and the drink knocked me out. I’m not built to be a drinker and that’s just fine with me.
I also walk a lot. It’s about a mile and a quarter walk to school, and I usually make that walk at least twice, out and back, but I also walk just to walk. I walk up to Piazza di Michelangelo and around town. Henry James said he learned to see and to walk in Italy. Hopefully I’ll do the same thing.
I started journaling consistently again. I started in December and here I’ve really kept to it. I haven’t journaled like that since sophomore year of high school. I think it’ll be great to look back and see what it was like and what I was like.
I keep a writing book and pen in each backpack and bag I carry with me. It’s sometimes hard to piece together things in all three or four books, but this way I always have something in which to record thoughts and sights. It’s good for me.
Aaah, letter writing! I love it! I’ve been getting mail here, too, and it’s always fun. I think I’m spending way too much on postage, but it’s well worth it.

Vienna

I knew absolutely nothing about Vienna, Austria when I arrived there. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true. I’m even more ashamed that I forgot (because I knew it at one point) that composers Haydn, Strauss and Mozart were all Viennese homeboys, considering I’ve played their pieces and even listened to them here in Italy. Before I came to Florence, I had decided not to sign up for any of the school trips, mostly because they were so expensive. $400-500 for three or four days just wasn’t in the budget. But my professor, Francesco, of my psychology of culture shock “highly recommended” the trip because Vienna went through a cultural culture shock after the fall of the Berlin wall. So, I revisited the fieldtrip booklet and read through the activities. I had no idea what the Schoenbrunn Museum was or the Belvedere Palace, but as soon as I read we would be going to a Viennese symphony concert, I was sold.
I’d never ridden a train, let alone a sleeper train. The cabins are extremely tiny. We’re talking 6x5x10. I climbed in my bed at 11 PM in Italy, and woke up at 7 AM the next morning to bright Austrian houses whizzing by.
Our first day involved dropping by the hotel and storing out luggage. One guy’s response to the inconvenience of not being able to check into our rooms until later in the day was, “This is a four-star shit hole.” How classy.
Francesco navigated the wonderful Underground railway system and we took it to downtown Vienna. He pointed out the incredibly diverse architecture (neo-classical, modern, Roman, Gothic) and then we swung by the Vienna’s beautiful “duomo”, really called the Stephansdom. It’s not so much a dome as it is a building with a pitched roof like many traditional churches. The outside was grimy, like the inside of a dirty fish tank, but the roof shone safety reflectors. The roof is a mosaic of colored tiles, yellow and green, black and white. They’re the brightest part of the entire duomo. Inside, it looks like a German fairy tale threw up. Tons of tall, arched, stained glass windows and carved stone statues dominate the cool building. Numerous wrought-iron chandeliers dangle from the hundred-plus foot ceiling. It was a relief to experience architecture outside of Italy to see what the rest of Europe had to offer.
After our brief visit to the duomo, we grabbed some lunch. I had wienerschnitzel and I had absolutely no idea what it was when I ordered it. All I knew was that Francesco recommended it and I was in no position to question his recommendation in a restaurant called “Wiener Wald”—“Wiener World.” It turned out to be amazing fried veal, something I never would have ordered back home. Way to go, comfort zone! Expand.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out the name of the museum we visited next. I’m inclined to say it was the Belvedere Palace, so we’ll go with it. This was where Emperor Franz Josef II lived with his wife, Elizabeth (Sisi). The downstairs of the museum is entirely dedicated to dishes and flatware. Thousands of pieces. Painted porcelain created especially for Marie Antoinette (one of the reigning couple’s daughters), a dish set commissioned by Sisi for her husband at their summer palace depicting wildlife, including ducks, and sets of dishes made entirely out of silver were some that especially stuck out. When Sisi got bored of a silver set or it went out of style, she had it melted down and then redesigned to her liking. Throughout the hour and a half we spent listening to the audio guide and wandering through the rooms, all I could wonder was where all the dishes, silverware, and platters were stored when not in use.
Upstairs, I learned that storage space was not a problem. There are over a thousand rooms in the palace, and, when in full swing, there was a staff of over 5000 making sure palace life for the Emperor and Empress ran smoothly. I admit, I thought the family was pretentious and wasteful beyond belief when I was viewing the dishes, but upstairs, my opinion changed. It turned out that Sisi had as much to do with politics as her husband did, and both the she and her husband were very involved in commissioning artists and essentially “making artists.” Also, Sisi had a room devoted to exercise, which appalled her staff, but she didn’t care—she exercised her little heart out. She was a tiny little thing.
Our group had split up earlier in the tour, and a girl I had met at lunch, Jackie, and I ended at the same time. We had a moment of panic because we couldn’t find anyone else and weren’t sure if we knew how to get back to the hotel. We wandered around the downtown area and then stumbled across the Underground entrance. Thanks for the excellent guidance, Francesco.
That night we took a bus out to the hills of Austria and had, what tour guide books would probably call, an authentic Austrian meal. It consisted of wine served in a beer glass which was larger than our glass of water, meat, eggs and potatoes, sauerkraut, and finally, strudel. Throughout the meal we were accompanied by an accordion player and the cutest 75-year old violinist ever. He knew the most random English songs, including “This Land is My Land” and a song from “Grease.” They played a waltz and Jackie and Francesco waltzed and that inspired some other Italian diners to ask some of the girls in our group to dance. During dinner, I got to know Andrea and Kerin, two New Yorkers that attend Pace University. By the end of the meal, we had more than a few inside jokes and my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard.
After the meal, Francesca, one of the women that works at the front desk of FUA and also a “chaperone” on the trip, took us back to the center to go to some bars. Excellent, just what I wanted. I wound up going to an Irish pub with Andrea, Kerin and Jackie, and sat people watching while the girls met men so they would buy them drinks. I huddled at my little table and watched a soccer match on the plasma. Call me social and shy, I don’t care. J
The next morning, we headed to the summer palace, Schoenbrunn Castle. We toured more rooms that contained the actual furniture and clothing of the family. The upholstery and tapestries were great and all, but what was spectacular was the “backyard.” It measures 8x14 kms. It has more than a handful of fountains and includes a zoo, running trails, and a café at its highest point, to which we hiked and at which we ate. At the very top, all of Vienna is visible. If felt like I was standing in the entrance to a postcard.
Later that afternoon we went to the real Belvedere Palace. It houses one of the best collections of Impressionist art in Europe, Francesco says. Jackie and I roamed and I discovered some great artists, or whom I had never heard before, including Gustav Klimp. His piece “The Kiss” is stunning, but I probably like it more because of the explanation behind it. I also found a Van Gogh and Monet I really liked. After we left the museum, Jackie and I headed to Hotel Sacher, made famous by the mistakenly created chocolate cake by the apprentice chef hundreds of year ago. We had the cake and Turkish coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, but the coffee was amazing, probably more amazing because it’s boiled three-four times and is served in a copper boiling pot. You then pour it into a very dainty tea cup. Che fantastica!
That night we headed to the symphony. I tried looking nice, but it didn’t work, with a borrowed black blouse and brown pants. Whatever, you don’t need to look good in order to listen to music. The concert hall was a lot different from what I expected. It wasn’t theater seating, but the stage was elevated. The orchestra is well-known for its lack of a conductor—they like to tout that their musicianship is so wonderful that they don’t need a conductor. And indeed, they didn’t.
They played Strauss, Mozart, Schrammel, and Lumbye. I knew some of them, but others were completely new and wonderful to me, like “The Sigh Galop” and “The Champagne Galop.” During a few of the arias, a male opera singer and a female opera singer came out and sang. Two ballet dancers also livened up the already quick and funny “Champagne Waltz.” Many of the pieces had humor written into them, and it was interesting to watch the people in our group react. Some seemed to think it was inappropriate to laugh, and then there was me…I was laughing and clapping and I didn’t care if it was gauche at all. All the other symphony-goers seem to be in the same mindset as me. The only negative aspect of the experience was the constant chattering of my hotel roommates, who were sitting in front of us. After repeated shushing and chair-kicking by me and Jackie, Jackie told them to be quiet. One told the other that she was a bitch and to fuck off. Aah, I love people sometimes.
After the last piece ended, Jackie and I spent some time onstage taking pictures in the first violin seat, at the piano, and with the bronze statue of Strauss.
The rest of our group went out after the concert to bars, but Jackie and I went with Francesca and Francesco to dinner at Hotel Sacher. Francesco called us his guests, and paid for us. I ordered real goulash (during dinner, Francesco told me how to make it!). It was unbelievable. My dad and I are going to have a kick making it this summer.
Francesco is a character. I’ve now heard the story of his old French-Polynesian girlfriend three times. He does enjoy talking about himself, but if you listen long enough, you’ll hear some really interesting things. We laughed a lot and Francesca got a little tipsy. During our dinner the previous night, she had gotten a little drunk and taught us Italian swear words. I am now armed against too-forward Italian men. J
The rest of the night, after dinner, was spent bar hopping. Never again. We ran into my roommates/rude concert-goers….awesome. I didn’t get home till 3 AM. I woke the next morning to vomit in the sink. That’s what you get for yelling at a bar tender to give you some Coke in your five shots, I think.
Our last day we spent at the Kunthistorisces Museum, the highlight of the trip for me. I had a bit of a panic attack for an hour in the museum, but when I calmed myself down, I made my way up the marble staircase (everything is marble in Vienna) to the café to journal for the remaining hours at the museum. Shortly after I sat down, two older Viennese gentlemen and an older woman asked if they could join me. I said of course, and for the next two hours, we discussed American politics in detail of the past and present, art history, and Washington State. They beseeched me to order whatever I wanted, because they were “rich and retired.” I declined, but they ordered me mélange, Viennese coffee, and an apple strudel, despite the fact that I’d already finished off an espresso and cherry strudel.
Tony, the man who dominated the conversation, has been going to the museum for 40 years. He says that the paintings are old friends and when one of them goes on loan, he misses it, but when it returns, he always notices and appreciates it.
He took me to one of Rafael’s famous paintings of Mary and the baby Jesus, of which the Uffizi has another version that Tony said is the less perfect of the two. He described why it was such an innovative painting, why it was unique, etc. A group of German tourists were in our way, and so, being a very large man, he scouted out a good viewing spot for me and didn’t bother lowering his voice to describe everything to me. Then he swung me around the rest of the upper floor pointing out his favorites and why.
I had to leave to catch my train back to Florence, so we did the European two-cheek kiss thing and I left.
I was so pleased that this opportunity was mine and had been a result of something negative and turned out so wonderful. It has since occurred to me that throughout our entire weekend in Austria, we hadn’t met any Viennese people besides clerks and admissions officers. We met Irishmen, Italians, Germans, but no Austrians, no Viennese. I was able to carry on a conversation about where I’m from, why I believe what I believe with complete strangers. I was proud of myself. It was an experience that I didn’t have to share with anyone else. It was me and I liked that. When I left, I liked myself a little bit more than I have recently. I owe Tony one.
One long (10 hours) train ride home in an impossibly hot top bunk, we arrived back in Florence at 6 AM. I had class at 9.
Yes, the weekend was expensive, but worth it. I didn’t spend much at all, picked up some new artists, met some great people, and started to make my way out of the hole I felt I’d dug for myself. I think, in the long run, it helped that I didn’t know a lick about the city, because around each turn, I learned something. I plan on reading up on Franz Josef and Sisi when I get home. I also want to get some books on Klimp. I want to learn about the place I went, see what I saw in hindsight. If you get a chance, go to Austria. Plus, who doesn’t want to go where The Sound of Music was filmed?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Carnevale

Carnevale is something that American festival-goers should attend at some point in their lives. It’s the equivalent of Fat Tuesday, but so much more interesting. It’s like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade plus Halloween and incredibly family-oriented. Families dress in similar costumes, toddlers spill sticky fistfuls of confetti from high-up balconies onto the easy-going Carnevale attendees. Everyone’s laid back. There’s no rush to go anywhere. No rush to the beer garden, no rush back to the parking lot to beat traffic on the way home, mostly because there was no beer garden and no parking lot; everyone takes the train to Viareggio, a small Italian seaside town, a two-hour train ride North of Florence.
The main event, perhaps the only event, at Carnevale is the parade. Enormous, Macy’s Parade-esque floats amble down the road with dancers atop and around the floats, hanging on and jumping off. While the Macy’s Parade features Dora the Explorer and Snoopy, Viareggio’s floats, constructed by the community, I assume, are much more creative. One float showed Hillary pulling Bill by the ear, another showed a pig scarfing down sausage strings. The Pope on stilts walked the street in front of a float depicting the Crusades. Harry Potter theme music followed a float on which a castle was built with young wizards and witches popping out of shutters and spraying the audience with silly string and shaving cream. An older, very jovial, man caught on to the mini-sorcerers’ antics and was prepared when the shutters banged open. He was armed with silly string galore. A battle ensued and I have to say, the older man won. He was pretty quick for an old guy.
We could hear the parade as soon as we exited the train station. Viareggio is awesome for many reasons, but I really loved that the town had set up an outdoor speaker system, and Italian pop music vibrated between the streets, fighting for air space with the numerous marching bands in the parade. We wanted to see more of the parade, so we slipped in and out and wove around the big throng of people all headed to the main thoroughfare where the actual carnival would take place.
One of my roommates told me that Viareggians store up their paper and then shred it to made confetti and streamers. This is their recycling, as the paper is collected after the festival and taken to a recycling plant. As we ran towards the event space, confetti fell in bundles on our heads and into our backpacks. It looked like a rainbow was cleaning out its closet.
As we ran, we saw men dressed as ballerinas, women dressed as blue gorillas, Italian babies suited up as giraffes. Wenches, pirates, Elizabethan characters, devils, fairies, lions—we saw it all. It was fantastic. To join in the festivities, we each bought a mask. As we walked the opposite direction that parade was headed, to ensure we saw it all, we were sprayed with silly string and shaving cream, and continually doused with confetti. We each got hit pretty hard a few times by people who thought we looked too clean. That was another great thing about the day—there wasn’t a single person I saw who got bent out of shape when they were attacked with harmless party favors. When the initial shock of finding shaving cream in their ear wore off, a smile always followed close behind.
After a while, I gave up trying to brush off the shaming cream (shaving cream here is really wet, not thick like it is in the states; the consistency is that of a stagnant bubble bath) and pull out the silly string from my hair. We figured that maybe we wouldn’t get as much attention if we had kilos of string and shaving cream adorning ourselves and our packs.
This was not true. J
After two hours of enjoying the parade, taking tons of pictures of the festivities and ourselves (check out the Carnivale pictures on facebook), we headed back to the train station. It was getting later, the Italian babies were conked out in their strollers, we were getting tired. After a full day of trains, costumes, marching bands and carnival floats, we were tired and hungry and ready to be home.
Unfortunately, we didn’t check our return train ticket home. We boarded our train and had to split up because the train was so crowded. Getting on the train was almost a full-blown battle. It was crazy, people pushing shoving through a tiny door. After about an hour of passing stops and none of them looking familiar, I checked my ticket. Our destination was indeed Firenze (Florence), but we needed to transfer at the Pisa station. We found each other, got off, and then waited for the next train. We hopped on as soon as it pulled up, and we didn’t think much of the fact that it left 10 minutes early. Yeah—it was the wrong train. At this point, I was tired, scared, and struggling with some emotions that had surfaced at Carnevale, and I started to cry. We got off, my roommates were amazing and made me laugh, and we found the right train. After another hour and a half, we got home. We stepped in the door of our apartment at midnight. We’d been trying to get home for five hours.
So, lessons learned: 1) Carnevale is awesome. 2) Always check your train ticket to see if you have to transfer trains. 3) Never underestimate the goodness in people. Like your roommates.
Carnevale in Viareggio is a good example for Americans. It’s possible to be laid-back, have fun sober, spend time being goofy with your family and not worry about a thing. Well, except maybe getting home. J But nonetheless, festivals and parades don’t have to be filled with stress, stern expressions and an agenda. It’s ok to walk around, observe, take an embarrassing amount of photos, and enjoy the day for what it is.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Pisa and Its Leaning Thing(s)

Pisa and I are having some issues. On the one hand, I like Pisa. I like that it has a tower that leans. I like that Pisa has a baptistry in which Gregorian singing takes place every half hour. But Pisa and I, we have some issues we need to work out.
We took the train over, my very first train ride. It was sunny when we left, but I should know from living in Colorado for a few years now that the weather always changes. The closer we got to Pisa, the darker it got. We got off the train and about fifteen minutes into our trek to the tower, the skys split a seam and it poured. Maggie and I braved the weather until we thoroughly soaked (we were sans umbrella and rain jacket), and then we stepped into a church. Maggie is Catholic and loves visiting all the churches she can find.
The church was small, but beautiful. We wandered around the small space for a while and there were Biblical sculptures I didn't recognize, lots of marble and amazing windows. Once we got our fill on wandering, we read the information posted at the front of the room. Turns out the church we were in was the church that held the thorn from Christ's crown before it was taken to a museum.
I don't care what you believe, you have to admit that that's incredible. Just like the Museo di Scienzia holds Galileo's finger here. It's still an artifcact. I just couldn't get over that. I still can't.
We finally made it to the piazza that houses the tower, the baptistry and the cathedral. The cemetery and the museum are also in the surrounding area. Maggie and I, upon my insistence, went into the baptistry. We wound our way up the stairs and froze as we looked at the stained glass and down below where people milled about, waiting for something. From the barred windows at the top of the baptistry you can see the front of the cathedral and on the other side you can see the cemetery and the tower. Once you get past the countless feathers and piles of bird shit on the windows, it's very beautiful.
We went back downstairs and finally the gaurds sang. It's an amazing sound. It's like a symphony of one voice. An orchestra of one person. I still can't wrap my head around it. The gaurd sang and the echo felt like it entered my chest and hummed for the rest of the day. The acoustics of the baptistry make the echo/chord building possible. I'd love to learn more about it, but I wasn't willing to pay 1 Euro to listen to the kiosk inside. Not ok . :)
We went outside when the echo had finally died away and found our other roommates. We then spent about an hour taking the classic Pisa picture. At first, I wasn't going to do it. But then I wondered why I wasn't going to do it. Is it cliche? Yes. So what? It's my time over here and I can do what I want. So I took it. At the very least, I have a picture holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa for my mom and dad. Then we got creative..Maggie and I have pictures of us kicking over the Tower, a picture of Maggie licking the Tower, and then a picture of me kissing the tower. It's classis, believe me. We spent the rest of the time wandering around Pisa, grabbing food, etc. I went off by myself and window shopped. It was nice to be by myself and not crying for once. I always underestimate how much I appreciate my alone time.
We made it home later that night without a hitch.
It amazes me that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was completed even though they knew it was leaning by the completion of the third story. That's incredible. Even more amazing is that tourists/travellers can pay 15 Euro to climb the Tower, which increases the lean. I think I read that it still continues to lean 25 mm every year. But maybe I just made that up. Stranger things have happened. Like the completion of a leaning tower. Crazy.

Monday, February 4, 2008

The Flight, the Apartment, and the Roommates

26 hours of traveling makes no one feel good. Seattle to Denver was a bit uncomfortable, and I almost had a breakdown during our hour and a half layover. I was glad to be out there. It was strange flying into DIA, not being greeted by Stephen, and jetting off to CSU. I miss it. We started the long haul from Denver, and I was completely surprised by the vast amounts of alcohol they offered us during the flight. Bailey's, cognac, wine (white and red), beer, Bloody Marys- the flight attendants didn't know what to do with me. "Bailey's or cognac?" they asked. "Neither, thank you." I got many blank smiles, as odd as that sounds. I did have the seat next to me empty, so I curled up and did my best to sleep. The luxury of two seats was paired with the amazing location of the seats- right across the slamming door of the restrooms. I did my best to sleep, but mostly to no avail.

We landed in Frankfurt and then waited for 5 hours. That felt like the longest leg or the trip. We finally boarded our tiny plane to Florence and landed a mere hour and a half later. After a few hours of retrieving luggage, checking in with the program, snagging apartment keys and a cell phone, we were dropped off at our respective apartments. And now time for a funny story.

At first, I thought I'd rough it and attempt the four flights of stairs without using the impossibly tiny elevator. I didn't make it. Once I got to the fourth floor, I was dismayed to find a different name on the name plate than the one listed on my address form. It was late and I didn't want to attempt to key-in to some stranger's apartment. Down the elevator I went with my luggage, after juggling the three doors (yes, three), to the elevator. The mail boxes listed my apartment on the sixth floor, so back up I went, three doors slamming and cathing on my luggage. I exited and found the apartment. Lo and behold, the damn door wouldn't open. After a solid five minute struggle, I pressed the buzzer. Twice. I heard whispering behind the door. No one opened. Finally, after a timid, "Who is it?" and a not-so-timid-and-more-exasperated "Amanda, your rommate," the door opened. And in I went.

My roommates include Katie, Jessie, Meredith, Maggie, and Ember. Katie goes to Ol' Miss and is an art history major. Jessie and Meredith both go to Texas Tech, are human development majors and have the exact same schedule here in Florence. Maggie is an art therapy major and attends a small private school in Ohio. Ember has yet to arrive. The things we know of her so far: this will be her third time studying abroad. She was supposed to arrive on Saturday, but "had a breakdown," so she's to arrive Wednesday. We also know she requested a single room. She didn't get it. She's rooming with me. :) We'll see what happens. Nonetheless, I hope she's doing alright.

My room is fine. It's larger than I thought it'd be. I wake up to a view of Florence and the Tuscan hills behind it. Can't complain. The apartment is beautiful, but quirky still. Marble floors, three balconies, funny Italian bathrooms that include bidets that no one uses, and 12-foot ceilings. The kitchen is small and old, but you can't beat the view from any of the windows in our apartment. We can literally see the top of the duomo, the bell towers, the hills, and most other buildings in Florence.

I couldn't be happier with our apartment. It does have it's pitfalls, but the beauty and the sheer unexpected space of it overcomes any of its shortcomings. The roommates have also showed their quirks, and I'm sure I've showed mine, so this semester should be an interesting one. But at the very least, we have a bitchin' apartment.

Why Florence

"Why Florence?" people ask. Really? I don't really know. I wans planning on studying abroad spring semester last year, but I couldn't decide where I wanted to go and didn't want to choose flippantly. Turns out that flippantly isn't all bad. I visited Florence when I was 12 and I thought it was great. The leather school, the red-tiled rooftops- beautiful. When I was sifting through the dozens of pamphlets from CSU's study abroad fair, it was rather difficult to find a program in a non-English speaking country that offered courses in creative writing, my major. Florence University of the Arts (FUA) didn't have a vast selection, but there were a few classes to choose from. I tossed Ireland and Prague out the window and decided Florence would be my next home for four months.
I left January 28th, arrived the 29th. My academic program ends May 16th, and I hope to travel for a few weeks after. I have a flight reservation for June 6th, but new plans may have me staying until the 12th- my aunt may come and tour Paris with me for a week, during which I'll celebrate my 21st birthday. In Paris. With some family, probably the only person that'll come visit me throughout this entire shebang. My parents, a boyfriend, and friends have all talked about coming and visiting, but if one person is to come through on it, it's my aunt. But I'll still keep my fingers crossed.
Hopefully I'll be able to keep this thing updated with stories and tales of travels and with pictures. We'll see how that goes. In any case, thanks for caring about me enough and what I'm up to in Europe to take the time to investigate all the things that I'll be doing. Like writing redundant sentences.
On another note- those of you reading this probably know that I'm going through a rough patch, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for being amazing friends and people. You guys are the people that ground me and pick me up when I need it or slap me in the face when I need it. I will never be able to thank you enough and I feel so blessed.
Well, with that, read on!