There's a concept that is talked up a lot during study abroad orientation at K called "the W curve". The basic gist is that your emotions during your time abroad will follow the curve of... you guessed it: the letter W.
Essentially, when you get to ___________ (insert place here), you'll be euphoric, happy, discovering new things, making plans to move there... please refer to the first couple posts of this blog. As the weeks pass, the trend indicates that you'll start to feel more comfortable, more at home, and therefore the novelty will wear off and you'll begin to return to the Land of the Actually Living from way up there on Cloud 9... please refer to the subsequent posts. Those of you who can follow a train of logic to its conculsion should be able to figure out what comes next: you begin to notice only the bad things, and they start to get to you, you feel homesick, annoyed, an even stranger stranger than you thought you were, I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I AM A HUMAN BEING!, that kind of thing. Then things start to look back up again, and you'll once again return triumphantly to Cloud 9, and then: lather, rinse, repeat. You get it.
Personally, and I now recognize, niavely, prior to coming here I thought that this would be bullsh*t. Only for the weak-minded. Absolutely not applicable to me. Well, today tells me that I was wrong.
And the confusing thing is: I still love Rome. I love waking up and walking to class at the Villa Farnesina, walking into a room there and seeing Raphael's Triumph of Galatea fresco on the wall. Or walking into the next room and looking up at the ceiling to find Guilio Romano's The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche. It still never fails to amaze me that these things are just here for the looking. They still fill me up with joy and are hugely gratifying, as is walking past a vendor at a market selling fruit, smiling and being confident enough say buongiorno, and being rewarded with a smile and a free peach for my trouble. I still absolutely love Rome.
The things that are really starting to bug me are small and would normally not have this huge influence on me, but right now they seem to be eating my life.
I dislike being surrounded at school by people who seem to have lost the PIN number to their brains. I know how that sounds, and I know it sounds hugely arrogant and unapologetically rude, but I really am not used to this amount of outright indifference. And it's coming from all sides, and since I have to go to school, I can't seem to escape from it.
I dislike that my roommates have never been introduced to the concept of washing dishes. I don't eat with them often, but most of the time come home later and cook dinner for myself, if I can find one clean plate and one clean pot among the detritus of four days of dirty, moldy, starting to grow eyes and glare at me dishes. Really, I just don't like how dirty they are. I'm not a meticulously neat person, but I put my foot down at dirty. And I define that as having to brush the bottoms of my feet clean of Cheerio crumbs and shredded parmesean cheese before I go to bed.
Italian women have this really uncanny knack for making you feel as though you are the lowest, most unintelligent glob of protoplasm that ever oozed its way out of the primordial soup. I am absolutely not a moron, and I know this, but whenever I have had to interact with an Italian woman (a huge generalization, but accurate to my limited experience) I start to feel like a tiny little speck of nothing that they can't believe they've deigned to bother with. I hate feeling like this.
I really am kind of homesick. Not outright homesickness, like, "I want to go back to the States because everything's better there, and I want to move to Texas and not remember one word of any foreign language and call French Fries 'Freedom Fries' and forget the rest of the world and its cultures exist, hey hand me a Big Mac, will ya?". Not like that. Mostly I'm homesick for things like people who are passionate and driven in their education, or if they're not, who pretend to be. I'm homesick for my friends at home, and the fact that I could, without ruining any tenuous living relationship, tell them to wash their goddamn dishes. I'm homesick for being communally grossed out by all of our hair stuck in globs along the hallway, and then doing something about it together. I'm homesick for professors who treat me like a colleague more than a cretin, who are genuinely eager to share their knowlege and who would consider it unprofessional to make me feel as though my ideas are worth less than the oxygen it took to voice them. Really, I'm only homesick by comparison.
Yes, it was naive of me to think that I might possibly love every moment I spend here. Hell, anyone who has met me knows that that was an impossibility from the word go. I guess the one good thing about this whole W curve thing sneaking up on little 'ol unsuspecting me is that I'm getting to experience all of these emotions completely authentically... and authenticity is always a good thing, even if it's authentically bad or unpleasant or annoying.
Please, if you're reading this, don't feel bad or concerned for me. I'm not languishing away in some dark, unkempt corner of my apartment, starving myself and sinking into a depression. No, the more accurate description would be that I go through the school week pretty much consistently annoyed, and then the weekend comes and I get to do the things that I really like to do (this weekend it's the Galleria Borghese and the Vatican Museums) without the things that are annoying me interfering (my roommates are pretty much gone when I come home on the weekends). And I have friends at school who are fun, and with whom I like to do things, but alone time is essentially non-existent here unless I'm out in the city by myself, so the annoyances can really build up the pressure.
Just needed to vent my spleen a little; hope you enjoy it. I have to say that, from your perspective, this instance of negativity now and then will probably make for more interesting reading (I'm flattering myself that you're interested at all...), and that's the way I intend to think of it from my perspective, too: this instance of negativity will only make for more interesting living.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
AdVeniceTures
You know in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back, when you get that first shot of Lando's cloud city and you're like: "woah, that's sure an unlikely place for people to be living! I wonder how that place came to be?"... you don't? Okay. Well, pretend you do. That is exactly the feeling/thought I had when flying into Marco Polo Airport in Venezia. You fly basically out over the sea for a little while, then loop back around and land. But the kicker is: the entire time you're over what is presumably sea, there are lines and patches that look decidedly unnatural and seem to indicate human habitation.
While I have always understood the concept of Venice, in theory, I don't think you can ever really appreciate the tangible reality of the place until you've been there. And even then, it feels like Epcot Center a little, because the idea of the place is just so unlikely. But all of that is beside the point, because, unlikely as it might be, Venice is real, and that's where I spent the last two days.
Amanda, a girl from American University in D.C., invited me and five other girls to join her in the floating city this weekend. We bought our plane tickets, which only cost about 68 euro round-trip, last week. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the concept of "Oh, let's catch a cheap 50-minute flight to Venice for the weekend, no big deal". We all had some ideas about what we wanted to see there, but nothing set in stone. This is precisely the way I like to do things. I think being too regimented in what you need to do in a place kills the discovery of it. It is sort of like visiting Disneyworld and focusing so much on which rides and attractions you need to get to that you miss the parade and the fireworks. It's the best part!
Okay, no more Disney metaphors (I think). We left Rome at 4.00 am on Friday and took off from Fiumicino at 6.10, which kinda sucked, but you do what you gotta do. We arrived in Venice around 7.00 and took a bus to the city proper. We then walked around taking pictures of everything and nothing (and GONDOLAS! Gah!) for awhile... I dragged everyone along with me into some churches, which they all accepted with good grace, before we took a water-bus called a vaporetto to San Marco Square to really start the tourist day off right.
Now, a word on water buses. Did you ever stop to wonder how the people in Venice get around, and do all the stuff that normal, non-aquatic people do? They don't all just float around in picture-esque gondolas all day singing "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie"... that would get old really fast for everyone involved. No, Venice has all the same vehicles as Rome, Kalamazoo, New York, Great Falls have, except all of them are boats. Buses, taxis, mail trucks, cop cars, even ambulances. No, this isn't surprising for a city to have all these things, it's just odd to see an ambulance zooming down a canal, bobbing on the waves and blaring its siren.
But anyway, when we got to San Marco Square, I was chomping at the bit to go to San Zaccaria, a church not too far away which houses an early Venetian Renaissance altarpiece by Bellini, which I've studied in class. I was itching to see some of the really great examples of Venetian High Renaissance art now that I was in Venice and could grasp the stylistic influences more fully. Ultimately, we split into two groups: those of us (me, Darrian and Amanda, who were good sports and didn't abandon me to my own devices) who were going to San Zaccaria and then to wherever life took us, and those heretics who were going to one of the modern art museums. This isn't a good time to talk about my feelings on modern art, and especially that in Italy, so I won't.
San Zaccaria was all that I could have hoped for, and while I didn't have nearly the breathless reaction that I've had to things before (specifically Michelangelo), I was able to give Darrian and Amanda a brief lesson on Venetian style and Renaissance symbolism. Shockingly, they were both very interested and asked more questions! I'm used to being told in some capacity to shut up when I start rhapsodizing, wether it be with glazed expressions or quick changes of subject. Even more unexpectedly, they told me that they wanted to go to the Accademia (the museum of Renaissance painting in Venice) if I would tell them more of what I knew. I was basically floored by this.
So we made our way from San Zaccaria, leisurely through San Marco square (which is INSANE. Way too many people, way too many pigeons) and through the winding streets of Venice, none of which has room for a car to drive even if there was a way it could get there. Incidentally, Venice is extremely quiet compared to Rome. It IS the absence of cars. It's incredible how much of a difference it makes. We got cut off sometimes when a street would just end in a canal, so we did a lot of doubling back, but we saw a whole lot of Venice this way.
We got to the Accademia, and when I told the admissions lady that I was an art history student, she let me in free! It was so cool, and so gratifying, since I don't think I'll ever MAKE any money with this major, at least I might SAVE some from time to time! As we walked through, I would point certain things out in paintings, mostly those symbolic traits and common occurances that appear throughout religious art, and give a brief explaination of why it was there and where it originated (if I knew; I tried my best not to make stuff up) and when we came upon them again, I would ask Amanda and Darrian what it meant and where we'd seen it before. This is precisely the kind of puzzle-cracking that got me fascinated with art in the first place, and it was amazingly exciting and gratifying to see two other people make the same connections with my help. I had so much fun. Teaching is possibly the best thing ever. Granted, my first official lesson teaching art history came with the added bonus of being able to stand right in front of a Titian, Bellini or Veronese while I was talking about it, but that was just the cherry on top of the exhileration of sharing my knowledge. Best thing about the trip, hands down.
Later, a few hours after we had left that museum and wandered around for a bit, Darrian and I were waiting for Amanda while she was in a public restroom, and this middle-aged American guy came up to me and said: "You really should be a tour guide. I've never learned that much in a museum before. We were listening in on your tour. You know a lot." Wow. There's just nothing better than that. I thanked him and we talked for awhile. His lucky kids (the oldest of whom is twelve) are getting to experience Europe at a very young age. I really hope they can enjoy some of the incredible memories they'll make here; their dad gave me one that I'll treasure forever.
We bummed around for a little while longer, walking along the Rialto and exclaiming over all the beauty, surreality, blah blah blah, and then met the other 4 for dinner. We went to this little hole in the wall with a mostly local clientelle, and ate delicious seafood. What better thing to eat when sitting in the middle of the sea? Afterward, we went to this gellateria that Casey had heard about in her guidebook, and ate amazing, possibly some of the best I've had yet, gelatto. Green tea and ginger? Yes please.
We took two buses out of Venice to get to our hostel in Fusina. There was a little bit of a hectic patch where Casey failed to make it into our second bus before the door slammed in her face and we zoomed off. That was a bit stressful. But we finally all made it safe and sound to the hostel, Camping Fusina, where we shared tiny cabins which each slept two people. It was loud, and there were many many Austrailians drinking at the local pub, and all of them were basically turning the place into a giant shitshow, but we all konked out pretty fast. Waking up at 3.45 and going to sleep at midnight will do that. And really, the hostel was very pleasant, and not at all the horror show I was expecting. The Austrailians were more funny than anything, and, I'm not going to lie, the boys were nice to look at, too.
Saturday morning we split up into our groups again, with me, Amanda and Darrian going to Murano to basically lick the windows in front of the glassware, and the other four going to yet another modern art museum. The boat ride to Murano was so cool, and the island itself is very very beautiful, but not as beautiful as the stuff they make there. I won't try to explain Murano glass, because if you don't already know what I'm talking about, my explanation won't help you.
We went back to Venice to explore the Doge's Palace, home of the largest oil painting ever done (it's no giant ball of twine, but what're you gonna do?), then had lunch at another seafood restaurant, where Amanda and I ordered what we thought were 33 cent beers. Turns out the menu had a typo-ish thing, and our Italian obviously didn't help clear it up, because that was the size of the beer, not the price. Still, it tasted soooo good after walking around that I really didn't mind (too much) paying 5 euro for it. Oh well.
We met the others at Alaska (the gelatteria) again for one last hurrah before leaving Venice. At the airport, going through security, I got stopped because I'm an idiot and had brought my leatherman with me. I didn't get stopped in Rome, so it didn't even cross my mind until the security guy beckoned me over to him. Well, faced with the prospect of leaving my Christmas present from Mom and Dad behind in Venice, I began to cry. It's true what they say about Italian men: you cry in front of them, and you get what you want. He told me to go out and check my backpack and he would let me back through security with no problem. So, I'm out 22 euro for the bag check, but it serves me right for being an idiot.
Our plane was delayed half an hour, but that's nothing compared to my normal effect on aircraft of any kind, so I didn't mind. The French woman sitting next to Christine in the waiting area did ask her if Darrian and I had been smoking marijuana when we began, in our befuddled and sleep-deprived state, to recite "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" amid giggles and snorts that come from around 10 hours of sleep in two days. Bitch.
But we made it home to Rome around 11, and I immediately fell into my bed and slept hard until this morning. I'm off to the botanical gardens for the afternoon. Venice was an amazing, revalatory experience, but I'm glad to be back in familiar surroundings where I know where I am and where I'm going. I guess, now that I've had my first teaching experience, in more ways than one.
While I have always understood the concept of Venice, in theory, I don't think you can ever really appreciate the tangible reality of the place until you've been there. And even then, it feels like Epcot Center a little, because the idea of the place is just so unlikely. But all of that is beside the point, because, unlikely as it might be, Venice is real, and that's where I spent the last two days.
Amanda, a girl from American University in D.C., invited me and five other girls to join her in the floating city this weekend. We bought our plane tickets, which only cost about 68 euro round-trip, last week. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the concept of "Oh, let's catch a cheap 50-minute flight to Venice for the weekend, no big deal". We all had some ideas about what we wanted to see there, but nothing set in stone. This is precisely the way I like to do things. I think being too regimented in what you need to do in a place kills the discovery of it. It is sort of like visiting Disneyworld and focusing so much on which rides and attractions you need to get to that you miss the parade and the fireworks. It's the best part!
Okay, no more Disney metaphors (I think). We left Rome at 4.00 am on Friday and took off from Fiumicino at 6.10, which kinda sucked, but you do what you gotta do. We arrived in Venice around 7.00 and took a bus to the city proper. We then walked around taking pictures of everything and nothing (and GONDOLAS! Gah!) for awhile... I dragged everyone along with me into some churches, which they all accepted with good grace, before we took a water-bus called a vaporetto to San Marco Square to really start the tourist day off right.
Now, a word on water buses. Did you ever stop to wonder how the people in Venice get around, and do all the stuff that normal, non-aquatic people do? They don't all just float around in picture-esque gondolas all day singing "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie"... that would get old really fast for everyone involved. No, Venice has all the same vehicles as Rome, Kalamazoo, New York, Great Falls have, except all of them are boats. Buses, taxis, mail trucks, cop cars, even ambulances. No, this isn't surprising for a city to have all these things, it's just odd to see an ambulance zooming down a canal, bobbing on the waves and blaring its siren.
But anyway, when we got to San Marco Square, I was chomping at the bit to go to San Zaccaria, a church not too far away which houses an early Venetian Renaissance altarpiece by Bellini, which I've studied in class. I was itching to see some of the really great examples of Venetian High Renaissance art now that I was in Venice and could grasp the stylistic influences more fully. Ultimately, we split into two groups: those of us (me, Darrian and Amanda, who were good sports and didn't abandon me to my own devices) who were going to San Zaccaria and then to wherever life took us, and those heretics who were going to one of the modern art museums. This isn't a good time to talk about my feelings on modern art, and especially that in Italy, so I won't.
San Zaccaria was all that I could have hoped for, and while I didn't have nearly the breathless reaction that I've had to things before (specifically Michelangelo), I was able to give Darrian and Amanda a brief lesson on Venetian style and Renaissance symbolism. Shockingly, they were both very interested and asked more questions! I'm used to being told in some capacity to shut up when I start rhapsodizing, wether it be with glazed expressions or quick changes of subject. Even more unexpectedly, they told me that they wanted to go to the Accademia (the museum of Renaissance painting in Venice) if I would tell them more of what I knew. I was basically floored by this.
So we made our way from San Zaccaria, leisurely through San Marco square (which is INSANE. Way too many people, way too many pigeons) and through the winding streets of Venice, none of which has room for a car to drive even if there was a way it could get there. Incidentally, Venice is extremely quiet compared to Rome. It IS the absence of cars. It's incredible how much of a difference it makes. We got cut off sometimes when a street would just end in a canal, so we did a lot of doubling back, but we saw a whole lot of Venice this way.
We got to the Accademia, and when I told the admissions lady that I was an art history student, she let me in free! It was so cool, and so gratifying, since I don't think I'll ever MAKE any money with this major, at least I might SAVE some from time to time! As we walked through, I would point certain things out in paintings, mostly those symbolic traits and common occurances that appear throughout religious art, and give a brief explaination of why it was there and where it originated (if I knew; I tried my best not to make stuff up) and when we came upon them again, I would ask Amanda and Darrian what it meant and where we'd seen it before. This is precisely the kind of puzzle-cracking that got me fascinated with art in the first place, and it was amazingly exciting and gratifying to see two other people make the same connections with my help. I had so much fun. Teaching is possibly the best thing ever. Granted, my first official lesson teaching art history came with the added bonus of being able to stand right in front of a Titian, Bellini or Veronese while I was talking about it, but that was just the cherry on top of the exhileration of sharing my knowledge. Best thing about the trip, hands down.
Later, a few hours after we had left that museum and wandered around for a bit, Darrian and I were waiting for Amanda while she was in a public restroom, and this middle-aged American guy came up to me and said: "You really should be a tour guide. I've never learned that much in a museum before. We were listening in on your tour. You know a lot." Wow. There's just nothing better than that. I thanked him and we talked for awhile. His lucky kids (the oldest of whom is twelve) are getting to experience Europe at a very young age. I really hope they can enjoy some of the incredible memories they'll make here; their dad gave me one that I'll treasure forever.
We bummed around for a little while longer, walking along the Rialto and exclaiming over all the beauty, surreality, blah blah blah, and then met the other 4 for dinner. We went to this little hole in the wall with a mostly local clientelle, and ate delicious seafood. What better thing to eat when sitting in the middle of the sea? Afterward, we went to this gellateria that Casey had heard about in her guidebook, and ate amazing, possibly some of the best I've had yet, gelatto. Green tea and ginger? Yes please.
We took two buses out of Venice to get to our hostel in Fusina. There was a little bit of a hectic patch where Casey failed to make it into our second bus before the door slammed in her face and we zoomed off. That was a bit stressful. But we finally all made it safe and sound to the hostel, Camping Fusina, where we shared tiny cabins which each slept two people. It was loud, and there were many many Austrailians drinking at the local pub, and all of them were basically turning the place into a giant shitshow, but we all konked out pretty fast. Waking up at 3.45 and going to sleep at midnight will do that. And really, the hostel was very pleasant, and not at all the horror show I was expecting. The Austrailians were more funny than anything, and, I'm not going to lie, the boys were nice to look at, too.
Saturday morning we split up into our groups again, with me, Amanda and Darrian going to Murano to basically lick the windows in front of the glassware, and the other four going to yet another modern art museum. The boat ride to Murano was so cool, and the island itself is very very beautiful, but not as beautiful as the stuff they make there. I won't try to explain Murano glass, because if you don't already know what I'm talking about, my explanation won't help you.
We went back to Venice to explore the Doge's Palace, home of the largest oil painting ever done (it's no giant ball of twine, but what're you gonna do?), then had lunch at another seafood restaurant, where Amanda and I ordered what we thought were 33 cent beers. Turns out the menu had a typo-ish thing, and our Italian obviously didn't help clear it up, because that was the size of the beer, not the price. Still, it tasted soooo good after walking around that I really didn't mind (too much) paying 5 euro for it. Oh well.
We met the others at Alaska (the gelatteria) again for one last hurrah before leaving Venice. At the airport, going through security, I got stopped because I'm an idiot and had brought my leatherman with me. I didn't get stopped in Rome, so it didn't even cross my mind until the security guy beckoned me over to him. Well, faced with the prospect of leaving my Christmas present from Mom and Dad behind in Venice, I began to cry. It's true what they say about Italian men: you cry in front of them, and you get what you want. He told me to go out and check my backpack and he would let me back through security with no problem. So, I'm out 22 euro for the bag check, but it serves me right for being an idiot.
Our plane was delayed half an hour, but that's nothing compared to my normal effect on aircraft of any kind, so I didn't mind. The French woman sitting next to Christine in the waiting area did ask her if Darrian and I had been smoking marijuana when we began, in our befuddled and sleep-deprived state, to recite "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" amid giggles and snorts that come from around 10 hours of sleep in two days. Bitch.
But we made it home to Rome around 11, and I immediately fell into my bed and slept hard until this morning. I'm off to the botanical gardens for the afternoon. Venice was an amazing, revalatory experience, but I'm glad to be back in familiar surroundings where I know where I am and where I'm going. I guess, now that I've had my first teaching experience, in more ways than one.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Word About Professors
I am of the opinion that how much you get out of a class is directly contingent upon the person teaching it. Having been born into a family chock full of teachers (and planning to become some semblance of one myself, someday), I'm always interested to experience the teaching style of any new professor, and how it works for me and how it doesn't. This semester marks the first time since winter quarter of my first year at K that I haven't known anything about the professor going into a class. At our very small, tightly-knit school, one can usually just shout out a professor's name in the cafeteria and chances are that someone in your immediate vicinity will have some helpful information on how to deal with him or her. So, essentially, I was flying completely blind coming into this. Not something I'm used to.
Being at an English speaking university in a country that does not speak English will get you some very fascinating scholars. A mix of ex-pats from all over the world who have made their home in Rome, and some Italians and even some native Romani who speak beautiful English and seem to know absolutely everything. My professors are a pretty comprehensive mix of these things, and since I haven't said a whole lot about the (formal) scholastic part of this adventure, I thought I would give some info about my classes and their very diverse group of leaders.
Roman Imperial Art and Architecture: Monday 9-12 with Dr. Jan Gadeynne
There's a reason that I love going to school in Rome, and this class is perhaps the best summation of that reason. None of the classes will ever be taught in a classroom-- every single class is on-site somewhere in Rome. Professor Gadeynne is Belgian, I think, but he's lived in Rome for a lot of his professional life, and no wonder. The guy is a positive fountain of information of all kinds on the Roman Empire. We were standing on an overlook out onto the forums of Julius Caesar and Augustus, and he could illustrate just from the scattered ruins just how the temples and malls looked. And I could imagine them! It was actually a very cool experience. He's very funny, too. He gives people who are late a lot of crap and his favorite segue seems to be "and all this shit I've just told you...". I love professors who swear. I don't know why. He walks very quickly, and seems to be impressed by the fact that I can handily keep up with him while the rest of the class is half a block behind us. Thanks, Mom! ;)
Intensive Elementary Italian: Monday-Thursday 3.40pm-5.05pm with Prof. Maurizio Mamorstein
It's an Italian class. And our Professore is an American (born in New Jersey to Italian immigrant parents... and yeah, I can't explain the Mamorstein) who moved back to Italy around 20 years ago and lives there pretty much full time. He speaks beautiful Italian, which is very easy to understand, given its similarities to French. The only complaint I would have about Maurizio is that he can very accurately explain and illustrate concepts, but he doesn't let us turn to eachother and talk, so I don't feel as confident as I might otherwise feel with using the Italian I know in real life here. I have this class everyday, which is good for my comprehension, but bad for my patience. I won't explain, because I'll sound mean and judgey. This is probably my most helpful (immediately) class.
Mythology: Monday & Wednesday 5.15pm-6.40pm with Prof. Manuela Giordano
Being at an English speaking university in a country that does not speak English will get you some very fascinating scholars. A mix of ex-pats from all over the world who have made their home in Rome, and some Italians and even some native Romani who speak beautiful English and seem to know absolutely everything. My professors are a pretty comprehensive mix of these things, and since I haven't said a whole lot about the (formal) scholastic part of this adventure, I thought I would give some info about my classes and their very diverse group of leaders.
Roman Imperial Art and Architecture: Monday 9-12 with Dr. Jan Gadeynne
There's a reason that I love going to school in Rome, and this class is perhaps the best summation of that reason. None of the classes will ever be taught in a classroom-- every single class is on-site somewhere in Rome. Professor Gadeynne is Belgian, I think, but he's lived in Rome for a lot of his professional life, and no wonder. The guy is a positive fountain of information of all kinds on the Roman Empire. We were standing on an overlook out onto the forums of Julius Caesar and Augustus, and he could illustrate just from the scattered ruins just how the temples and malls looked. And I could imagine them! It was actually a very cool experience. He's very funny, too. He gives people who are late a lot of crap and his favorite segue seems to be "and all this shit I've just told you...". I love professors who swear. I don't know why. He walks very quickly, and seems to be impressed by the fact that I can handily keep up with him while the rest of the class is half a block behind us. Thanks, Mom! ;)
Intensive Elementary Italian: Monday-Thursday 3.40pm-5.05pm with Prof. Maurizio Mamorstein
It's an Italian class. And our Professore is an American (born in New Jersey to Italian immigrant parents... and yeah, I can't explain the Mamorstein) who moved back to Italy around 20 years ago and lives there pretty much full time. He speaks beautiful Italian, which is very easy to understand, given its similarities to French. The only complaint I would have about Maurizio is that he can very accurately explain and illustrate concepts, but he doesn't let us turn to eachother and talk, so I don't feel as confident as I might otherwise feel with using the Italian I know in real life here. I have this class everyday, which is good for my comprehension, but bad for my patience. I won't explain, because I'll sound mean and judgey. This is probably my most helpful (immediately) class.
Mythology: Monday & Wednesday 5.15pm-6.40pm with Prof. Manuela Giordano
Well, you would think that this calss would be fantastic, fascinating and really useful for the study of Baroque art... but it's a little disappointing. Our Prof is Italian, and while she speaks great English, she also has this way of making you feel like you're standing in front of a firing squad each time she asks you a question, which are always very vague, and if you don't answer in exactly the terms she would have used, even if you use synonyms... she just has a way of making you feel like an idiot. Now, for some odd reason I seem to know a whole lot about this particular subject without really trying, which means that I rarely look like a dumbass, but instead end up answering all the questions because everyone else is too intimidated by her vague questions to which she expects exacting answers to even volunteer. She also goes off on tangents that have very little to do with her subject, like proxemics. We spent twenty minutes in class on proxemics before getting back to Apollo. Oh well, hopefully I'll pick something up. If I don't get a concussion from losing control and slamming my head against the desk first.
Villas, Palaces and Gardens in the Renaissance and Baroque: Wednesday 9-12 with Dr. Paul Gwynne and Prof. Daria Borghese
Yup. Her name really is Borghese. Like the Popes. And the Gardens. And the Villa. And yup, that's not a mistake. She's Italian; the sweetest person and most knowledgable about her subject (specifically gardens). Dr. Gwynne is British, and awesome, and very, very sarcastic at the same time that he's scary smart. Possibly my favorite thing about him is the way he pronounces RenAAYYYYYYsahnce and Barack. Yeah, there's an artistic epoch named after the President of the United States. Who knew? This is another one of those classes that is taught exclusively on site. Yesterday we went to three churches, all built in the 13th century, and we visited a garden in a cloister of a nunnery. I accidentally made Dr. Gwynne aware of the fact that I aspire to teach art history, much as he does, and now he's gotten into the habit of grilling me at each new site about my analysis, and calling me Professor. Given his characteristic sarcasm, I don't know quite how to take this. But the class is fascinating, and I don't think I'll ever get over how cool it is to sit in a monastic garden while learning about monastic gardens...
Magna Grecia: Tuesday 6.50pm-8.15pm with Dr. Paul Gwynne
It's a class for the 9 Kalamazoo College girls that Dr. Gwynne himself has described as "basically an excuse to go to Sicily for a week." So more on that when we go to Sicily.
Art For Art's Sake: Tuesday & Thurday 2.05-3.30pm with Dr. Terry Kirk
I'm pretty much obsessed with this class. There's nothing really like it at K, and it's exactly what I feel has been missing in my education. It's basically a theory and methods class discussing the WHY and the HOW of the discipline of Art History. I've had some experience with the different schools of criticism, but only practically, and never in theory. The class is a lot of reading, a LOT of reading, but all of it is interesting. Also, praise be, the other around 9 kids in the class seem to actually like what they're doing and are happy to be able to discuss it competently with others who are just as passionate. It's my only class here that is full of people who actually look and act like they want to be there every class. The reason for our enthusiasm lies in the person of Professor Terry Kirk, our white polo-shirt collar poppin'-too much energy havin'-like, five languages speakin'-tiny pencil thin mustache right on top of his lip havin' brilliant leader. The guy has so much energy, and knows so much, that it's impossible not to feel energized, but at the same time mentally annihilated when you leave that class. He's a fervent supporter of the Socratic method, which means that there's no nodding off. Ever. Unless you want to look really dumb. Makes for some great discussion, which I thrive on.
All in all, it should be a pretty interesting semester. I'm taking the equivalent of 22 credit hours (whatever that means) and 6 classes in lieu of K's usual three. Who knows how this will go? Should be fun to find out!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Museums, Picnics and Umbria Again
We, meaning Casey, Michelle, Christine, Rachel and I, decided that Friday would be a good day to go on a picnic at the Villa Borghese. These gardens, I do believe, put Central Park to shame both in sheer size and beauty... well, they're in Italy, so that's always a step in the right direction. Anyway, we met in front of the Panthaeon at 5.30 to walk up to the Spanish Steps and into the Gardens.
I had spent the entire day in museums; my Mythology class met at Centro Montemartini, which is an old industrial complex in which the entire collection is Greek and Roman statue. The juxtaposition between the marble and the pipes, rotaries, etc. is actually really compelling and has this really interesting aesthetic.
On Wednesday my Villas, Palaces and Gardens in the Renaissance and Baroque (hereafter: Villas) class went to the national gallery at Palazzo Massimo. This ticket was actually a little more spendy than usual, at 7 euro (still not a lot, but when you think of the exchange...), but the cool thing was that it got you into the four sites that comprise the museo nazionale d'arte antica (antique art), so I decided that after Montemartini, I would visit the two I hadn't seen yet (I visited the Baths of Diocletian after class on Wednesday). Both Crypta Belbi and Palazzo Altemps were very interesting, but really: I'm a Renaissance/Baroque girl, so I think I've spent enough time in the company of headless statues for a good long while. Incidentally, while it might have at first seemed to have been something of a dream day, walking around in museums for around eight hours is not the delight that it might seem. Things start to look the same. But I didn't have to pay for any of the tickets, so I didn't feel so bad if by the end I was just walking past some of the Great Wonders of the Hellenistic Tradition. Oh well. Not really my deal.
On the way to the Panthaeon to meet the others for dinner, I stumbled (yeah, I do that alot. It's fun to be surprised!) upon a church that I must have passed a good ten times without looking at it, let alone inside it. I don't know what compelled me to go in this time, maybe the fact that I had a good twenty minutes of waiting around in the tourist jam to look forward to, but I did. I was walking around and admiring the lovely decoration and marveling at the number of votive candles these places must go through a day, when a glint of bronze caught my eye. Now, normally this wouldn't intrigue me, but this was only a glint of bronze, and it was on a marble statue. It made me think similtaneously of John Ashcroft covering the semi-nude figures in the Department of Justice (didn't want to be photographed in front of another boob) and of the Church fig-leafing everything that looked like skin... ever. They did it to Bernini, Michelangelo, Ghiberti... bananas. Anywho, I went to have a closer look at this statue, it turned out to be, in fact, Il Christo by Michelangelo. And the little scrap of bronze is covering the most high God's nether-regions. Man, but I love the contradictions posed by this town. Of course, as happens whenever I am presented with Michelangelo, and especially when it happens unexpectedly, I plopped down on the steps and gazed adoringly for about ten minutes before realizing that I was going to be late for meeting everyone, and put my eyes back in my head and headed out.
Our picnic was beautiful, and afterward we watched the sunset from the top of the hill on which Villa Borghese is situated, the Pincian. Interestingly, the sun sets right behind the Vatican from that vantage point, so the view was breathtaking and a little surreal. We wandered around the Spanish Steps and Via del Corso (the shopping district) for awhile afterward, finally taking a bus back to Trastevere from Piazza Venezia, the site of VE, the Forum, etc.
Saturday was devoted to Spoleto, a little town on the way to Assisi which is famous for its theater festival. Casey works at the corresponding Spoleto Festival in Charleston, so she wanted to bum around and see what the real place was like. Well, Michelangelo and I seem to be playing a game of hide and seek. In the Duomo in Spoleto, there's a little chapel in which one of the main prophetic figures is a blatant, unapologetic and really not very skillful (but still better than I could do in a million years) knockoff of the Libyan Sybil from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. She's really quite a distinctive figure, and there she was, in imitation, bold as you please. It made me laugh. He just seems to find me wherever I am.
We at delicious pizza at lunch, and then took an impromtu hike through the wooded mountains surrounding Spoleto on some little trails that ran from the end of this old Roman bridge. Breathtaking views once again... Umbria reminds me of western Montana and Middle Earth wrapped up in one irresistably Italian package.
The only downside to the day was that when I got home, fate decided that last night would be a primo time for an asthma attack... ugh. So I'm sitting here wheezing my lungs out while trying to study and do some homework before classes tomorrow. My strategy includes not moving too much, my inhaler, a hot shower and a lot of cursing the changing seasons. Wish me luck!
I had spent the entire day in museums; my Mythology class met at Centro Montemartini, which is an old industrial complex in which the entire collection is Greek and Roman statue. The juxtaposition between the marble and the pipes, rotaries, etc. is actually really compelling and has this really interesting aesthetic.
On Wednesday my Villas, Palaces and Gardens in the Renaissance and Baroque (hereafter: Villas) class went to the national gallery at Palazzo Massimo. This ticket was actually a little more spendy than usual, at 7 euro (still not a lot, but when you think of the exchange...), but the cool thing was that it got you into the four sites that comprise the museo nazionale d'arte antica (antique art), so I decided that after Montemartini, I would visit the two I hadn't seen yet (I visited the Baths of Diocletian after class on Wednesday). Both Crypta Belbi and Palazzo Altemps were very interesting, but really: I'm a Renaissance/Baroque girl, so I think I've spent enough time in the company of headless statues for a good long while. Incidentally, while it might have at first seemed to have been something of a dream day, walking around in museums for around eight hours is not the delight that it might seem. Things start to look the same. But I didn't have to pay for any of the tickets, so I didn't feel so bad if by the end I was just walking past some of the Great Wonders of the Hellenistic Tradition. Oh well. Not really my deal.
On the way to the Panthaeon to meet the others for dinner, I stumbled (yeah, I do that alot. It's fun to be surprised!) upon a church that I must have passed a good ten times without looking at it, let alone inside it. I don't know what compelled me to go in this time, maybe the fact that I had a good twenty minutes of waiting around in the tourist jam to look forward to, but I did. I was walking around and admiring the lovely decoration and marveling at the number of votive candles these places must go through a day, when a glint of bronze caught my eye. Now, normally this wouldn't intrigue me, but this was only a glint of bronze, and it was on a marble statue. It made me think similtaneously of John Ashcroft covering the semi-nude figures in the Department of Justice (didn't want to be photographed in front of another boob) and of the Church fig-leafing everything that looked like skin... ever. They did it to Bernini, Michelangelo, Ghiberti... bananas. Anywho, I went to have a closer look at this statue, it turned out to be, in fact, Il Christo by Michelangelo. And the little scrap of bronze is covering the most high God's nether-regions. Man, but I love the contradictions posed by this town. Of course, as happens whenever I am presented with Michelangelo, and especially when it happens unexpectedly, I plopped down on the steps and gazed adoringly for about ten minutes before realizing that I was going to be late for meeting everyone, and put my eyes back in my head and headed out.
Our picnic was beautiful, and afterward we watched the sunset from the top of the hill on which Villa Borghese is situated, the Pincian. Interestingly, the sun sets right behind the Vatican from that vantage point, so the view was breathtaking and a little surreal. We wandered around the Spanish Steps and Via del Corso (the shopping district) for awhile afterward, finally taking a bus back to Trastevere from Piazza Venezia, the site of VE, the Forum, etc.
Saturday was devoted to Spoleto, a little town on the way to Assisi which is famous for its theater festival. Casey works at the corresponding Spoleto Festival in Charleston, so she wanted to bum around and see what the real place was like. Well, Michelangelo and I seem to be playing a game of hide and seek. In the Duomo in Spoleto, there's a little chapel in which one of the main prophetic figures is a blatant, unapologetic and really not very skillful (but still better than I could do in a million years) knockoff of the Libyan Sybil from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. She's really quite a distinctive figure, and there she was, in imitation, bold as you please. It made me laugh. He just seems to find me wherever I am.
We at delicious pizza at lunch, and then took an impromtu hike through the wooded mountains surrounding Spoleto on some little trails that ran from the end of this old Roman bridge. Breathtaking views once again... Umbria reminds me of western Montana and Middle Earth wrapped up in one irresistably Italian package.
The only downside to the day was that when I got home, fate decided that last night would be a primo time for an asthma attack... ugh. So I'm sitting here wheezing my lungs out while trying to study and do some homework before classes tomorrow. My strategy includes not moving too much, my inhaler, a hot shower and a lot of cursing the changing seasons. Wish me luck!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Home Rhymes With...
It's been a long time since I've had to acclimate to living in a completely new place... the last time was when I went to college. I guess I had forgotten how easy it is to feel at home somewhere, if you really love where you are. I don't speak the language here, I've only been to one other town in the country, and I am continually bewildered by the odd, idiosynchratic nature of the Italian people, but nevertheless I feel very at home here. I have favorite haunts and plans for my days off, I have a preferred gelatto shop and a favorite pizzaria, I've made friends with the proprietor of an English language bookstore... I recognize people who I see walking their dogs in the park, for pity's sake!
Some of the immediate wonder of being thrown headfirst into a place I've essentially mythologized for a large part of my life has worn off, and I'm starting to feel as though I might be living in a real, breathing city, not just a tourist attraction. Some of the urgency to see everything all at once has worn off, and I'm content to just be here, surrounded not only by the Circus Maximus and the Colloseum, the Vatican and the Roman Forum, but also Termini station, where people have to take buses to work each day, and the Todis supermarket down the street, where we have to buy food, since woman does not live by history alone... although that would really be nice for my bank account if I could.
Anywho. I guess the gist of it is: live somewhere else. I know most of you who might be checking this blog are in the process of doing that right now, and those of you who aren't have probably done it already, but still. I think the most important thing I've discovered while acclimating myself to this new place where I am still essentially the consummate outsider is that our comfort zones are a lot more elastic than we think they are. You just have to learn not to be afraid of looking like a jackass (which is certainly my most constant passtime) and to embrace the reality of somewhere, not just the nice postcard idealization of it. Because that's like buying Wonderbread when you're surrounded by ciabatta.
Some of the immediate wonder of being thrown headfirst into a place I've essentially mythologized for a large part of my life has worn off, and I'm starting to feel as though I might be living in a real, breathing city, not just a tourist attraction. Some of the urgency to see everything all at once has worn off, and I'm content to just be here, surrounded not only by the Circus Maximus and the Colloseum, the Vatican and the Roman Forum, but also Termini station, where people have to take buses to work each day, and the Todis supermarket down the street, where we have to buy food, since woman does not live by history alone... although that would really be nice for my bank account if I could.
Anywho. I guess the gist of it is: live somewhere else. I know most of you who might be checking this blog are in the process of doing that right now, and those of you who aren't have probably done it already, but still. I think the most important thing I've discovered while acclimating myself to this new place where I am still essentially the consummate outsider is that our comfort zones are a lot more elastic than we think they are. You just have to learn not to be afraid of looking like a jackass (which is certainly my most constant passtime) and to embrace the reality of somewhere, not just the nice postcard idealization of it. Because that's like buying Wonderbread when you're surrounded by ciabatta.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Assisi
On Thursday my friend Casey from American University in Washington, D.C. and I decided that we would take the train to Assisi on Saturday and spend the day walking around and exploring one of the quintessentially 'Italian' towns that lie within a day's distance of Rome (not that Rome isn't quintessentially Italian, you understand, but Assisi looks like Franco Zeffereli's wet dream, and in fact, it's where he filmed Brother Sun, Sister Moon. An appropriate place to film St. Francis' biopic, no?)
We met at school at 7 and headed to Termini, where we stood staring confusedly at the arrivals/departures boards for a few minutes after purchasing our tickets from a friendly robot, trying to figure out which platform we needed to go to. Well, we figured it out with about ten minutes to spare, and boarded the train headed for Perugia at Platform 3.
Much to our chagrin, we couldn't find any two seats together that weren't occupied by someone's carry-on luggage. We tried three compartments before finding two seats, and sat down to enjoy the ride. Now, I had heard some horror stories from some vetrans of Trenitalia that indicated that we needed to validate our tickets or risk a good tongue lashing and some hefty fines from a curmudgeonly Italian train conductor. So I clumsily asked the woman sitting across the aisle from us dove validato (which is, incidentally, definitely not a word) bigletti? Luckily, she spoke more English than I speak Italian, and she directed us to the little yellow boxes that would punch our tickets... all the way at the other end of the platform. This just as the whistle blew. A little cliche, but we sprinted down the platform, punched our tickets like we were in a one-woman relay race and screamed back up to our compartment as the conductors were preparing to shut the doors. An exciting way to start an exciting day!
We spent the train ride to Assisi with our faces plastered to the windows as the Umbrian countryside flashed by the windows. It actually reminded me more than a little of Montana, with the mountains covered in trees and the farmland... it was oddly familiar and therefore comforting. The only difference is, Montana doesn't often have beautiful, picturesque medieval towns perched precariously on the sides of mountains... we just don't.
It was beautiful and sunny when we got to Assisi around 10:00, where we took a bus from the train station at the bottom of the hill to the medieval central (and admittedly VERY tourist/pilgrim heavy) town at the top of the hill. We decided, mostly at my urging, to dispense with buying a map and just see where we found ourselves. This actually turned out to be a good idea, and not at all risky, since Assisi is labeled on just about every street corner telling you where to find what.
Our first stop was St. Francesco, the basillica where St. Francis of Assisi is buried. To call this church beautiful would be the understatement of the century. It's beyond lovely outside, and when you go inside... there just are no words. Late medieval and early Renaissance fresco everywhere. It's so colorful and ornate (and ironically, given St. Francis's belief in the glory of God through nature, totally counter-intuitive to his message). There's a theory in Art History that has yet to be conclusively proven that Giotto, the great Tuscan master of the early Renaissance, is the painter who depicted the Life of St. Francis in the bottom chapel. Well, I'm not very educated in the inticacies of connosseiurship, but to me, you'd have to be blind as well as an idiot to not realize that this work is Giotto's. So it was a thrill for me to be able to see that.
Casey was excited, as a theater tech major, that there were some carpenters outside building a stage for a musical taking place that night, Chiara di Dio, about the life of St. Chiara. She was flipping out and wondering if she could purchase a house right then and there and stay in Assisi forever. I can't say I wasn't tempted by the same desire.
The city, with it's little winding streets and alleys that are actually just staircases, is so beautiful, with ivy and flowers growing all over the buttery stone of the buildings... but the thing that makes Assisi so incredible, besides the unbelievable amount of history of political, artistic and religious importance present in the town, are the views. I've never seen anything quite like them. Looking out over the Umbrian countryside, through the mountains and above and the blue blue sky populated by expansive masses of cumulus clouds... it's like a dream. I can't explain it any better than that. It was like flying. All day, each time we rounded a corner and were treated to a new vista, I couldn't help but gasp. Though it might be funny for me to say, given my chosen profession and area of specialty, I think I agree with St. Francis about where God can really be found.
We ate lunch gaping like fish out over one of these beautiful views from a terrace at a restaurant close to the top of the hill. The food was delicious, but we had an epic battle with two wasps, in which I and my chosen weapon of a fork ultimately prevailed. We decided that there is a reason why you're given two forks when dining al fresco: one is for bees, and the other is for the delicious food. I had linguine in a cream sauce with salmon. The revalation of this dish: black pepper. It actually tastes like something! Not only that, it actually made the dish. I will never be disparaging or underestimate its powers again. Casey had lamb, and that was also wonderful, and we split a liter of the house red. When we got up from the table, we were a little giddy from the view and the food, but I don't think the wine helped, either.
We giggled our way to a piazza where, with the help of some gelatto, we soon decided we were up to climbing to the Rocco Maggiore, the old fortress that protected Assisi. Lots of terrifying little staircases with steep and well-worn steps, and wind that would make Great Falls blush with inadequacy... we had a grand old time. After visiting some of the other churches around Assisi, we spent the rest of the evening people watching (and in Casey's case, stage-hand watching) by San Francesco, watching the sun go down, bright pink, behind the mountains.
We took the bus back to the bottom of the hill and decided, with the irony which make life worth living, that our trip to this authentic little town in the heart of Umbria would not be complete without a trip to McDonalds. Yeah... but we spent so much on lunch that it seemed silly to splurge on dinner. Also, McDonalds in Italy is so much classier. There were long gossamer-looking curtains at the windows and culturally significant artwork on the walls... McDonalds in the States needs to step up its game. Also: patates West. Waffle fries. Why the heck don't we have those in the States. Delicious.
We spent the train ride home watching The Office on Casey's iPod and yawning from all the stairs, the wine and the emotional highs of the day. Then we took the bus back through centro, passing along the way the still not-quite-real site of the Colloseum illuminated at night. I came back to the apartment and plopped into bed and didn't move until the church dismissal bells woke me at 11 this morning. I love Italy.
We met at school at 7 and headed to Termini, where we stood staring confusedly at the arrivals/departures boards for a few minutes after purchasing our tickets from a friendly robot, trying to figure out which platform we needed to go to. Well, we figured it out with about ten minutes to spare, and boarded the train headed for Perugia at Platform 3.
Much to our chagrin, we couldn't find any two seats together that weren't occupied by someone's carry-on luggage. We tried three compartments before finding two seats, and sat down to enjoy the ride. Now, I had heard some horror stories from some vetrans of Trenitalia that indicated that we needed to validate our tickets or risk a good tongue lashing and some hefty fines from a curmudgeonly Italian train conductor. So I clumsily asked the woman sitting across the aisle from us dove validato (which is, incidentally, definitely not a word) bigletti? Luckily, she spoke more English than I speak Italian, and she directed us to the little yellow boxes that would punch our tickets... all the way at the other end of the platform. This just as the whistle blew. A little cliche, but we sprinted down the platform, punched our tickets like we were in a one-woman relay race and screamed back up to our compartment as the conductors were preparing to shut the doors. An exciting way to start an exciting day!
We spent the train ride to Assisi with our faces plastered to the windows as the Umbrian countryside flashed by the windows. It actually reminded me more than a little of Montana, with the mountains covered in trees and the farmland... it was oddly familiar and therefore comforting. The only difference is, Montana doesn't often have beautiful, picturesque medieval towns perched precariously on the sides of mountains... we just don't.
It was beautiful and sunny when we got to Assisi around 10:00, where we took a bus from the train station at the bottom of the hill to the medieval central (and admittedly VERY tourist/pilgrim heavy) town at the top of the hill. We decided, mostly at my urging, to dispense with buying a map and just see where we found ourselves. This actually turned out to be a good idea, and not at all risky, since Assisi is labeled on just about every street corner telling you where to find what.
Our first stop was St. Francesco, the basillica where St. Francis of Assisi is buried. To call this church beautiful would be the understatement of the century. It's beyond lovely outside, and when you go inside... there just are no words. Late medieval and early Renaissance fresco everywhere. It's so colorful and ornate (and ironically, given St. Francis's belief in the glory of God through nature, totally counter-intuitive to his message). There's a theory in Art History that has yet to be conclusively proven that Giotto, the great Tuscan master of the early Renaissance, is the painter who depicted the Life of St. Francis in the bottom chapel. Well, I'm not very educated in the inticacies of connosseiurship, but to me, you'd have to be blind as well as an idiot to not realize that this work is Giotto's. So it was a thrill for me to be able to see that.
Casey was excited, as a theater tech major, that there were some carpenters outside building a stage for a musical taking place that night, Chiara di Dio, about the life of St. Chiara. She was flipping out and wondering if she could purchase a house right then and there and stay in Assisi forever. I can't say I wasn't tempted by the same desire.
The city, with it's little winding streets and alleys that are actually just staircases, is so beautiful, with ivy and flowers growing all over the buttery stone of the buildings... but the thing that makes Assisi so incredible, besides the unbelievable amount of history of political, artistic and religious importance present in the town, are the views. I've never seen anything quite like them. Looking out over the Umbrian countryside, through the mountains and above and the blue blue sky populated by expansive masses of cumulus clouds... it's like a dream. I can't explain it any better than that. It was like flying. All day, each time we rounded a corner and were treated to a new vista, I couldn't help but gasp. Though it might be funny for me to say, given my chosen profession and area of specialty, I think I agree with St. Francis about where God can really be found.
We ate lunch gaping like fish out over one of these beautiful views from a terrace at a restaurant close to the top of the hill. The food was delicious, but we had an epic battle with two wasps, in which I and my chosen weapon of a fork ultimately prevailed. We decided that there is a reason why you're given two forks when dining al fresco: one is for bees, and the other is for the delicious food. I had linguine in a cream sauce with salmon. The revalation of this dish: black pepper. It actually tastes like something! Not only that, it actually made the dish. I will never be disparaging or underestimate its powers again. Casey had lamb, and that was also wonderful, and we split a liter of the house red. When we got up from the table, we were a little giddy from the view and the food, but I don't think the wine helped, either.
We giggled our way to a piazza where, with the help of some gelatto, we soon decided we were up to climbing to the Rocco Maggiore, the old fortress that protected Assisi. Lots of terrifying little staircases with steep and well-worn steps, and wind that would make Great Falls blush with inadequacy... we had a grand old time. After visiting some of the other churches around Assisi, we spent the rest of the evening people watching (and in Casey's case, stage-hand watching) by San Francesco, watching the sun go down, bright pink, behind the mountains.
We took the bus back to the bottom of the hill and decided, with the irony which make life worth living, that our trip to this authentic little town in the heart of Umbria would not be complete without a trip to McDonalds. Yeah... but we spent so much on lunch that it seemed silly to splurge on dinner. Also, McDonalds in Italy is so much classier. There were long gossamer-looking curtains at the windows and culturally significant artwork on the walls... McDonalds in the States needs to step up its game. Also: patates West. Waffle fries. Why the heck don't we have those in the States. Delicious.
We spent the train ride home watching The Office on Casey's iPod and yawning from all the stairs, the wine and the emotional highs of the day. Then we took the bus back through centro, passing along the way the still not-quite-real site of the Colloseum illuminated at night. I came back to the apartment and plopped into bed and didn't move until the church dismissal bells woke me at 11 this morning. I love Italy.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Lists Part Due
Things That Make Rome Less Than Perfecto
1. Cigarettes-- And no, it's not just the Europeans. An entire contingent, what feels like at least 80% of the AUR population smokes. I think it's interesting that Americans get to Europe and suddenly are all uninhibited about this disgusting habit that many in the US probably guilt them about, so they downplay it. Not here. No, people will blow smoke right in your face, brazen as you please. It's gross, it's unhealthy, and it's making my inhaler my almost-constant companion. Now, I'm not that naive. I expected this coming to Europe, but it still grosses me out to no end. I'm proposing a new health initiative in which if you light a cigarette within 100 feet of me, and 500 if I'm downwind, I get to walk up to you and punch you as hard as I can in the body part of my choice for as long as it would take you to smoke that cigarette. I think it's only fair that you should know some semblance of the pain that inhaling your filthy second hand causes, and it might give you a premonition of how uncomfortable lung cancer is going to be. So just do us both a favor and stop. End of tirade.
2. Grafitti-- I'm actually getting used to this now, but when I got here I was astonished at the amount of grafitti all over everything, trees and sometimes timeless landmarks of human history included. I guess I should have expected it; grafitti is, after all, an Italian word. It made me sad at first, but I'm beginning to see it (optimistically and perhaps wrongly) as just another way in which the artistic and political history of this city is constantly manifesting itself, as it has done for centuries, millenia even.
3. Italians Who Insist On Speaking English To You-- Okay, bub. I can fully appreciate and respect that when the starving masses are practically knocking over your counter in hoards of millions to get a gelatto that it might be more expedient for you to speak English to the dumb Americana and get her out of the way. That's legit. But when I am the only person in the shop, trying valliantly to speak this language that I think is beautiful but am still in only the infantile, if not younger, stages of speaking, I wish you would let me try to figure it out. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to try to have an interaction with someone who is totally ignorant of your language, but if they're making a concerted and visible effort to improve, I think we should all have a little more empathy and admiration for that. You speak both languages, why can't I? That said, I am getting better, and so I think the more confident and less puppy-who-just-got-kicked look on my face is making people a little more amenable to letting me test my wings.
4. Obnoxiously Drunk American Kids-- These annoy me in the States, too, but I get positively mortified when I see it here. I understand more than I ever have why certain stereotypes are applied to American kids, and it makes me cringe to think that someone might ever make that assumption about me. Hence my concerted effort to treat alcohol as the Italians do: as an enjoyable and natural part of life and culture, and not merely as a means for me to make very bad decisions that I will then recount (provided I remember them) very loudly the next time I'm in a public place. Whoopee.
5. Being the Hermione-- I'd forgotten somewhat, after two years at K, just exactly what it feels like to make an observation in class that you think is fairly standard and not particularly brilliant and have everyone in the class stare at you like you just started speaking Venutian. I now sort of take it as a given that there will be at least a mildly interesting and in-depth class discussion in which people are willing to voice their opinions and analysis, and so it's disconcerting when that just doesn't happen. That said, I adore my professors on the whole, and all of my classes seem like they're going to be not only fascinating, but also really instrumental in my pursuit of a higher understanding of the practice and theory of art history, and also of writing. In short, I'm really jazzed about class, not so jazzed about having to censor myself a little for fear of looking like an obnoxious know-it-all.
These things aren't so serious that they're ruining this amazing experience for me; far from it. They're just sort of things I've noticed that I've been thinking about, and I think they're just as telling of what life is like here as all my gushing about famous works I've seen and idyllic moments on hilltops I've had. So there you are.
1. Cigarettes-- And no, it's not just the Europeans. An entire contingent, what feels like at least 80% of the AUR population smokes. I think it's interesting that Americans get to Europe and suddenly are all uninhibited about this disgusting habit that many in the US probably guilt them about, so they downplay it. Not here. No, people will blow smoke right in your face, brazen as you please. It's gross, it's unhealthy, and it's making my inhaler my almost-constant companion. Now, I'm not that naive. I expected this coming to Europe, but it still grosses me out to no end. I'm proposing a new health initiative in which if you light a cigarette within 100 feet of me, and 500 if I'm downwind, I get to walk up to you and punch you as hard as I can in the body part of my choice for as long as it would take you to smoke that cigarette. I think it's only fair that you should know some semblance of the pain that inhaling your filthy second hand causes, and it might give you a premonition of how uncomfortable lung cancer is going to be. So just do us both a favor and stop. End of tirade.
2. Grafitti-- I'm actually getting used to this now, but when I got here I was astonished at the amount of grafitti all over everything, trees and sometimes timeless landmarks of human history included. I guess I should have expected it; grafitti is, after all, an Italian word. It made me sad at first, but I'm beginning to see it (optimistically and perhaps wrongly) as just another way in which the artistic and political history of this city is constantly manifesting itself, as it has done for centuries, millenia even.
3. Italians Who Insist On Speaking English To You-- Okay, bub. I can fully appreciate and respect that when the starving masses are practically knocking over your counter in hoards of millions to get a gelatto that it might be more expedient for you to speak English to the dumb Americana and get her out of the way. That's legit. But when I am the only person in the shop, trying valliantly to speak this language that I think is beautiful but am still in only the infantile, if not younger, stages of speaking, I wish you would let me try to figure it out. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to try to have an interaction with someone who is totally ignorant of your language, but if they're making a concerted and visible effort to improve, I think we should all have a little more empathy and admiration for that. You speak both languages, why can't I? That said, I am getting better, and so I think the more confident and less puppy-who-just-got-kicked look on my face is making people a little more amenable to letting me test my wings.
4. Obnoxiously Drunk American Kids-- These annoy me in the States, too, but I get positively mortified when I see it here. I understand more than I ever have why certain stereotypes are applied to American kids, and it makes me cringe to think that someone might ever make that assumption about me. Hence my concerted effort to treat alcohol as the Italians do: as an enjoyable and natural part of life and culture, and not merely as a means for me to make very bad decisions that I will then recount (provided I remember them) very loudly the next time I'm in a public place. Whoopee.
5. Being the Hermione-- I'd forgotten somewhat, after two years at K, just exactly what it feels like to make an observation in class that you think is fairly standard and not particularly brilliant and have everyone in the class stare at you like you just started speaking Venutian. I now sort of take it as a given that there will be at least a mildly interesting and in-depth class discussion in which people are willing to voice their opinions and analysis, and so it's disconcerting when that just doesn't happen. That said, I adore my professors on the whole, and all of my classes seem like they're going to be not only fascinating, but also really instrumental in my pursuit of a higher understanding of the practice and theory of art history, and also of writing. In short, I'm really jazzed about class, not so jazzed about having to censor myself a little for fear of looking like an obnoxious know-it-all.
These things aren't so serious that they're ruining this amazing experience for me; far from it. They're just sort of things I've noticed that I've been thinking about, and I think they're just as telling of what life is like here as all my gushing about famous works I've seen and idyllic moments on hilltops I've had. So there you are.
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