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12/19/07 |
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OverviewI had an awesome opportunity to knock out
3 courses and participate in an exciting cultural immersion program. Ten
students were selected to spend a month in Italy, and I was
one of them!! WAHOO!!! (Select the hyperlinks below to go directly to the journal entry for that day.)
September 26, 2004
Well 'ello
everyone! I'm sitting on a plane, getting ready to take off for
Milano, then a short flight to Florence where we will pick up a bus
that takes us to our final destination of San Giovanni. We had an
interesting time at Oxford University attending the Gerard Manley
Hopkins conference. The campus area is beautiful, with
architecturally stunning buildings and manicured courtyards. We were
among some of the most notable scholars on his writings in the
world. The poetry itself wasn't all that interesting to me but we
met some incredible people associated with the conference. It was
also the first time our class had a chance to spend any time
together outside of the hours of lectures. We've all been hanging
together 24/7 having a great time!
Let's see, maybe I
should back up a few days to our arrival? I've already shared
stories about the fiasco of our arrival at the University, so I will
move onto Friday. Our day started with a 6am wakeup call, breakfast
at the University at 7:30am and lectures from 8-6:30pm.
I'd been in touch with a colleague of mine located in the area and
was looking forward to meeting her for dinner that evening. We'd
never met and she wasn't familiar with the area that I was staying
in, so it created a unique challenge to find a mutual location that
we would both be able to find! After several phonecalls, and missed
attempts to find each other, we finally synced up and enjoyed a nice
dinner. We chose a Turkish restaurant a few miles from the college.
It was nice to put a face with the voice that I've been talking with
for the past couple of years! Before we knew it, Midnight was upon
us and I needed to get back to rest up for another long day of
lectures.
The lectures
continued to challenge my abilities to entertain myself into a
constant state of wakefulness. Some of the lectures were quite
interesting, it was just difficult, no matter what the subject
matter - to stay awake in a quiet, warm room when you are jetlagged
and exhausted - with little knowledge of the subject matter to base
an understanding on! We all joked that we'd have matching lumps on
our foreheads from falling asleep and having our heads slam into the
wooden desks!!
By Saturday
afternoon, we'd all had enough Hopkins to fill a lifetime and we
were ready for the celebration banquet and a chance to cut loose for
a bit. We had a great time at the formal banquet and then spent a
couple hours downstairs on the campus at the local sports pub.
We jammed the jukebox, played pool, English style - the tables and
balls are smaller but the overall concept is the same as American
pool. We got to spend a little time with many of the scholars who
were also enjoying the break from academia. I was particularly taken
by the actor/poetry reader, Richard
Austin:
http://www.richard.austin.sh/. I found him to be quite
charming - he has a great voice and made it a lot more fun to listen
to the poetry, Many of the ladies flocked around him
and his charming personality (he
actually kissed my cheek after signing my CD!) ;-)
<woo woo!>
Our Sunday morning
4am wakeup call came much too early for all of us!! We needed to be
in the lobby by 5:15am to catch a taxi, to the bus that would take
us back to the airport for our departure to Italy.
Now that
you've heard about the Oxford experience in a nutshell, here's a
sneak preview of what to expect for the upcoming week. We arrive in
San Giovanni, our home away from home around 5:30pm this evening,
and after a long day of travel, I imagine we'll probably get settled
in and not do too much else. Lunedì
(Monday), we begin
our classes and attend an orientation. I'm sure we'll be grocery
shopping and getting to know the area a bit too. Then Martedi
(Tuesday) and Giovedì
(Thursday),
we'll spend in Firenze (Florence),
attending museums and galleries that we've been studying.
Buona Sera!!
We finally got
moved into our permanent apartment - it is really nice, not as
nice as our temporary one was, but still very nice. We actually
have heat and hot water too, so it's much happier in our new
little household!! We all went grocery shopping last night too,
so I actually have food in the house... this eating out all the
time is drivin' me bonkers! And it's pretty hard to eat low carb
here... limited to salads and salami basically, or molto
carro (very expensive) steak!
After getting
settled in last night, I actually finally got a great night of
sleep and woke up feeling a gazillion times better today.
Amazing... everyone seemed in much better spirits as a whole. We
got to sleep in till about 7am today before meeting everyone for
our train ride to Firenze (Florence). The weather has been
beautiful and the scenery on the train ride was nice, the
rolling hills and vineyards are so picturesque. Once we arrived
in Florence, Marcie (a
classmate) and I were the designated map readers to lead us to
our appointment at the Academia Gallery to see some of
Michelangelo's most famous artwork. It was so cool - I led us
directly to the gallery, even Sam (our instructor) was giving me
Eccellente!! (excellent!) Kudos! I don't think I could ever get
tired of seeing Michelangelo's work.. the sculptures of the
prisoners are so magnificent... you would swear that the marble
is alive and expect to see the figures breathing, they are so
life-like! Just when you think you've seen the most spectacular
things in the world. you see the statue of David... I get chills
even thinking about it, I've never experienced anything so
majestic and sensitive.. It is truly a brilliant sculpture. I
guess the people who visit from all over the world would
completely agree!!!
After spending a
couple of hours at the Academia, we enjoyed a molto buono (very
good) lunch at a restaurant in the Piazza della Duomo (the plaza
of the Duomo). The Duomo is the main building in the heart of
the old Renaissance area of Florence. The story of the Duomo is
famous for being one of the first domes of this size ever
created. It is still kept very secret how Filippo Brunelleschi
created his masterpiece dome that has won over many fans over
500 years. After lunch, we took a tour of the inside of the
Duomo - it fairly simple on the interior for buildings of this
timeframe. There is another tour that I plan to do before the
month is over! We can climb stairs to the top of the Duomo!!
It's a massive workout but we hear the views are so worth it!
So, now I'm trying to get some of the group inspired to do the
workout with me!
After touring
around some of the other landmarks, bridges and museums, we
called it a day and caught a train back to San Giovanni.
Tomorrow is our first real day of class in the morning, we're
looking forward to taking a language class with the school :-)
YEY!! Then, I think Rachelle and I are going jogging on this
great trail that runs along the Arno River, joining many towns
together.. We walked along it the other night on our way to a
dinner place, and we're looking forward to getting out and doing
something active!! :-)
Well that's it
from Bella Italia!!
Ciao, and more to come later!
We began our
language classes today! Whatta treat :-) It is very
interesting learning a new language from a non English
speaking person. I think it actually is clearer on some
levels. You are forced to find some comprehension because
there isn't any other option! Our instructor, a very firm
Italian woman, was extremely patient. We learned some
basics:
- Come ti
chaimi? (What is your name?)
- Quanti
Anni Hai? (How old are you?)
- Di dove
sei? (Where are you from?)
- Sei
sposata? (Are you married?)
- Hai Figli?
(Do you have children?)
And the most
important thing of all.... Dove il bagno? "where is the
bathroom?"
There have
been some interesting language learnings for me, just in my
interaction with local people. First of all, San Giovanni is
a pretty small town - do not count on people you meet to
speak any English.. this means everything you see, do and
interact with is completely in Italian. All street signs,
restaurant menus, price tags, etc. For example, our first
trek to the local grocery store. Even things that are
completely familiar to us... let's take milk for example..
Becca picked up a small container of what she thought was
cream for her coffee and it was really a small container of
skim milk.. I was in search of canned tuna. After spending
about 10 minutes reading Italian, I think I finally found
water, not oil packed, dolphin safe white tuna. Still not
sure since I haven't opened it yet! I got another reality
check tonight at dinner. First of all, I really wanted a
steak - I wasn't quite sure which words on the menu meant
steak, since none of the terms in my translation book
matched what was used on the menu.. I ordered a steak
marinated with rosemary and pepper, cooked medium, and a
side of vegetables. I got a beautiful, but extremely rare -
I mean bloody red and cold in the middle...so evidently,
medium is normal, so the fact that I asked
for less than medium, meant "molto freddo" or very cold, so
I sent it back with a request for "molto caldo" very HOT...
It came back cooked perfectly! Another big lesson of the
week was in the difference between the words pesca, pesce
and pesci.. this was HUGE!! We stopped in Firenze for
afternoon break at a cafe. There were two choices for
seltzer water flavors.. Lemone (Lemon) or Pesca (peach) ...
well, I knew that pesci was FISH so I thought he was
offering me fish flavored water!! There are some cultural
differences that are much different than ours in the States,
so I didn't want to offend him, but I obviously was
misunderstanding something. So I learned the pesca = peach,
pesce = peaches, and pesci = fish... the pronunciation
difference on the plural of peach and the word fish is very
subtle to a new and untrained ear!!
As you can
imagine, we're only at the end of week 1, so there will be
more fantastic learnings as the weeks go on. but that was my
language learnings thus far.
Buona Sera!! What a fabulous day! I woke up bright and
early to get ready for another fun day in Firenze. It
was a blast and I completed another one of my required
assignments today. We are each required to do a 15
minute presentation on something of interest to the
group as a whole. I've been struggling to come up with a
topic for days now and over dinner last night, it came
to me! Since I seem to have an easier time with
directions and map reading than most, I've been
designated to lead our group around various locations.
So.. I chose my topic: "Map Reading 101: Tips and Tricks
From My Experiences." It was very successful and the
group practiced using my tips throughout the day! :-)
Our first stop was the Branchacci Chapel, to watch a
movie on the history of the artist Masachio, who did
most of the incredible artwork here. Wow.. it was
amazing! Then it was onto lunch and a tour of the Santa
Maria Novella church, whatta beautiful structure. This
is by far my favorite building that we've been in.
There is just something about the energy in it.. it
feels very calming to me. Name of the artists with work
in it: Masachio, Brunelleschi, Fellipi Lipi, etc..
We spent the rest of the day, walking around near the
Piazza del Repubblica near the Duomo, shopping and
eating gelato! Yumm!!
Buona Sera! I have a little catching up to do on my
journaling. The weekend flew by and I haven't even had a
chance to write. Let's see, to pick up where I left off
- Friday, we had another language class - they are
really fun and it helps so much. It's amazing how far
we've all come in a matter of a week here in Italy. It
is so much easier to practice when you have to. It
really isn't common to find many English speaking people
here in San Giovanni, so it forces me to do my best to
communicate. Between a small group of us and our trusty
pocket guidebooks, we can usually get pretty good
results! We're pretty lucky too, that one of our
roomies, Becca speaks fluent Spanish - many words are
similar enough that she can help us figure out some of
the finer points of conversations. A few of us were
talking today - we all really love San Giovanni and
we're so glad that we're staying here, and not in a
bigger city. It really feels like "home" to us. We've
been enjoying our day trips to Florence, which is only
30 minutes away by train, but we all decided we wouldn't
wanna live there!!
This weekend was
a FREE weekend for us! Every Sabato (Saturday) there is a huge market
that takes up the entire main street that we live on! It was wild! We
live on the second floor of our building and our kitchen window
overlooks the street - I peaked out the window on Saturday morning and
saw nothing but little tent tops as far as the eye could see. It was
crazy! The market opens at 6am and runs only to Noon. There are many
types of vendors ranging from a farmers market type of setting with one
whole street being just produce, but mostly it was clothes, jewelry,
shoes and items like that. I got some GREAT deals on a couple of new
outfits :-) The bartering experience was good and interesting for me.
I realized that I really need to work on learning my Italian numbers! I
know how to ask Quanto? (How much?) but then when they shoot the numbers
back to me in Italian, I'm pretty lost!! I could count to 5 comfortably,
but that was it. So.. I spent a little time and learned most of the
numbers up to 20. I may not be able to completely recite them without
any errors, but I think when someone says them it will make sense. I
also want to learn, 20, 30, 40 and 50... something else really
interesting and confusing to me was the difference between 25 cents
and 25 dollars/Euros. All in all, it was a great learning experience and
every interaction is just more motivation to learn more of the language
even more quickly.
Several of us have been
talking about our personal goals while we're here: I'd like to be able
to feel really comfortable reading the menus and ordering meals, And be
able to do basic business transactions like groceries, post office,
banking, train/bus tickets etc. using mostly Italian. Right now my words
are growing, but I'm not using correct sentences, just broken words
strung together.
After the market, we all
went to the boys' villa for an afternoon festa (party) Everyone chipped
in, picking up items from the market to contribute to the feast. We ate
like queens of the Renaissance - fresh spaghetti and meatballs, a big
cheese and veggie platter, bruschetta, a wonderful green salad, fresh
bread, green beans, chicken and an awesome spinach, mushroom pasta dish
with a little zip - yum!! Everything turned out perfectly and the
weather has been awesome, we've had lots of sunshine and beautiful blue
skies. After enjoying an assortment of baked goods for dessert, we all
made our way back up to our local hangout in the Piazza (plaza/town
square) San Lorenzo's, and enjoyed some gelato (Italian ice cream) and
cappuccino's. It was early evening, the street vendors were long gone,
but the other big events were setting up - there was awesome live music
playing!! All kinds of Italian Folk music - it made such a perfect
setting against the beautiful San Giovanni skyline. I have a bunch of
photos uploaded on my computer and will try to attach a few for you to
enjoy! After catching Mary (YEY!!) for a live phone conversation, I
went back to San Lorenzo's to meet the rest of the gang. By then the
band had ended, and we were joined by Johnny (the owner) and many of his
friends and family for a special acoustic (Italian men are so
dramatic!!) set of their favorite folk songs - it was really fun! I
should mention that everyone lives on the Siesta plan.. which means the
stores all close between roughly 1-5 each afternoon. Most of the group
REALLY likes this idea of napping mid day, giving them a second wind for
the evening! Things start livening up again around 7pm and most people
don't really get started on dinner until 8-9pm, and the entertainment
keeps going till at least 2am, even in our small, sleepy little town of
San Giovanni.
I was thoroughly looking
forward to sleeping in on Sunday morning - YEY! No alarm clocks to
contend with. I woke up leisurely, Debbie stopped by to give me her keys
so I could borrow her bicycle around 9:30am. I'd been looking forward to
a nice ride along the Arno River and to tool around more of San Giovanni
and get to know the area. I thought being on a bike would be fun and
I could cover a lot more ground. I was also looking forward to doing
some laundry - you know those practical things! Another foreign concept
here in San Giovanni is the concept of a laundromat. You can hire
laundry services but one of my classmates didn't have very good luck
figuring out the process. He had two loads of regular clothes and wanted
to have them washed and dried, but not dry-cleaned. So.. he got his wet
laundry back in the 2 day timeframe, stuffed soaking wet in a garbage
bag. Hey, at least it was clean! ;-) So.. he finally explained what he
intended to have done with his laundry, and is now waiting the 5 days to
get his DRY laundry back! I guess no one really uses dryers, so it's all
probably hanging outside on a clothes line somewhere. We keep joking
that we're looking out for his underwear to be hanging outside of the
Piazza when we're stopping in for lunch. Tee hee.
All of my plans changed
when Rachelle flew into our apartment after attending the Sunday Mass
session, saying that a bunch of the group were leaving for Pisa and
asked if I wanted to come along! We had about 20 minutes to catch the
next train. This was a trip that many of us had been hoping to squeeze
in, but it just isn't on the way to anywhere that we're going.. so we
all went on a spontaneous adventure!!! Pisa, mostly famous for it's
Leaning Tower of Pisa, is actually quite a beautiful little city. It's
situated only 5 kilometers from the Italian Riviera coastline- a little
more than an hour by train, west of Florence. Once we got to Pisa via
train, we were all starving and decided to check out the McDonalds to
see how different is was! I had a pretty good bacon burger (cheese and
typical American condiments weren't included - ketchup costs an extra 10
cents), fries and a cappuccino flavored McFlurry (like a Dairy Queen
Blizzard) Everything was pretty good - it all is much more plain though
and the secret sauce on my burger, was definitely different in flavor, I
couldn't decide what the ingredients were though. After our indulgent
Americani meal, we got our bus tickets to get to the Leaning Tower and
proceeded onward. It is VERY cool! It really leans more than it looks in
photos. We were all pretty surprised and still wonder how it could
possibly be structurally sound! After a couple of hours, we'd seen
everything, picked up some souvenirs and were ready to do the
bus/train/train thing and get back home!
I'm writing, after
arriving back here around 10pm, getting my laundry done, showering,
packing my daybag for tomorrow and trying to stay awake! It's about 2am
here now and we've got another full day in Florence tomorrow, then we're
talking about squeezing in a trip to Sienna on Tuesday (farther away -
quite a bit of train/bus time required but the locals swear it is their
FAVORITE city in Italy). Wednesday, we have our language class then
Thurs- Sat we'll be in Venice!
ArrivaderLa (until
next time) for now! Ciao! :-)
Buon Giorno! Ahh, what a nice relaxing day! :-) I am
smiling because this was my first day with no real big plans and it felt
great!! I slept in, had a light breakfast, then Rachelle and I took a
long walk/jog down that beautiful trail I've been wanting to check out!
We walked for several miles and actually thought we may have been
nearing the next town - not sure though - the trail ended so we turned
around and came back. The weather has been beautiful here - just perfect
with lots of blue skies and sunshine. It felt so good to be out getting
some exercise. We've been doing a lot of walking on this trip, but it is
different going here and there with a purpose, vs. working up a good
sweat for the physical activity part of it! I wish I would have had my
camera today on the trail. We passed some beautiful little scenic
places. With the trail running all along the river, there is a lot of
greenery anyway, but then just the sweetest properties full with their
Fall gardens ripening and being harvested. Lots of little vineyards
too... just sweet places all along the walk!
We spent yesterday in Florence seeing more of the many
and wondrous sites, we started at this awesome cemetery run by Julie
Balton Halloway, who is an ex nun, and now calls herself a hermit. She
had such great energy, I could've talked with her for days...She has a
lot of knowledge of women's history specific to the Renaissance period
and later. Julie recently put together one of the only books of all of
Elizabeth Browning's (she is one of the most famous women poets of the
post - Renaissance era) poetry. The book is hand bound and beautiful,
each unique and numbered! Then we went to the San Marco monastery. It's
really cool to visit some of these places that would have never been
available to the common public when they were created. The monastery
contains some of the artist Angelico's most famous works, lots of
frescoes and paintings, with beautiful composition, striking colors and
deliberate subjects meant to restore/reassure faith of the new and
blossoming monks. Then we enjoyed a lunch at some place we stumbled
across - great food! We ended up getting completely lost and were about
15 minutes late for our appointment to tour the Browning's House, Casa
Guidi. After the tour, we enjoyed a leisurely walk back to the main
piazza near the Duomo, taking in the beautiful weather and enjoying a
little window shopping. We joined a couple of others in our group for
dinner at this fantastic restaurant called Trattoria Marione,
recommended by Rick Steve's in his travel guide. It was the best meal
I've had to date in Italy!
We made our way back to the train station at about 9pm
and that's when the NEXT adventure began!! Just when I was starting to
feel like I had the whole train thing down - oops! Well, we got to the
train station in the nick of time to catch the next train to San
Giovanni. We've been using the trains a lot and realize that things
change, sometimes at the very last minute and all you can do is to keep
looking at the schedule for updates and hope that you can run like hell,
if your train actually comes in on a different track than it's scheduled
to arrive on. We've all experienced this numerous times so now it is a
little less stressful when it happens!! So, after viewing
upcoming train schedules, I saw another train scheduled for San
Giovanni in about 20 minutes. Rachelle and I decided to stay, catch that
next train, and go over to the bus depot and get our tickets for Sienna
that we'd planned for our Tuesday outing. The bus depot is only about a
5 minute walk from the train station, this should be plenty of time to
get everything together! Well.. the bus depot was already closed for the
night, so we couldn't even get any information about Sienna, we got back
to the train station and found out that the train we intended to catch
only runs on Sundays!! So we were freaked out and thought we'd missed
the last possible train back to San Giovanni. We started to panic
slightly at the idea of having to hire a cab, which would be MOLTO
CARRO (very expensive!) if we could even find a cab that would take us
home! Lucky for us, the very unhelpful lady in the information office
directed us to an unscheduled train (basically the same one that should
have gone an hour earlier) and we made it home (HAPPILY!) shortly after
midnight.
I better get back to
studying for my quiz! Ciao! :-)
Buon Giorno! I'm enjoying a beautiful train ride to
Venezia (Venice) at this moment. It's early morning and the sun has
just started to streak beautiful hues across the morning sky. I had
one of the best cappucinos of the trip this morning in the Florence
train station on our layover, yum. I have my iPod rockin and I am
just convinced that nothing could be more perfect than this moment!
I'm feeling well rested after a fairly relaxing day yesterday. We
stayed in San Giovanni after class, did a little grocery shopping,
made a nice meal and enjoyed an afternoon siesta. I think I could
get used to life in Italy. It feels very freeing to have a slower
pace.
We'll be arriving in Venice at about 11am, check into
our hotels, have lunch and then catch a couple of museums in the
afternoon, looks like the Peggy Guggenheim and Academia are both on
the schedule for today. We'll be in Venice through Saturday
afternoon, so there will surely be more adventures to write about
very soon! On the agenda is a walking tour of Venice, a trip to the
island of Murano - the famous glass blowing capital of the world.
Buona Sera! Come stai? Molto bene here! We're
enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon. It's been cloudy and rainy
back here in San Giovanni - which is actually perfect for
resting after our whirlwind days in Venezia. The weather was
very hot and humid - quite unusual for Venice this time of
year. Of course, it was supposed to be cool and rainy so I
packed sweaters and roasted the entire time, but hey, I was
in Venice!! How bad could it all be??? We got to our hotel
in Maestre, a suburb outside of Venice and quickly settled
in, looked at our bus routes and headed to Venice! We met up
with the rest of the gang at San Marco's square, one of the
main landmarks of Venice and found a little restaurant for a
snack. After getting gouged (almost 100 Euro for 4 of us to
eat appetizers!!) we headed on foot through the cobblestone
mazes of the streets of Venice to the Academia. The artwork
was incredible, very moving pieces. I really have been
having the time of my life here.. some of the most
incredible experiences have nothing to do with the places
that we go - it has to do with the people, energy and
interactions that just happen when you follow you intuition.
For example, we met the coolest guy on the island of Murano,
just off the coast of Venice. Murano is famous for being the
glass blowing capital of the world. The island of Murano
consists of about 5000 inhabitants and was originally as the
industrial hub to move all the glass and production industry
off of the main shores of Venice to protect the churches and
museums from the potential issue of factory related fires.
Our shop keeper buddy was one of the most
sincere people we've met, unfortunately most resembled the
typical used car salesman that we are used to dealing with
in the U.S. This guy was more of a family man - him and his
wife started their business over 20 years ago - they had a
vision and created their dream together. We found everything
we were looking for at his store and had a great shopping
experience! Another highlight of Venice was experiencing the
Salvador Dali exhibit at the art museum. Talk about
amazing!!! I know this is reallllllllllllllly post
Renaissance art, but what are the odds that Dali's entire
exhibit would be available for viewing in Venice? We had a
blast, spending ever last minute viewing pieces until the
security kicked us out!
All in all, Venice was fun, but none of us
could wait to get back to our homes in San Giovanni. It
really is magic here. It feels like a small, comfortable
village. We're getting to know some of the local people
really well especially at San Lorenzo's.. I think I've
mentioned this is our local hangout?? Anyway, San Lorenzo's
is a little restaurant/bar in the center of the piazza that
we live near. It naturally became our favorite hangout
because of the location, but the family that owns the place
is really what keeps us coming back repeatedly. Last night
we popped in for Dinner after returning from Venice, and
Johnny, the owner came over to greet us with chocolates and
a special Lasagna that he and his family made. We had a
spectacular feast!
Our other favorite hang out is a place called
Las Vegas, it's a great pizza/ restaurant place. This was
the first place we ate in San Giovanni and every since then
it's been really hard to top the variety and prices. Some of
the guys living in the villa discovered a couple of nights
ago that a few of their neighbors are waiters/waitresses and
have been hanging out together. I think they have the best
grasp of "cultural immersion"!! A few of the guys have
really picked up the language - it is amazing to think of
how much can be experienced in a short period of time.
I better work on some homework for awhile,
until the next update, ArrivaderLa....
Buona Sera! I'm a little behind on my journaling,
things have been flying right along, can you believe
it's already been almost a month? Wow! Well, to catch up
on this weeks' happenings, we had class on Monday, then
spent the rest of the day just enjoying our little town
of San Giovanni. The weather has been a little cooler
here and rainy for the past couple of days. It makes it
ideal for hanging around having great chats
over cappucinos. Tuesday, we were up bright and early to
go the Chianti region of Italy. Lots of castles,
vineyards and rolling farm ground - it's just beautiful.
We started our day in the town of San Gimignano - just a
beautiful place, we could easily have spent a couple of
days here! Then we were back in the bus, driving along
the countryside and taking in tours of a couple of
castles and a wine tasting. I will definitely send more
photos of this whole day!
We arrived back in San Giovanni in time for spaghetti
and meatballs dinner at San Lorenzos and got a special
treat with a guitar jam session with Johnny and one of
his friends. I even played a couple of songs too!! It's
fun to hear them play American rock and roll songs, they
don't really speak very much English, but they know the
tunes and some of the choruses, other than that, they
just hum along the tune. It was fun and we enjoyed lots
of laughs! I do have to say that is one very consistent
thing - I've been laughing a lot! Italians, by nature,
seem to be very light and jovial beings - they like to
have fun and don't seem to take life so seriously.
Wednesday was another rainy and relaxing day. With only
one week left, some of the roomies wanted to go back
into Florence for more shopping, they got to the train
station and found out they were having a strike. This
happens on a fairly frequent basis. Most of the train
strikes are planned up to 10 days in advance. Not really
sure what the logic or negotiating strategy is, but
we've seen signs posted notifying us of the upcoming
strikes, luckily they weren't scheduled on days that we
had planned to travel!! I guess the strike was only till
6pm and the girls were able to catch an evening train
into Florence after all.. Pretty funny, just in general,
how different cultures can be!
Today, we spent a magnificent day in Assisi - it was
Bellisimo!!! This marvelous and medieval town houses
some of the most incredible artwork by Giotto in the
Saint Francis Basilica. We thoroughly enjoyed all the
cobblestone streets with lots of nooks and crannies.
Everywhere seemed to be posed for a beautiful
photograph. It really reminded me of the village Eze
that we visited last year in Monaco. The weather made
the day more spectacular for photos - it was foggy and
rainy and created a perfect medieval backdrop for our
photos. It was chilly though - we were frozen to the
bone by the end of the day and I couldn't wait to get
back home to take a super hot shower.
We're actually having a pretty healthy thunderstorm as
we speak. The weather seems to vary as much as Colorado,
with one day being beautiful and sunny and the next
feeling like it could snow. It was actually cool enough
this morning that the rain seemed heavier, more like
sleet. I'll sign off for tonight - tomorrow we have our
last Italian class, I feel like there is still SO MUCH
to learn! Then we pack for our weekend in Rome! We're
trying to catch a 1:15pm train, and will be there
through Sunday, with the option of staying over through
Monday!
More adventures to follow!!! Buona Notte
Buona Sera! We're cruising along on a train on our way back after 2 fabulous days in Rome. Wow - what a different world in comparison to our small town of San Giovanni. The pace is just unbelievable, our eyes are actually burning from the smog. We left early Friday afternoon via train, yet another lovely train experience! We've decided that nothing is really set in stone with Italy and trains. We all made it on board comfortably and were relaxing for a 3 hour train ride, we got about 40 minutes outside of San Giovanni when our train stopped in the town of Arezzo and after about 20 minutes of sitting on the train, someone came by and told us we all needed to get off that the train was no longer going to Rome, and now would actually be going the opposite direction to Florence instead!! Just like that...:-O So here we are, a group of about 10 of us, sitting in Arezzo with our luggage wondering when the next train that really IS going to Roma will be here. Luckily, it was only a 20 minute wait BUT the train was jam packed with standing room only for the more than 2 hour ride. We were just glad to catch a train even if it was less than ideal situation! Our hotel was located directly across from the train station, very convenient for catching cabs and buses! After the rest of the group arrived and checked in, we all went out for yet another interesting meal! There seems to be a vast difference in what we think meat is going to look and what it really does look like when it arrives on our plate. For example, I ordered something that was supposed to be steak, and I really don't know what type of meat it actually was, but it was much lighter in color than any steak I've ever seen. It was quite tasty in a pork/chicken sort of way! Rachelle ordered lamb and got a little more than she bargained for! It seems that they use ALL the parts of the meat here in Italy, didn't know we'd have to come to Europe for our famous "Rocky Mountain Oysters". Carol ordered the exact same dish and hers came out as expected, with a nice grilled lamb chop. I guess it was just Rachelle's lucky day! After our mystery meals, we were all ready to take a walk, get to know our area a little and find some gelato! Yum!
Saturday morning came bright and early, we met in the
breakfast area by 7am and caught cabs to Vatican City
for our tour. Cab rides in Rome have become a tradition
for me. I gotta say that most people feel like it is one
of the most frightening experiences they've ever had.
Honestly, call me a freak, but I really enjoy them!
These guys drive like they are living in a video game,
it doesn't seem like there are really any traffic laws
that are enforced by the police. If there is an open
area ANYWHERE- sidewalk, meridian, the other side of the
road, etc, it is fair game for driving. I'm sure they go
through brake pads like crazy too, it seems the other
pre-requisite is to drive with the pedal to the floor,
in all open areas, then slam on the brakes and fly into
all turns and curves, swerving to avoid as many
pedestrians and vespas as possible. Everyone seems to be
somewhat hyper vigilant and I didn't see any accidents
occur, so the system seems to be working! We arrived in
Vatican City safe and certainly awake (what an
adrenaline rush!). We happened to be here on the Pope's
(35th?) anniversary date of being the Pope. Even at this
early hour, this streets were already crawling with
people. We met our guide, Raul and got into the 45
minute long people-queue awaiting our entry into the
museum, then into the Sistine Chapel to see
Michelangelo's famous frescoed ceiling! Raul is a great
story teller and kept us entertained with all kinds of
lively details about what we were seeing. A couple of
the most memorable highlights for me were: 20,000 people
a day visit the museum (12.50 Euro each - you do the
math!) and most of the materials - marble and gold were
pillaged from other landmarks in Rome, like the
Coliseum. We also got some tidbits about references in
the popular novel "Angels and Demons" for all of you
that have an interest!
We finished the tour mid afternoon and enjoyed a great
lunch near Saint Peters and then walked around shopping
before catching another wild cab ride back to our hotel
for a siesta. I'm really liking the siesta plan! A nice
nap, a bubble bath and my feet were ready for another
adventure on the streets! I met part of the group for
dinner at an American grill where we enjoyed fabulous
cheeseburgers and French fries! Ahh, splendid - meat
that really looks and tastes like BEEF! Then, I met
back up with with the gang to hit the discos. We were
all pretty excited to check out the Rome scene and see
what it was all about. We caught a bus and headed to a
popular area for dinner, I enjoyed cappucinos and
conversations since my tummy was already happy! About an
hour into the meal, the rain started to fall, it was
actually quite beautiful, with the streets glistening,
picking up all the light reflections. Although, we
weren't really dressed for rain, in our disco duds!
Nobody brought their umbrellas with them (mine was doing
me a lot of good back in the hotel room) and Rachelle
and I have already purchased two umbrellas during
downpours I was REFUSING to buy another one!
(Even though we got the street hawkers down to 2 for 5
Euros before the restaurant owner shooed them away!) The
rain continued to fall, so we continued to order food
and drinks at the restaurant, happy to have a dry and
warm seat. It finally let up and we made our way to a
pub at the entrance of a piazza that was fantastic for
people watching. Italy is really a fashion melting pot.
People seem to really enjoy getting dressed up to go out
and almost any possible combination of fashions seem to
be popular. We'd heard that no one wears blue jeans over
here and that it would be a clear indicator that we were
tourists. That is definitely NOT the case, jeans and
actually anything that is remotely "American" looking is
a big hit here. It's funny, we come over here and try to
blend in, wearing darker colors and more leather and the
local people seem to try to look more American, and
somewhere in between there is a blend that really seems
to work. We do, as Americans, have a certain look though
- hard to explain but you can pick Americans out of the
crowds.
We enjoyed people watching till about 2am, the rain
started to fall again right as the bars were closing and
we decided to find the disco in the area, Unfortunately
the disco we heard about was no longer open for
business, I got the feeling that the club scene is more
underground and the clubs move frequently. It was just
about then that the rain really started to come down and
we decided to try to catch a cab and go back to our
hotel. Well..... it is absolutely impossible to catch a
cab in Rome at 2 am! The line at the cab stand was more
than 50 people deep and after standing in the rain for
20 minutes or so without even seeing a cab, we decided
to try to start making our way back to the hotel by
foot. According to our trusty map, we were about 40 city
blocks from our hotel! What an adventure! we barely
started walking and the rain got even heavier with lots
of thunder, lightning and wind making visibility almost
impossible and we were frozen to the bone, just looking
for shelter somewhere! We all squeezed into a
storefront/door jam, hoping it would pass relatively
quickly. After another 20 minutes or so, we were all
laughing hysterically in a combination of nerves and
absolute disbelief of our current situation! The rain
let up a little and we continued our trek. After 30
minutes of walking, we started seeing some familiar
landmarks and knew we were getting closer! Lucky for us
the rain had stopped and the rest of our walk was pretty
pleasant. We made it back to the hotel around 4am, I was
so happy to crawl into my warm bed!
Hello again! Just a little delay in getting back to my
Rome adventure. I'm currently en route to London - Yahoo
- I am on my way HOME!!!! :-D I will stay chronological
here though - so back in Roma...
I awoke bright and early Sunday morning to join part of
the group for breakfast and a bus tour of the city. We
got to ride on one of those cool double decker buses
with an open top - neato! We barely finished the bus
tour in time to make it for our 3pm tour of the Coliseum
and the Forum with our favorite guide Raul. His stories
were extremely entertaining and we had a great time
seeing all the sites. It was a busy day though, we
barely finished the tour in time to catch yet another
crazy cab ride to the train station with plenty of time
to enjoy a gelato while waiting for our train. It was
nice to be back once again in our quiet little town
of San Giovanni. Ahh, a nice bowl of spaghetti at San
Lorenzo's and a great night of sleep awaits.
The rest of the week seemed to zoom by so quickly. Most
of Monday was spent packing up things and getting ready
to come home. Monday night was our Il Sillabo Festa
(school party) in honor of our instructors. We all
shared stories about our trip and enjoyed a delicious 5
course meal. Before we knew it, Tuesday had come and
gone and we were walking to the bus stop with the rest
of the group, making our way to the airport. Whatta fast
month this was! I'm sitting on the plane now, after
about 14 hours of travel, getting ready to leave London
en route to Denver.. ahh,.. just 9 more hours of fly
time and I'll be home. I have so many great memories, it
was definitely a trip of a lifetime. It will surely take
some time to really digest all the activities and
events.
ArrivaderLa!!
I found it to be such a beautiful city filled with rich Renaissance history. It makes me smile just thinking about it and after all, it is the gelato capital of the world. A real highlight was how accessible everything is in Florence. It is very easy to grab a map and walk to most every major landmark. This fabulous city was only a short train ride from our home base of San Giovanni. Facts and History of Florence Florence was born in 59BC as a settlement for retired Roman soldiers. Over the next millennium, a small population struggled under successive Byzantine, Goth, Lombard and Frankish rule. Luckily, merchant trade founded on wool and supported by strong currency ensured the city’s survival allowing it to gradually overtake its rival city of Pisa. 15th century Florence was the home of the Renaissance and considered the birthplace of our modern Western world. The Renaissance architecture brought a return of domes, columns and arches of the ancient world. Paintings enjoyed a revival of realism and emotion. Artists rediscovered the beauty of nature and the human body, portraying beautiful people in harmonious surroundings that expressed the optimism and confidence prevalent in this new age. Florence was the heartbeat of it all and became the middleman of trade between east and west. Wealthy merchant and banking families, like the Medici, ruled Florence for generations and were devoted to demonstrating their pride by commissioning great works of art. Florence recognized and paid creative genius allowing great artists to turn Florentine pride and money into beautiful art. The Renaissance was an age of humanism and a time of confidence. Great Greek heroes like Plato and Aristotle were finding new popularity. Before the Renaissance, artistic style was limited to church based themes and was expected to focus on God. With the Renaissance, the world began standing on its own and stepped out of the shadow of the church. The Academia Gallery and Michelangelo One of our first stops in Florence was Academia Gallery. I don't think I could ever get tired of seeing Michelangelo's work. The sculptures of the prisoners are so magnificent. You would swear that the marble is alive and expect to see the figures breathing, struggling to break out of the marble - they are so life-like! While these sculptures are called unfinished maybe Michelangelo was satisfied, feeling like he had set them free? Just when you think you've seen the most spectacular things in the world, there is David. I get chills even thinking about it, I've never experienced anything so majestic and sensitive. When you look at David, you're looking at the epitome of the ultimate Renaissance man. David inspired Florentines to tackle their own “Goliaths”. Michelangelo even exaggerated realism to make his point, notice David's overdeveloped right hand? This was to symbolize the hand of God. Florentines believe that it was God that powered David to slay the giant and liked to think that God also enabled them to rise above their rival city-states. The Duomo and Brunelleschi The Duomo is one of the largest in the world and is the heart of the old Renaissance area of Florence. The inside of the Duomo is fairly simple for buildings of this timeframe. The story of the Duomo is famous for being one of the first domes of this size ever created. It is still a secret how Filippo Brunelleschi created his masterpiece. In 1420 Brunelleschi won the job and built his ingenious dome that began the architectural Renaissance. Knowing the roof would collapse under too much weight, Brunelleschi devised a dome-within-a-dome. The dome is taller than a football field on end and was created one ring at a time. When one ring was complete and self-supporting, they'd move the scaffolding up and build another. Brunelleschi's dome has inspired domes from the Vatican to the our White House Capitol. These examples perfectly demonstrate how art and science could be combined beautifully. Ghiberti’s Baptistery Doors Some say the Renaissance began in 1401 with the excitement over a city-wide competition to build new doors for the Baptistery. Lorenzo Ghiberti won this commission and others spent decades beautifying this building. The bronze panels called Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise," were revolutionary in their realism and his ability to create the three-dimensional look. Brancacci Chapel and Masaccio The church of Santa Maria del Carmine is fairly plain looking on the outside but it contains a real jewel behind its doors - the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel. The frescoes were begun in 1424 by Masolino and his student Masaccio. We watched a film on the history of the artist Masaccio who did most of the incredible artwork here. Filippino Lippi finished the frescoes sixty years later, but it is the work of Masaccio that drew Michelangelo here to make sketches. It is said that Vasari commented that, “all the most celebrated sculptors and painters since Masaccio´s day have become excellent and illustrious by studying their art in this chapel.” Santa Maria Novella The Santa Maria Novella church is a magnificent beautiful structure. This is by far my favorite building that we've been in. There is just something about the energy - it feels very calming to me. The elaborate facade of inlaid black and white marble is a real masterpiece. The interior contains a series of artwork that bears the signatures of such great artists as: Giotto, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi. The Monastery of San Marco The Monastery of San Marco welcomes the public to enjoy the greatest collection anywhere of frescoes and paintings by Fra Angelico. It's really interesting to visit places that would have never been available to the common public in their day. Fra Angelico was equal parts monk and painter had a knack for fusing medieval spirituality with early Renaissance techniques. His paintings were filled with realistic scenes containing beautiful composition and striking colors. The halls were lined with monk's cells, each housing a meditation-enhancing fresco meant to restore/reassure faith of the new and blossoming monks. Studying these religious scenes, we could see how Fra Angelico thought of painting as a form of prayer and why it was said he couldn't paint a crucifix without shedding tears. Summary The moral of my Florence story is to expect the unexpected – realize that every moment is an adventure and enjoy it to the fullest. Visiting Florence has left me rich with happy memories. While the greatest art of the Renaissance remains here, the influence of the cultural explosion called the Italian Renaissance is echoed throughout our modern world. I will be eternally grateful to Regis for offering me this opportunity of a lifetime to experience something so majestic that words cannot truly do it justice. Happy travels to you all – may your life lead you to challenge yourself to enjoy the many unexpected adventures that arise. |
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This page was last updated 12/07/07