Almost There

Oh god, just got the latest cell phone bill and it's 170 bucks. Dear god, my mom is not going to be pleased. Although technically she's just sapping my account for the money anyway. Well, I've spent 460 dollars this semester on the phone...HOLY CRAP.

So here I am just about two days from home! All packed, ready to go. The weather has gotten even warmer, you don't need a jacket even in the shady areas anymore. The Americans have begun to hit the city full force, and the summer classes are already here, we passed several of them in groups today. Tomorrow's going to be long, so long, since I'm not planning on getting any actual sleep, though I am going to try to nap in the evening. In the morning I'm getting up early to go take photos, we have to clean the apartment and the other girls need to finish packing, and then at night we're going to eat at ZaZas one last time around 10 or so. At midnight we already have a showering schedule worked out--I got dibs on first, muahaha--and then we're going to read our favorite sections of Lamb aloud to each other until the bus picks us up circa 445 am. And, by 1230 pm on Sunday, I will be in JFK, 14 hours of travel after I leave the apartment. Crazy. BUT I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Italy, I love you, and Florence you will always be my favorite city-that's-barely-a-city, but it's time we went our separate ways. So this is my last post from Florence, from the four months that have been one of the experiences I will always cherish. I'll be back someday, but never to live here, so in a way this is truly goodbye to a way of life that I feel very lucky to have had a chance to live. Let me never forget it, any of it.

Ciao, arrivederci, buonasera, goodbye!

Countdown

Just six days and I'm going crazy. I can't wait to be back in America now, especially since I'm starting finals tomorrow and I don't really care about the dates of stupid Baroque artists, I just want to get on that plane and be HOME already. I've already packed the largest of my suitcases, I could leave tonight, if only...

Ironically, Europe has been really good to me. I haven't been robbed or harassed, never gotten sick or lost anything valuable. Knock on wood, of course. I've really loved it here, I have, and once I'm back in America I know I'll long for parts of Italy, like the ease and cheapness of the grocery stores, having fresh mozz with every meal, and the deliciousness of even brand name ricotta...etc etc, I could make a list a mile long. But now I'm ready for home. Bah. Or, as Italians say, boh.

Leaving Party

Tonight is our final program dinner, which I suppose should be filling me with feelings of sadness and despair, but it's not...really, I'm saddest that Sara and Heather aren't here! Heather is back in gay Paris and Sara is currently pilgrimaging her way through Spain and Portugal towards Santiago de Compostela.

Yesterday I took the bus up to Settingnano, a tiny village perched above Florence with a great view of the valley. It had been raining in the morning but by afternoon was gorgeous; still, when I got to the "punto panoramico" so kindly indicated by street signs, I could see the black clouds settling over Florence from the mountains, so I made the visit a short one and caught the next bus. Naturally, we're five minutes down the hill and the sky just lets loose with a flood of water.

Last night Anna and I were at the internet place while briefly toying with the idea of going to the 3-euro porn shop on Guelfa and picking up some entertainment for the evening, but it started to pour AGAIN, so we thought better of it. Plus we were having Teresa over for one of Carla's fabulous meals, and that's really the kind of thing you need to share with those you know and love. Surprisingly enough, dinner began at 730 and she didn't leave till almost 10--she's hilarious, I had no idea! Then we sat around bullshitting for a while and wound up in one of our serious debates, once again on abortion and the death penalty, and finally we called it a night in favor of some Milka and Ever After. This movie, ps, is awesome and I had forgotten entirely how sexy Dougray Scott is. Ironically enough he's actually scottish, too.

Now I'm going to Piazzale Michelangelo for one last visit, although I'm cheating and taking the bus up there because I don't feel like sweating the whole way. I'll walk down because the famous rose garden should be open today. It's weird that I have to make time to "say goodbye" to all my favorite things in Florence, but so it goes.

Cinque Terra

Yesterday Sara, Meredith and I embarked on our final excursion from Florence, to the famous Cinque Terra along the Mediterranean coast. Some people hike all five towns, but we decided to do the less difficult ones. We took the train to the furthest village, Monterosso, and then a smaller train down to a lower village, Corniglia. From there we hiked about an hour and a half along the most gorgeous coastline I have ever beheld until we reached Manarola, and then it was only a half hour walk along the Via dell'Amore to get to the final town. The towns themselves aren't anything special, it's the views that people come to see--sweeping panoramas of sea and sky, water so clear and green you can see the rocks at the bottom ten feet out in the water, flora and fauna quite different from the rest of the countryside (Cinque Terra is a UNESCO site and a protected maritime wildlife area because it has so many species). I enjoyed it so much, it was so beautiful and I felt rather accomplished for having hiked a bit in my time in Italy, even if it wasn't the hardest of the trails. Click on the title for my webshots page, the new one.

We ate lunch in Corniglia, grabbing amazing pizza from this place, La Gatta Flora, which turned out to be in the guidebooks as the best pizza place in town (it was actually my best pizza experience in Italy, no lie) and then chowing down sitting on this staircase overlooking a massive valley. On the way between Corniglia and Manarola, there was a staircase going down hundreds of feet to the water, and we climbed down; at the bottom was a four foot drop and a thick rope to rappel down with! I stayed on the steps since I'm rather afraid of heights, and the girls climbed down onto the rocks. It was still beautiful to be that close to the water, and we met a nice couple from Victoria Island, Canada who were traveling in Europe for a month.

The only minor snafu in the whole day was while we were waiting for the train in the last town. We wanted to catch a train that went to Florence direct instead of having to switch in Pisa, but we noticed that suddenly every train was showing half hour and hour delays, to the abject terror of many American tourists who were crowding around and had no idea how to function without the train system. Also, there were no public buses and not really any room for taxis in this place, so their concern is somewhat understandable. Anyway, we managed to circumvent disaster (I could not imagine being trapped there all night, but we didn't have our real passports, just copies, so we couldnt even have stayed in a hostel) by hopping on the first train going towards Pisa, and we managed, despite delays, to make it home just ten minutes after our original ETA. We were pleased, except for Sara, who abhors Trenitalia for the number of times it has screwed her over. My days on Trenitalia are now officially over, which is sad in a way because it's so inexpensive compared to US trains. Besides Sardegna, pretty much everywhere I've been i nItaly has been on a train.

However, when my mom asked me two nights ago if I regret leaving Italy or if I'm excited to return, I could honestly say that I'm excited. My time in Italy has been amazing and I will never forget it, but I'm ready to come back. Carla is very upset because leaving, for her, means something so different than what it means for me and Heather; we're going back to the men we've been missing, and she has to leave her boyfriend behind. She has a determination to live in Italy again, however, which I can't claim to share. I could never really move here permanently for so many reasons--I couldn't leave my family behind, Sean would never want to live here, and my friends would be so far away. Not to mention that as much as I love Florence and consider it another home, Windsor will always really be home. It saddens me to think that I'll only probably ever come back as just another tourist, but I know very well how little reason I have to complain. I'm so grateful for the time I had here. None of us have or ever had a right to any of this. I try to keep that in mind.

Cemetery

Carla and I went to Sta. Maria del Carmine this morning to see the Brancacci Chapel, which was rather impressive. I especially enjoyed the fresco of St Peter Healing with His Shadow, which is from the Golden Legend so probably not really true, but still cool. Then we hit up La Specola, which is the natural history museum with specimens of thousands of animals, which was so amazing--as Carla put it, you forget half of these animals exist until you see them in a case! All my favorites were present, including tiger, meerkat, raccoon, penguin, and assorted furry animals. The walrus was frightening, it looked bigger than most cars.

After lunch, having nothing much to do and despairing of writing my paper because it's simply too beautiful out today to be talking about Bernini's statues, I went to find the English Cemetery of Florence, which is also called the Island of the Dead due to its location, perched on what has basically become a giant traffic island with large avenues that completely surround it (click on the title of this post for the Wikipedia article). Getting across the street was an adventure in itself, let me tell you. There was a nun at the gate who asked me to sign a guest book--most of the visitors seemed to have been Americans, and there had been only a handful over the last couple of days--and advised me not to leave the paths, as the graves are dangerous to walk around.

Everything you imagine of the mystery and poignancy of the Romantic era is manifested in this cemetery, right down to the cypress trees, broken tombs and shattered columns covered in moss. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried there, and I had ostensibly come to see her tomb which was designed by her husband and doesn't even say her same, simply E.B.B. (although it does have lyres engraved on it, which I considered a nice touch). Her tomb didn't interest me half as much as some of the others I saw there; though she is the most famous of the island's inhabitants, there are countesses and barons buried there, as well as English generals and officers, an English ambassador to the court of Italy, and many artists, sculptors, writers etc.

Although there are many nationalities represented in the cemetery, and while every cemetery has its sad stories to tell, I felt a strange sense of connection when seeing the tombs of people who had come from Kentucky, Philadelphia, Boston, who had died thousands of miles away from the world they grew up in, surrounded perhaps by family, or perhaps by strangers. Then I wondered if these people, many of whom never even saw the outcome of the civil war and for whom black rights or women's rights would simply be a contradiction in terms, would have been able to feel any more connection to me than they might be able to feel towards, say, a Russian of their own period.

At the center of the cemetery is a huge column dedicated to one of the kings of Prussia, Frederick William. There was some morbid amusement to see carved there the same Bible verse I read for my dad's funeral, just in French: "Je suis la resurrection e la vie..." Very popular words, those.

There was another, smaller column dedicated thus:

To the Sacred Memory of Ann Murray
Spinster
Died May 6 1815

Tomorrow will be Ann Murray's anniversary, but who will there be to remember her? I'm sure it wasn't meant cruelly, but just putting "spinster" on the tombstone, not sister, not daughter, not friend...perhaps no one liked her, or perhaps she was alone here, and no one knew who she was friend or sister or daughter of. If it's true that we only die when memories of us have faded, then most of the people in this cemetery have been condemned to die another death.

Farewell, Flan

What a hectic day this has been. Heather and I dragged ourselves up early, aka 830, to have some final adventures before my class at 1130 and her departure, namely, going to the Ponte Vecchio to take photos of the padlocks we sneakily attached to the side of the bridge last night before running from the carabinieri! Some backstory: the Ponte Vecchio is home to a statue of Benvenuto Cellini, master Renaissance goldsmith. There's some legend, which I'm not clear on, which says that if you put a gold lock with you and your lover's names on it on his statue, or near it, you'll stay together forever. So naturally Heather and I picked up some padlocks yesterday and took part in this ancient ritual, which is technically illegal and they used to have this big wire fence around Cellini because he'd been covered with locks, except then the fence got covered in locks too so they took it down. Heather and I chose to put our locks on the side of the bridge where there was also one huge lock so we clipped ours onto that one.

This morning we get there and some young boys are actually poking our locks and laughing or whatever, so we wait for the junior douchebags to depart before taking stalkerish photos with our individual locks. Then we go over to the over side of the bridge for some more photo ops, and while taking a photo of Heather I look up and see this man with a blowtorch cutting our locks off the side of the bridge!! The horror!! So apparently the adjacent shop does not look kindly on youthful lovers, hence why there were so few locks there but a million on the other side. Grrr. Argh. But how amusing the timing of this event--if we'd been ten minutes later our locks would have been gone already! Naturally I'm going to get another lock before I leave and do it again. I demand permanence! Heather, since she had limited time in Florence, simply decided she didn't need a lock to ensure domestic felicity with the Codest, and that is that.

When next I saw the Flan, post class, she was bent double under the weight of a backpack that must have weighed 25 pounds and was full to bursting, as well as 10 pounds of extra baggage, and very hot and bothered. I hauled this gigantic load of crqp to the Oil Shoppe, deciding along the way that she needed to get a piece of luggage cause no way could she survive London with this monstrosity. On our way to the station we bought a 20 euro suitcase and then were frantically repacking in the foyer of my school building, being observed by this nice girl from my Romanesque class from Sweden. Heather's shady Croat liquor had broken open so her backpack was gross anyway, so we threw it out--not before finding a freshman year, 1st semester lunch pass inside from Mrs Williamson, lol. Then we go to the station and buy a ticket for a train leaving in three minutes so we ran to the train and flung her onboard and then she was gone. She said this week was the best week of her semester, and honestly, I think it was my favorite as well besides the week with Sean. I'm so glad I got to share Florence with her and Sara.

May

It's May now and my program is less than three weeks from its completion. With every day I get more excited to be home and be with Sean, so I haven't had any real moments of despair at leaving the city--yet. Heather and Sara's presence I think help to obscure the passage of time, especially when I think that Heather has actually been with us since Thursday and it's Tuesday, how did that happen? Tomorrow Sara flies to London, then Heather leaves Thursday. This weekend we're visiting the Cinque Terra on what will probably be my last excursion from Florence. That's ok with me, though, because as much as part of me wishes I had traveled all of Europe to see the great museums while I was here, another part of me is very happy that I explored Italy, that I feel like I really know it and belong to it, and not like I'm still living out of a suitcase every weekend.

I will come back someday, I know I will. We've talked about how amazing it would be for us girls to rent an house in Tuscany, which is possible through what they call agriturismo, aka, people living in farmhouses in Tuscany fix up an apartment and rent it out. I would love to be back here basking in Tuscany with friends. Sean, too, if I could manage it, but he didn't seem as keen on the idea. We're very different in our ideas of relaxation, I know: he likes a lot of actual relaxing and sitting on beaches, etc, while I like to be seeing things and doing things. Most places I go my first thoughts are about what museums there will be, not where I can park myself for the longest amount of time. When Sara and I talked about Greece the same thing came up--I would just have wanted to see the Acropolis, the museums, and go home, but she wanted to spend some time on the islands. It's not that I don't like relaxing, I do, but I get really bored really fast with just sitting around, especially if I'm in a place I've never been. I mean, I can sit on the beach in Connecticut if I want to, why would I want to do it in Europe?

Carla and I have joked that Sean and I will simply have to take separate vacations, and that every other year one of us will get stuck with the kids and one of us gets to jet off with their friends. It's an amusing thought, but in the end I think most people like to vacation with their spouse, if only for the "sex in new and strange places" thing, hahaha. I certainly look forward to taking a vacation with Sara and Heather and Rae when we're older, though!

Attack of the Heather

So Heather's been here for a few days, and it's just been the best and most cracked out adventure, because now not only am I in Italy, I'm here with yet ANOTHER of my best friends, and if I could only have gotten Rae in on this picture, we totally could have wormed our way into taking over the apartment in a blitzkreig attack of wonderousness, Northwest Catholic style, but alas!

Our apartment made for four is currently holding six, so it's a little hectic but no one has yet died, and great things have happened, like us watching porn together last night (Italian channels show weird short softcore vignettes after 1am) and Heather and Anna bonding and me buying a burgundy leather jacket at the thrift store, joy of joys, except now I have three coats to get home somehow. Yesterday me, Sara and Heather just sat in the News Cafe talking like forever. Our friendships are so amazing, that they--and we--have come so far and changed so much, yet they're still strong. I heart friends!! God, I sound like I'm fifteen again, but it's ok because on one level I feel like I AM fifteen again since I'm with my old friends, but we're so much more grown up...example, today we sat down in the Titian room in the Uffizi and Heather was telling us about her class about image and media and its effects on the perceptions of beauty...ie from heavier people looking good on cavas to the skinniness that translates better to film, which was interesting.
After the Uffizi we went to the Ciompi antique market, which always drives me mad with avaricious glee because there is so much amazing old crap that I just WANT like nobody's business, and thank god I only ever wind up there with like 10 euro in my pocket because otherwise I'd be broke...love Italy...

Paris and Florence Combine At Last

A couple of days ago I went to Sara's school to see the acting class put on a Shakespeare performance--they did Taming of the Shrew, and it was hysterical, despite all its inherent misogyny. I met her other friend Sarah, who's really cool, along with a bunch of other pals. That same night we sort of crashed the Syracuse going away reception, wherein I met Josh, the guy Sara's been talking about all semester. The very next day, went with Sara to this giant arts and crafts expo where we ran into her friends once more and everyone ended up wearing one or more pieces of clothing and accessories that they had purchased, AND i ate the best piece of mozzarella in my life at the food fair in one of the buildings.

Yesterday I got my hair cut in an Italian salon and it was amazing, gorgeous and beautful, the best hair of my life...until I noticed later that day that I appeared to have mild hives. Yes, hives, apparently from the shampoo and or conditioner. Needless to say, "salon hair" quickly went bye bye in the shower...if the bumps don't go away by tomorrow, though, I'll have to go to the doctor for an antihistamine prescription, whoo.

Now for the wonderful news....namely, that Heather is at this very moment en route to Italy, and will be in Florence by nightfall to begin a scandalously wonderful week of pirate adventures! I'm so excited I'm even skipping Italian so I can clean the house up a little...

Oh, and realized randomly last night that it was four years to the day since I started dating Greg in high school. It seems like such a lifetime ago that I actually sat there thinking that I must be insane, and it must have been longer ago, but no, it's really only been that amount of time. As Heather said on the phone the other night, who could believe how far we've all come? And as Sean would add, how lucky I have been to move up from the McDonald's burgers of the world to my dear filet mignon, haha.

I've actually never eaten filet mignon. Hm. Perhaps the Filet Mignon should take me out for some, eh?

Rome the Third

I had such a great time in Rome this weekend! Friday we arrived and went to Ostia, this ancient port city situated on the mouth of the Tiber. When the harbor silted up after centuries of use, the city was abandoned, leaving it to become an archaeological paradise in our own day. Pompeii is to Fairfield as Ostia is to New Haven--less affluent and more commercial, but also more of a slice of how real people lived. The greatest thing is that you could climb in, out and around of these houses and buildings, for the most part--they wouldnt let you into the baths, for example, because of the fabulous mosaics which are best viewed from above. In one building we found the equivalent of a secret garden, as ivy and leaves had made a complete roof for the structure. In another, we climbed underneath a three foot high arch and found ourselves in something resembling a bunker, I'm not sure what it was, and then we hopped over that wall and continued the exploration. The city has a perfectly preserved theater with wonderful acoustics, as Sara demonstrated for us, as well as a commercial marketplace with mosaics tellig what each stall was for.

On Saturday we went to the Borghese at the crack of dawn, which was amazing--so amazing I think I will describe it later because I have to meet Meredith to catch the bus to the soccer game in half an hour. After this we tried to go see the Ara Pacis, which had JUST OPENED THAT DAY, but th line was long, and Carla was sick and wanted to go home, so we had lunch and then split up. I went back to St Peter's to see it one last time, but since the line there stretched all around the enormous piazza, I decided to enjoy its external pleasures only. Then I went back to the Colosseum and the Forum, bid farewell to my Augustus statue, and visited St Pietro in Vincoli where the original Moses statue is. On buying a ticket in the Termini, I mistakenly bought one for 430, not 630, which eliminated the possbibility of going to the Cornaro chapel, but by then I was pretty exhausted so I decided to take it as a sign. One of the best parts of travelining to and from Rome is the route the express train takes--green fields and rivers and beautiful sights. Never again will I suffer those 3.5 hr train rides on bumpy piece of crap train cars!

Now I'm off to watch Viola (our soccer team, which wears purple, Italy's unluckiest color) lose again, yay!

A Few Tired Hours Later

...I saw the David at long last. The presentation of the statue is as stunning as everyone has said, positioned right under the window so his body gleams like a saint's. The details of the veins and muscles was stunning and the most compelling aspect of the work, for me. The eyes, though, his eyes are creepy. Statues rarely have good eyes, they're either blank orbs or, as in this case, drilled holes that just can't come close to looking like real eyes. Perhaps it's a good thing that David doesn't meet your eyes. Anna predicted I wouldn't like him, which isn't true, I appreciate the magnitude and perfection of the work--but I'm pretty certain that Bernini's David will be my favorite of all. And I'm seeing him on Saturday morning!

So after the Galleria, which also had some other interesting art in it, I couldn't bring myself to be shackled to the computer to write papers. Instead, I walked across the river to get some lunch and admire the views along the way. I wandered around until I found Santo Spirito, which has a flat plaster facade that reminded me of the adobe mission churches in the Southwest. I walked back across a different bridge so I could see the Ponte Vecchio, and then I just wandered around the streets. I stopped into Dante's church, which dates from the XI century and looks it inside, and Orsanmichele, which is full of copied works and faded frescoes. I also helped an old man from Virginia who was on Via Dante Alighieri looking for Via Faenza, which happens to be the road my school is on and also happens to be like fifteen minutes away from where he was standing. He told me the city was beautiful and it is. I would have told him that it's a city I love getting lost in, but I didn't want to jinx him.

Among the great things I saw today...outdoor grocery vendors offering fresh cut lilacs, which I would have loved to have bought, but I won't be going home for hours; lots of accordion players, my favorite sidewalk entertainers, including one oldr man who was playing with his eight year old son; the triumphal column outside Sta Felicita which was almost destroyed by retreating German troops but was restored; and the column of justice outside Sta Trinita, made from Oriental marble from the baths of my darling Caracalla.

When I stood on the bridge looking out at Ponte Vecchio, the radio was playing Aerosmith's "I Dont Want to Miss a Thing", and despite the song being about his girlfriend I still smiled because it's true.

Laurentian Library

I woke up early today to sneak into Sara's class' tour of the Laurentian library, which was closed when I tried to go earlier in the semester but which is now open for an exhibition. It was impressive, more so since we had Sara's helpful TA giving us all the background on the design, construction, and its mannerist tendencies. The more I learn about Michelangelo the more I am fascinated by his genius and general weirdness. He didn't have any place for the library complex so he plopped it as a third story onto the existing monastery, and then built a staircase so massive that a similar one had never been constructed indoors. With a leftover space at the back, he was planning to create a triangular rare book room that was never completed. He also proposed to his papal patron the first ever skylights to illuminate the vestibule, but the pope nixed it on the grounds that it would take two monks working full time just to keep the windows clean.

The staircase was as elegant and different as I had ever seen in a book, but only standing there really brought across how compact the space is, compared to the impression given by this flow of oval steps. The reading room was also impressive, although with typical artistic disregard for practical use in favor of disegno, Michelangelo gave the poor monks practically no leg room in the desks. I could easily imagine Sean hunched over one of those desks with an old greek text in front of him, scribbling things furiously...what a monk he would have made back then!

I'm thrilled that I got the chance to see the library, one of those big things that is tucked away in a tiny Florentine corner. I feel like I've seen most of my favorite Michelangelo work now--the staircase, the Pieta, the Moses (albeit a copy), the Sistene ceiling--except for the David. How have I still not seen it, I know, I know...

Today is a beautiful day in Florence. Yesterday was pretty gross, and I'm grossly sick and sniffly, but Carla and I wandered in the rain, got gelato from Perche No? and wound up at Sara's studio, where she sized us for rings! Mine has a star, Carla's a moon, and both will say "primavera" because we were here in the spring.

Art is life is beautiful.

Other Things

Ah yes, and Saturday was the 6th anniversary of my father's death as well. Although I had a few "moments" in the days leading up to it, on Saturday I was having a complete blast in Siena with the girls. The thought struck me that of all the things that I could do to honor my dad's memory, what's better than living a wonderful, full, happy life? I'm in Italy doing something that no one in my family has ever done. I'm experiencing a culture that he might have known something of, growing up in an Italian family, but that I've never really had, and I know he would have been so thrilled that I'm here, living the dream.

I'm proud of myself, and I'm proud of the last six years and what I've made of them. My only source of constant sadness is my mom's loneliness without him. My sister came home for his anniversary and for Easter, which was really good of her. She told me they visited his grave, which I'll admit, I'm kind of glad they did without me, because I feel that they attach a greater importance to the grave site than I do. I never feel any closer to him there than I do anywhere else. Probably just farther away, in fact, because there's nothing there to remind me of him. He's more alive in every funny story and tale of his insanity and paranoia, the stories we tell of our families' idiosyncracies as we sit around the table here, stuffing ourselves with pasta.

I can't deny that I wish, wish, wish that he would be there at the airport when I come home, to tell my stories to, to bring him gifts. But I've wished the same thing so many times over the years, and it's always been OK, even though he's not there. Sean will be there, and that's such a blessing to look forward to.

Every day that I'm alive is the best day of my life.

Siena and Easter

On Saturday Anna, Carla and I went to Siena, which is a city preserved in most of its medieval glory, the Black Plague having removed it from its former place of prominent antagonism with Florence. We walked by the Campo, a trapezoidal square where the famous Palio race is held twice a year--horses and riders representing each of Siena's 17 neighborhoods take part in a two minute frantic race around the perimeter of the Campo...the turns are so sharp the corners are padded with mattresses, and horses can still win even if their riders have fallen off. On the day of the Palio, the horses are taken into the churches in their neighborhoods and blessed by the priest, who tells them "Go and win"--and it's considered a good luck symbol if the horse leaves droppings in the church!

The duomo of Siena was large and impressive, with amazing mosaics on the floor depicting mythological and then religious scenes. Of particular interest to me was the Bernini chapel in all its Baroque glory, with two wonderful statues of St Jerome and Mary Magdalene. Outside, where there was a wall of votive offerings, there were two rows of motorcycle helmets, left in thanks by people who had survived accidents. Also cool was seeing the huge pulpit, which I saw last week in Gothic class and was very excited to see in person.

After this we visited the Duomo museum to see Duccio's Maesta, and climbed a tower with even more ridiculously small steps than those at the top of the Florence Campanile, except for the gift of a railing, to see a beautiful panorama of the city.

On Easter Sunday we woke up early--and I was not pleased to be awake--and dragged ourselves over to Piazza della Repubblica where we had told Sara we would meet her. Lo and behold, just as we walk into the mostly-empty sqaure, we hear drumming, and then witness an awesome parade (with many of the same players we saw outside the Uffizi with the guys, on the occasion of Florence's 800th birthday) and then the flag throwers performed which was amazing, even better than the last time because no one dropped their flags when they tossed them to each other. Then down the street we saw the cart (which they explode in front of the Duomo), which was a monstrously huge creation that was vaguely ominous, looming there in the distance. We were really excited to have seen the performance, but then we hoofed it over to the Piazza del Duomo to try to get a good vantage point. Anna and Meredith eventually fought their way onto a stone bench, but Carla, Sara and I had to make do as best we could. Imagine--we got there at 915, the cart didn't blow till 11, and we still were a lot farther from the front than we would have liked. And the square and the surrounding streets were packed, absolutely packed, with people watching from windows and rooftops and anywhere they could see.

As Sara put it, the Florentines definitely know how to stall. The flag throwers performed a few tricks here and there, and there were endless processions of banners, flags and people in armor and costume. Towards the end the Archbishop of Florence appeared, made his rounds and blessed the crowd, then went into the Duomo---the main doors of which were opened, which they never do. All this while, there were firemen rigging the cart with even more explosives, and putting this weird thing on the top that looked like three brooms. Ok, the cart itself does not blow up, it's centuries old. There's even a man inside at the very bottom--this thing is like thirty feet high--who controls the timing of the explosions, or so I'm told.

The whole spectacle depends on the correct flight, at 11am, of a mechanical dove launched from inside the Duomo. It flies and hits the cart, triggering the fireworks. This year the dove supposedly didn't have a straight flight, which is bad luck, but since I thought the dove was going to drop from the top of the Duomo, I wasn't even looking for it, so I only saw it hit the cart. The fireworks were amazing, no surprise since Florence has had centuries to practice! I couldn't keep a grin off my face...the whole square filled with smoke and booming noise, and the cart shot off sparks and let off Catherine Wheels and all sorts of explosions. The finale was naturally deafening, and then the weird three brooms began to spin..I thought it was going to take off, but instead with a final BOOM, all three "brooms" unfolded the flags that were inside them--the flag of Florence, the banner of the Church, and the Paschal flag. It was stunning.

In short, really glad I was in Florence for Easter, unlike most people in the program who took off for parts unknown. The more I participate in in this city, the more I feel like I belong here, like I know the people who live here, and understand why they love this place so much. Watching the pageantry in Repubblica, I could feel how civic pride could have inspired the Florentines of ages gone by to march into battle behind the crimson fleur-de-lis. If I had lived there then I would have gone too. It's a city worth fighting for.

I went and bought a flag the next day. It's so much more beautiful than regular nationality flags. Few people fly the Italian flag in Florence, which is fine because it's ugly anyway. Whatever happened to heraldry, to your flag being a symbol that meant something? Florence was built on a field of flowers, or so the legend goes, and hence everthing in the city is adorned by the giglio, the lily.

Buona Pasqua!

Tomorrow the school is sponsoring a trip to a local vineyard to learn how wine is made, so we're all going, even I who loathes the vino. Saturday Carla, Anna and I are going to Siena, and then Sunday is Easter! I'm excited for the fireworks in front of the Duomo, but my Italian teacher warned us that it attracts thousands of people, especially tourists, and that the piazza will be absolutely packed. I doubt it will compare to the crushing mob we were in the middle of in Venice on Carnevale, but I also would like to be able to see something, so we'll have to go early. Then they're all going to Mass, Im not, and then Carla is cooking us an Easter feast. Tess will be here, and Malta Man might be joining us as well.

I got my last exam back in Baroque class yesterday, so it's now official...for the first time ever, I got a perfect score on five out of five exams. They are somewhat easier graders here, I suspect. Well, not Lucia, the professor who thought the first quiz was oh-so-easy and then gave much of the class failing grades, but the others possibly.

Sean told me yesterday that he sent a bouquet of flowers to my house for Easter, and also to thank my mom for her constant supply of muffins. What a brown noser, this kid, he knows exactly how to schmooze the ladies. Oh, but I love him despite or perhaps because of this.

Viva la Sinistra...

This is a link to a picture of my latest acquisition: http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/01/VotaCom2005.jpg , stolen from a wall near Sara's house. It will soon go to decorate townhouse 31. My mom thinks I'm crazy and that I'm lucky the communists didn't spot me stealing their propaganda. Heehee.

Cortona

Yesterday's adventure was Cortona, a picturesque hilltop town about an hour from Florence that is most famous for having starred in Under the Tuscan Sun. Carla and I ventured forth with our dearest buddy Trenitalia, and found ourselves at the train station in Camucia, which is the sprawling town on the plain below Cortona's mountain. No sooner did we get off the train, however, then I see this guy Mark from my Italian class standing there waving at me. I've never really talked to him, but he seemed nice, so we stopped to say hi, and he had this Italian man with him who didn't speak any English. This guy, as it turned out, was a dear family friend of Mark's parents, who rent a villa in Cortona a couple of weeks out of every summer. Yes, rich, and from CA, too, the lucky bastard. Mark and his roommate had come to stay and be force-fed for the weekend, and this man, known only to Mark as "Dad", offered us a ride up the ginormous mountain.

So we hop in this guy's VW and he proceeds to propel us up the freakishly windy roads of this mountain at an insane speed, all the while chattering to Mark in Italian, who--being in beginner class with me--was trying valiantly to understand and communicate back. We did catch the part where he told Mark, after Mark said he had to go back to school and study that night, that yeah, if he had such gorgeous women at his school he'd be right there studying too. Mark was kind enough to agree heartily with him, which is good, because Mark is good looking, by both me and Carla's standards (meanwhile his roommate, who was Asian, also appealed to both of us, which is surprising because we almost never agree). So while we're hurtling along he starts asking Mark if we want to go to this place, and mentioning San Francesco, and Mark agreed without even really knowing what he meant. Off we zoom down even more horrifying steep, curving roads with a cliff on one side, roads that you would never want to believe are two way, but yes they are, and--did I mention I hadnt even put on my seatbelt, assuming this to be a gentle five minute ride, and then I didnt want to seem like an American wimp because no one else in the car was wearing one, yes, foolish, I know, so the thoughts running through my mind were "ahhhh im going to die....but im going to die in italy, whee!"--then we arrive at this amazing monastery, tucked into a niche between two mountains, with a panoramic view of a lush fir forest and a river and a mini waterfall to boot! Turns out this was where St Francis lived before he went back to Assisi and started his ministry there, so we got to go and check out the incredibly cramped cell that he called home. It was sweet.

After this, "Dad" safely deposited us in the center of Cortona, and even offered to pick us us later, which I declined because I felt bad for imposing--Mark had told the guy we were friends from school, but I really don't know him at all! So we explore Cortona, which is preserved in its medieval glory, and where a woman walking by saw my (Carla's) sweatshirt and said "Fairfield University! Why, my husband went there!". We stopped in a couple of museums and enjoyed the view before commencing what Let's Go called a "thigh-burning 15 minute walk" to the Medici fortress on the top (Cortona was bought by Florence during the Renaissance, muahaha). So we're walking, huffing and puffing slightly because this is one mother of a hill, and we pass where the U of Georgia has its campus up there, and then we see some girls sitting with their laptops on a rock wall that is actually a cliff, and we're walking, and then all of a sudden there's screaming, and the girls are running away, and what is there right behind me and Carla but a gigantic SWARM OF BEES. I'm talking thousands of bees here, a swarm over ten feet wide, with that horrible buzzing noise...AHHHH. Ahead of us is the steepest part of the climb and the bees look like they're moving, so we turn around and I run frantically down this hill, yes screaming, because there are bees all around me, I don't know of what variety, and hey, I don't know if I'm allergic or not and I didn't think this was the day to find out. Carla, meanwhile, walked rather calmly down the hill behind me. Protestants. They live to suffer.

So then we talked to the Georgia girls, one of whom was annoyed becase she had abandoned her laptop on the cliff wall, and they had never seen anything like it before. The bees had just swarmed up from underneath them. Needless to say, we and the several other people making the climb to the fortress decided that the view from there was quite sufficient. After this we bought some bus tickets, thinking that a bus would be coming some time, but no, it was Sunday, no such luck. Since a taxi would have cost an arm and a leg, we decided to Lutheranism it up and walk our butts the four miles or so down the mountain and through the town to the train station. Again, ahhhhh. My legs hurt this morning, and for good frickin reason. However, it certainly was an adventure, we had a great time, and Cortona was deliciously beautiful, everything Americans think of when they think of Tuscan hill towns.

Kidding

This is the address of my webshots page: http://community.webshots.com/user/infinitchaos

I actually just filled it up a minute ago, so I need to make a new one, soon to come. I know you're all on the edges of your seats.

Fiesole, Ravenna Parts Deux

Yesterday we had a wonderful little time in Fiesole, which we had totally failed to fully explore on our first go round. This time it was me and Carla and TJ and Sara. We spent most of our time in the Roman ruins and museum, admiring the amazing views from the hilltops, lizard-spotting, playing on a delicious swingset, and generally coveting the lifestyle of all whom we saw around us. Last night, Tjs last evening with us in Florence, we had the good old feast-style dinner, and then Sara slept over, as she and I were to leave on the 7 frickin am train to Ravenna...

..which was amazing. Not only has all of Tuscany apparently chosen this moment to flower into stunning fields of green grass dotted with flowering bushes and trees and what not, but Ravenna was even more incredible the second time around. I love mosaics! They are shiny and stunning! Check out my webshots pictures, the link is under the entry title. And, since we got such an early start, we had plenty of time to get off at a certain small town on the three hour ride back, namely a little place called LUGO, where Sara and I roamed the streets taking photos of anything that said lugo, from the plaques that gave the house numbers to an electrical van, and then stealing more stuff from the church...what? It's Sara's town anyway, we can do what we want!

Tomorrow Carla and I are going to Cortona, a charming little medieval town, and tomorrow evening, out to dinner with the Dartses!

List

Places in Italy I have been:

Venice
Rome
Ravenna
Verona
Padua
Assisi
Orvieto
Pisa
Lugo

Places still to see:

Cortona
Lucca
Siena
Ostia
Tivoli

Frustration

This is the second day in a row that I've walked to the antiques market in Piazza Ciompi only to find it closed. It's supposed to be open all the time, wtf! I wanted to go back to pick up a record for Sean, High Society, that he's actually interested in, as opposed to all those I have bought for him in the past, which are kind of hit and miss.

Hey, blogger dashboard informs me that I have written 750 posts in this blog since its inception back in high school. Awesome!

Yesterday we traipsed over to Sara's studio to see the school art exhibit, which was nothing short of amazing. That people my age are capable of so much ingenuity and technical skill, while I, well, I can't even begin to imagine how incompetent I would look if I had tried to take a class like jewelry making. For a second there when I first went to Sara's studio last week, I was like, damn, I should have taken some kind of artsy hands on class, instead of all this Romanesque buildings business, but those really are not classes for beginners. Sara was pounding things with hammers and cutting metal and soldering, and doing all kinds of things that require patience and precision, neither of which I usually apply to things of a manual nature.

Anyway, so the things on display were awesome. Sara's treasure chest, made entirely of fabric for her soft sculpture class, was adorable, and her silk painting thing, which was a Lichtenstein print with embroidery, was in my opinion the best of all the ones that were on display. Of course, to actually buy this item it would cost me like 200 bucks, 300 if she really charged how much it was worth...admiring it is still good, right? The jewelry people had made was stunning, part of me wished there were price tags attached, but I'm sure that, being hand made, they would probably cost a small fortune, most of them.

This weekend I'm going back to Ravenna with Sara, yay! There are a bunch of other small towns I want to visit, as well, like Vinci, Lucca, Siena, Parma. Viva Tuscany!

Part Deux

Anyway, while I can't say that the trip lived up to every expectation, I can say that it has made me heartily adore the little city that is Florence. I love this place, yet I have less than two months left here. It's like a vise is tightening around every experience, I have to take it all in, as much as I can, because of the fear that too soon it will all be over.

Oh, and I hate trains, specifically trains that go through a million tunnels and leave your ear pressure begging for mercy. Booooo to trains!

Flight attendents that have domestic squabbles en route, along with entirely too chatty captains who sound an eensy weensy bit like terrorists, get the boooo as well.

However, I give a HOORAY to our apartment, because never have I been happier to see my own domicile, my own bed! Yipee!

Sardegna

Ah, Sardinia. I think we're just going to call it "the island" from now on, though that will always remind me of Sara's mom talking about Puerto Rico. What did I bring back from this island paradise? Seashells, a little bottle of mirto liquer, a whole lot less money than when I left Florence last week, and a bruise on my ass the size of a nectarine. But no tan, because oh no, my friends, despite lying on a beach, I gained no color anywhere besides my nose, which turned traitor and Rudolph-esque after a single morning of climbing around on some rocky cliffs near the ocean. The bruise was sustained the morning after a night of more-than-substantial drinking, wherein TJ and I consumed a bottle of rum between the two of us. While this did not bother him, my body was not amused and reacted accordingly, making for quite the night--only to be capped off, of course, by me falling down a flight of slick marble stairs the next morning, sustaining said bruise, and feeling shooting pains in my back whenever I laughed for the next couple of days.

I've never seen such green countryside in my life, nor have I ever seen clearer, more perfectly turquoise water surrounded by white beaches. Visually, the island was a gem, and I will preserve it as such in my memories. The people of Sardinia, meanwhile, are a mean-spirited and tricksy bunch, because I think we were lied to or misled by just about every damn person we asked for help! It must be a sport over there! We also didn't see any other Americans for most of the trip, which was rather refreshing. On our last night in Alghero, a guy from the room over popped in to ask where we were from, and he turned out to be an ex-pat from Storrs, CT, now living in Berlin.

Last Pre Sardinian Post

It's kinda sad, but I'd almost like to stay in Florence for spring break, especially because Zev is here, and I've gotten awfully used to this sense of hey, let's just wander around the city aimlessly for hours because it's warm out and I have no class...sigh. What a cool kid, and we're going to lose him! Sniffles! I also wish that Sara could arbitrarily skip her classes and come with us. I heart that girl.

Oh well--Sardinia, here we come!

And the Beat Goes On

Sunshine has finally returned to Firenze, bringing with it a passel (what a word!) of new friends. First and foremost, dear Zev Moses from Montreal who randomly met Sara in Spain and then met up with us when he came to Florence, and who is awesome, and who we would sincerely wish to adopt, were he not off to Israel at the same time we're off to Sardinia..also we have decided to adopt Sara once her program ends, so she'll stay with us! Anyway, next on our list of is Justin, Carla's Maltese god, who unfortunately doesn't say much because he thinks his English is bad, but when he does speak, totally sexy accent. Love it. Finally, we have Sean, no, not mine, but Sara's recent date, who stopped by our place with her, is quite cute, and who excited Anna by wearing Prada glasses. It's delicious to have the Y chromosome present. When the last of the men leave, which will be TJ, after his spring break sojourn with us, I think it's going to be pretty depressing.

Last night Anna's parents cooked us a feast, and I mean a feast, of pasta, and god saw it and said it was good. And then Anna and Carla decided to watch Noises Off---again, and god shuddered and said he had someone to be smiting.

A few days until Sardinia....drumroll please...Oh, and I not only survived midterms with all mental faculties intact, I got a perfect score on my Italian. What now!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It's Thursday and still not a speck of blue sky has been seen since the boys left. However, I'm down to my last exam, having just left Renaissance Art of the Courts feeling quite good about it. The thing I like about that class is not so much the art we're studying, but more that it's giving me a well-rounded history of one of my favorite subjects, the families and the wars and the power struggles of the Renaissance courts. Also, the courts we're studying, which are all the fifteenth century families of Urbino, Ferrara, Florence, Milan etc, happen to be people who had cropped up here or there in things I've read, either for other classes or historical fiction--how I love those! One of my favorites, which is ridiculously long but still good, is "The Duchess of Milan". The main characters, Ludovico Il Moro, the Regent of Milan, and his wife, Beatrice D'Este, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, are already people I knew the history of before I took this class, so reading about them and the court they created around them feels rather like getting more acquainted with old friends.

When I get home I'm going to read that book again. Yum. And you know, if I ever want to go over my textbook for this class at home, I certainly can, because guess what, I already owned the damn book in America before I came here! I got it from Dr Escobar when he had his book giveaway in our seminar, he suggested I take it, but never did I think it would actually be the textbook for the class of the same name in Florence. Therefore, I have refused to actually buy the book here, and I have been reading it in the library.

Sara wrote in her journal that she only has four weekends left in her program. I can't believe she would be leaving Florence only in a month! The four of us here in San Gallo have agreed that it would be truly excellent if she camped out at our apartment for a while before she goes home. She stayed over for like three days when the boys first got here, after having returned from a rather eventful spring break experience, and it was so much fun.

Meanwhile, I will be in Sardinia in a matter of days, where apparently a delicacy is toast with worms on it. Oh dear god.

I'm torn between really wanting to go home, because having seen Sean only amplified how much I've missed him the past couple of months, and really wanting this time not to be over. I know everyone talks about how when they get out of college they're just going to say fuck it all and go live in Europe for a couple of years, but the chances of that happening are quite tiny. For one thing, in my case, student loans would be a definite issue. The only plan I have for living abroad post-graduation is if I get a Fulbright to teach in Spain, which I would love to do, not for the children but for the location, but the chances of actually getting one of those, while not infinitesimally small, are rather limited. I don't have my heart set on it. It's probably just going to be grad school for me, and then someday in the future I know I will return to Europe and see places I haven't seen before. I just have to accept that living here again will never really be an opportunity.

Do Europeans know how lucky they are? Americans think we're luckier, but really only in material things. I think I could do without fruit loops, and water pressure, and a toaster oven, if in exchange I could have Tuscany. But Tuscany would be rather empty without Sean, and he would never be able to live abroad, as we learned from his traveling experiences lol. I suppose the idea of life in America can always be improved by the person who shares it with you.

Oh, Exams

Two down, three to go, and still it will not stop raining. I think Sean and Mike stole our sunshine when they went away. Literally and figuratively.

Last night I had a dream about my father, which isn't unusual, I have them often, except usually he hasn't died in the dreams and life is pretty much normal. In this dream, somehow I came across a spell or a potion or something crazy that could actually cause a dead person to be reconstituted for short periods of time. As in, poof! There they are, and then after a little while poof! they go away again. I don't really remember what I had to do, just something small and then he would appear, and he was a little confused and disorientated and I don't think I actually ever told him what had happened to him, or maybe he already knew. It's become mostly a confused muddle of a dream now, like they usually do. I just remember a feeling of such happiness, mixed with anxiety, because I kept doing the spell over and over again to bring him back, and I knew somehow that it wasn't healthy and I shouldn't keep doing it, but I did.

Oh, March and April, the things you do to me.

Update at Last

Aside from my little post from the hostel in Rome, I've had no chance to write anything on here for the duration of the boys' stay, which is too bad, really, because I wish I had written down every little thing that happened so I would always remember. Having Sean with me in Italy (and TJ and Mike, of course) has so far been the absolute highlight of my two months here, and now that he's gone, it seems that the sun doesn't want to shine on Florence anymore. No, literally, it was gorgeous the week they were here, and now, two days of clouds and rain. A sign, I tell you, a sign.

My second experience of Rome was far better than the first. The day we arrived, Wednesday, after taking a not-so-express train from Florence, was so warm I was actually sweating as we walked about the city. This time I not only saw the Forums but walked down into them, and it was an incredible feeling to walk amid the ruins, almost disappointing in that it's so hard to realize what these once would have been, but here and there there were pieces of the old magnificence, still clinging hardily after the centuries. It happened to be the Ides of March, and there was a fire burning on the Altar of Caesar. People had even left flowers on his statue. We also walked all around the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II, which is even more impressive close up, and saw the copy of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius outside the Capitoline museum. The boys went up into the Colosseum while I stayed outside rahter than pay the entrance fee again...I petted a Colosseum cat! Which Sean later scolded me for, saying it was filthy, but homeless cats need love too. I walked under the Arch of Titus, which I had also previously seen, but this time Sean had reminded me that the frieze on the interior showed the Roman forces stealing the menorah from the Jewish temple.

The next morning was the Vatican, where thanks to Mike's forethought, we did NOT have to wait in the huge line, but skipped ahead to the reservation area for a guided tour. It was almost twice as expensive, but this tour rocked so much more than the last one! We saw the Belvedere courtyard, with the original Laocoon, the Torso, and the Apollo, and we saw the Stanzae decorated by Raphael, all things our previous guide skipped right over. Then we hit the Sistene, which was still cool the second time, but I can understand why the boys preferred Raphael's more accessible frescoes. Finally we came to St. Peter's, which we had gone to see the previous night (absolutely spectacular--all lit up, with almost no one there), and despite the torrential rain outside it was a wonderful experience. Oh, and we saw a little procession of some Indian priests with hot pink vestments, and I got a compliment from a cute Vatican guard (ok, he whispered "speranza" to me, which means "hope", but the tone of voice was definitely there. meow.) After this, Sean dragged me aroudn the entire Vatican wall at a fast trot, because he had been forced to check his umbrella at the entrance, and feared it would close before he got there. Did I mention that it had not rained this hard since Noah's days? So naturally by the time we retrieve said umbrella and retreat to the guys' hotel, which was luxurious, I was pretty much soaked from shoe to knee. What better way to relax than with a jacuzzi bath soak? Unless you dont actually know anything about jacuzzis, for example that you must fill them up before turning it on, and therefore wind up with a demonic-sounding bathtub tuhmping and growling and shooting jets of water at random intervals, which leads of course to screams of "it's trying to eat me" and my rescue by Mike and Sean. Ah, adventure in the Eternal City.

Thursday night TJ treated us to a lovely dinner with the help of his aunt's gold card, so we all ordered the Italian way, with multiple courses, and it was good. Mmm. Friday morning we did a walking tour of the other side of the city, from the Trevi to the Pantheon, the Spanish steps and Piazza Navona. Friday night we had dinner all togehter, as Meredith and Carla had arrived, and then Saturday morning we departed for a 3 hr train ride to Pisa (saying goodbye to TJ before we left, but he's coming back in less than two weeks anyway). The Campo dei Miracoli, field of miracles, is a huge open area containing the Cathedral, baptistry, and of course the campanile, otherwise known as the leaning tower. It is indeed pretty cool, but I was not paying 15 euro just to climb it, so we looked at it instead.

Then the sadness started, because I knew the next morning I would have to say goodbye to Sean, not to mention Admiral Chickara, who I had entrusted to Sean's keeping (there were several important aerial battles fought in Rome and Pisa by opposing squadrons of paper airplanes and their respective commanders, Admiral Chickara and Emperor Fatty Cuckoo. Results were inconclusive, and both sides have declared a ceasefire until May 21st). We had to go to bed at 8pm so we could get up early enough to be at the airport by 5am, and I spent the night between Mike and Sean (not as sexy as it sounds, there was a dip). The next morning, if you could call it that, we went to the airport in the dark, and I found out unfortunately that I couldn't get out of there until 8am when the ticket office opened. Bah. Luckily Sean gave him his Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, so I read through about half of that while trying not to be incredibly depressed. It was a losing battle. I've never had to say goodbye to anyone at an airplane gate before. It was so upsetting to watch him walking toward the security line that I had to run outside for a second and sit on a bench. Then I went back inside and waved some more, because it just seemed that every glance I got of him would somehow be able to make it better. But then they had to go through the doors and they were gone.

Now Carla tries to cheer me by saying, the next time you see him you'll be home for good! But that has its own downside, namely that I will have left Italy for good. For a brief ten days, I was having my cake and eating it too.

Mmm. Cake.

Rome Redux

Currently I'm in Rome, finishing up the boys' vacation in the Eternal City. The weather on wednesday was without a doubt the most amazing warm weather i have yet seen in Italy. It was then naturally followed by the worst day of rain Ive seen. Let's hope today is a nice mix!! Yesterday we spent most of the day in the Vatican, where we skipped the line because mike had gotten us reservations on a guided tour. sweet. I finally saw Raphael's rooms, as well as the chubby statue of Antinoo in the Egyptian gallery, plus the Laocoon, the torso, etc etc. It was great. Then I took a jacuzzi bath in the guys' hotel room, whihc is a sweet one, whereas TJ and I are sleeping in an OK hostel. REally we mostly live in the other hotel. For example, my stuff is all there now, we came here last night with a plastic bag with our pajamas in it, that's all!

Having Sean here has been the best week of my trip so far. It's scary to think he's leaving in two days. I'm going to miss him so much!! Italy is so much better with him in it.

Upcoming Craziness

The next few weeks are going to be pure insanity. Sean, Mike, TJ, Sinead, and Anna's brother Adam, as well as her best friend Lisa, are all coming this weekend, and next week will be one whirlwind Sean adventure in Firenze and Roma, naturally. The week after that is our exams, god only knows when I will be studying for them...eep...but both Capote and Pride and Prejudice will be at the Odeon that week, so I will be there! Then after that we leave for our spring break madness in Sardinia...then a paltry week of class before Carla and I jet off for our buddy-picture-esque revels in Spain! I'm going to be so broke, hahaha.

Sunday the 12th is Sara's 21st birthday!

Left Untitled

At this moment, almost to my own surprise, I find myself extraordinarily angry on behalf of a friend, to an extent that I haven't felt in some time. The cause of my anger is this friend's treatment by another girl at our school over the eternally provacative subject of "housing drama". The offender feels that she was duped and backstabbed by my friend, who, in her own best interests, found a future roommate from among that girl's current suitemates, who she was apparently depending on as well. That her own roommate and supposed friend of several years would want to leave her and live elsewhere, might speak to this individual's personality, or it might not; that's really none of my friend's concern. However, this girl's reaction and subsequent behavior toward my friend were unpardonable, especially since she apparently reacted a good deal less harshly towards her own deserting roommate! My friend was called by her, among other things, a "worthless cunt", on an internet journal for the world to see, a friend whose only real crime to was to secure her own living situation for the following year.

That this entry was later replaced by a flimsy "I was out of line" is immaterial to me. Nor would I accept any explanations on the part of mutual acquaintances who might posit that it was all done in a fit of pique and of course doesn't represent the girl's true feelings or manners. On the contrary, I feel that a person's true character is sometimes most clearly revealed by their reaction in situations such as this one. When given the choice between lashing out violently at perceived persecutors or calmly evaluating the possible reasons why friends seem to leave her like rats from a drowning ship, she chose the path of malice.

Her vicious attack on her journal came to the conclusion that all my friend's sins could be traced back to her "membership" in our group of friends, who have evidently made it our lives' mission to cause her pain. Au contrair, we, by and large, would like nothing more than to forget that a person by her name exists on the face of the earth. We do not have a cult. People are free to choose their own friends, and this girl resented that after knowing her for some time, we chose not to be friends with her. A lot of pent-up aggression exists relative to that point, and was apparently released in this pointed assault towards my friend.

My response to this is, if you will pardon my French, tough shit. If you cannot make and keep friends it is no fault of ours, and the same goes for roommates. Less time spent villifying others and more time spent examining your own conduct might turn up some interesting observations on this point. In conclusion, this girl demanded on her journal that whosoever chose to make comments against her and her behavior at least do the courtesy of signing their name, I'll do that.

--Michelle

Another Glorious Weekend

I can't believe it, every day moves me closer to when Sean comes to Florence! This is so exciting!

We had another amazing time this weekend, starting with me, Anna and Carla getting drunk on our cheap rum Friday night, culminating in yet another drunken dial to poor TJ, who I think was asleep and none too pleased to hear from us. But it was good. The next morning, remembering some of the things we had all said, admitted to, shared, etc, it was one of those awkward laugh-grimace moments, but it's OK, as Anna says, because we're closer now...right? Haha. Whatever, it was fun.

Saturday was even better, because we met up with Maria at 5:30 and went leather shopping. Because Maria is amazing and knows everyone, we were offered scandalous discounts at the leather place, ie, Anna wound up buying a 180 bag and an 80 wallet for 110 total. There was, surprisingly enough, a bag I actually liked enough to purchase, but they didn't have it in black, and no way will I ever carry something white--I would rather carry a puggle.

After this we set about having a traditional Italian evening--we went to one bar for an aperitivo, where I discovered they make delicious amaretto sours, then we went to the restaurant, which in this case was actually just a fifties-diner esque American burger joint because we all craved one, then to another bar for coffee, then finally to a lounge/bar place called the Blob. Here yet again Maria is hooked up, because she used to live right next door and has been friends with owner and staff, all brits, for years. The place was really well decorated and low key, and I had another amaretto sour which was incredibly sour and almost killed me. Maria is fun for many reasons, perhaps the most important being she is not the same person we see every day, ie each other, so there are suddenly NEW topics to discuss, and new opinions to hear. She's also really nice, and calm, and has an ironic little sense of humor that I quite enjoy. Plus, we know an actual Italian, who can ask questions for us at the bar! Yipee!

Yesterday it poured in the morning so we didn't want to go anywhere. Instead we snuggled up to watch Gallipoli, which was an early Mel Gibson flick ,and I will admit, he was heart stoppingly handsome. It was a war movie in part, which led me to determine that I must see Saving Private Ryan again soon. Also, Im going to go see Pride and Prejudice again at the Odeon...it's coming back!! Plus Capote is coming as well, I'm very excited to see that, I heard Hoffman won best actor for it. Oh, and Carla's mother was nice enough to bring us some magazines and books, so I read John Grisham's the Last Juror, and it was very good. I'm not usually partial to his books because I'm not big on law stories, but this one was actually told from a college boy turned journalist's point of view.

Christopher Moore has a new book out come April 1st, called a Dirty Job, I cant wait to read it!!

YES!

Carla and I just bought plane tickets for a weekend in Barcelona...I'm going back to Spain!!!

Rain, Go Away, Please

Yes, I know it's snowing like mad in the States, but this does not prevent me from being annoyed at the persistent rain here! Today I had to go on a class trip to the contemporary art museum in Prato, which was kind of a waste of time because I hate contemporary art. There is no way you're going to convince me that cutting a giant canoe in half and suspending it from the ceiling is art. Sorry.

Yesterday was a day of wonder. In the morning I explored the neighborhood of Santa Maria Novella, the coolest aspect being the church of Oggnisanti, where both Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci are buried. In the afternoon I wandered into an Arab market store and found nothing other than my beloved, long last Syrian bread, here called panne siriano--sadly they did not know what Syrian pepper is, so my search must continue before I can make hushwei here. Then, in the evening, I went into the only second hand store in town that I know, where the fur coat still remains at 70 euro, and bought instead a green A-line coat for 30 euro that looks just like my ivory coat, just, you know, green, and not cashmere, but that's kind of good because my poor ivory coat was never meant to be worn regularly, I fear. I wore the coat today and it is sexy, I love it.

I've been writing poetry again! Yay!

Via Francigena

I just got out of the coolest lecture! Ok, it was nominally about the Via Francigena, this ancient pilgrim's road that led from Canterbury to Rome. The speaker was a man who, on the basis of a diary from 900 ad, plotted out the missing parts of the path, ie everything above Lucca in Italy, and traveled it himself, finding all these ancient stopping points--80 of them, according to him. He found pieces of ancient pottery, one of which was a 2 meter high bronze Etruscan vase, which he found in a barn somewhere in France, and found old Bronze age camps, medieval granges where there are just farms now, etc etc. He explained that the road was not merely a pilgrim's way, it was a very ancient traveling route that followed the primitive wisdom of traveling along the tops of ridges and in watersheds. Basically, because all of Tuscany is hills, you can walk from Lucca to Rome without getting your feet wet. He also explained that only in Tuscany are hills callled "poggio", or stands...everywhere else they're just called hills, but in Tuscany, they had a special purpose, to serve as stands or bases for Etruscan and Bronze Age settlements and stopping points.

This post is going to be exceedingly disjointed because I am in such a high tempo of excitement right now. Basically, this man inspired me to an immense degree. I want to explore, I want to hike, I want to uncover pieces of ancient pottery lying in vineyards! He told us so many cool things, like how many Irish saints traveled the road to re-convert an Italy that had been destroyed by the barbarian invasion. They settled in towns in Tuscany, towns which now have as their patrons saints with names like Brigida and Finiano--one town, he added, was ruled in the early medieval era by a single Irish nun! He went to some of these places and actually discovered the caves where they lived, covered in crosses.

This man, Giovanni Caselli, said that his purpose was to inspire people, to make them think differently about what they see. He said it's one thing to go on vacation to a touristy spot, and another to follow a road, an ancient one, and see the history it leads you to. He said when he crossed the Alps on this road, he was able to ignore the parking lots and hotels because he saw the Roman road marker, and fragments of their original road, and knew he was seeing history. He advised us to just climb a hill and start walking along the ridges, to look for hills that are "poggio tondo" because they were probably round camps in the old days, or things called Kalla, which were teutonic camps. Listening to him I suddenly didnt want to spend my money on a weekend trip to Madrid, I wanted to go into the countryside and start looking for the past.

Even better, I actually made a friend at this lecture. After the other students departed, one girl and I stayed behind to talk to this guy. He offered us his business card and said that he invites students to visit his town, north of Florence, in the spring, and he takes them on tours free of charge. He even told us there's a hotel there where for 38 euro you get two meals. This girl, Megan, and I exchanged info in case either of us goes hiking. She said she was thinking of going to Fiesole on Sunday, which is one of the places he said you could start on an ancient path, and I told her I'd definitely meet her there if she was going. He did mention that this is not the best weather, and that May will be better, but I'm so pumped I would go tomorrow if I could.

His book is out of print and only in Italian, but im going to hunt it down in used bookshops anyway. He published his maps and information online on his website, uncopyrighted because he says it belongs to everyone. I wish I could be like this man, and spend months just following my guesses and a 1000 year old manuscript. I want to have adventure!

Not Much

It's amazing how I can spend several hours sitting on my ass in this computer lab while outside the world of Italy drifts by. Ok, I intended to be productive and visit the Laurentian library this morning, ie the library where Michelangelo created his innovative and incredible staircase, but when I went in, that section was marked as closed indefinitely for restoration. Bastards. I fully intend to sneak in at some point. What are they going to do to me, arrest me?

The time draws near when the heavens shall open up and deposit half the contents of Fairfield's campus on our little Firenze! Haha, I'm so excited. The first week alone, we will have Anna's brother, Meredith's friend Sinead, TJ, Mike, and of course, my very favoritest traveler of all, SEAN!! Sara's mom will be visiting, followed shortly by Carla, Meredith, and Anna's parents (yes, I am the only one whose mom is not coming, it's kind of sad, but my mom refuses to travel alone, and she doesn't like the group tour idea like Sara's mom does, so, *shrug*). Anna's friend Lisa is coming too, as well as Fairfield's Glee Club, during the same week. Insanity. March 12 shall be a date that lives in infamy, for it is Sara's 21st birthday, and we will be celebrating it in style at Apartment 19, Via San Gallo 33! Main Chef Carla will be producing something like five courses, in addition to appetizers and a homemade tiramisu. It's going to be intense, as well it should because it is the birthday party of my very oldest friend and companion, the incomparable Sara Mari Juana!

Oh yes, and the week after the guys leave, midterms smack us in the face. But then we go on spring break to Sardinia! And then the very next weekend there's a trip to the Amalfi coast that I'm considering going on...it goes to Naples and Pompeii, and I won't go to Pompeii on my own, probably, but it's expensive, so I think I will have to explore and choose between Spain or Amalfi.

Last night we had a Tuscan dinner courtesy of the program, to which I showed up with a couple of shots in me, thereby creating a lovely beginning, and Anna drank so much of the table wine that she ensured a hilarious ending as well. Naturally, we had to call someone, and being in Europe drastically reduces dialing options, so TJ was the lucky recipient of Anna's drunken goodwill. Equally humorous was her telling me that we both scare people, and asking me point blank if I disliked her when I first met her, which I answered honestly, yes, I did, but we've become friends now, to my surprise, and I really enjoy Anna's company. Oh yes, and let us not forget her declaration of "Living in 121 was just not fun, can I just put that out there?" as she stumbled home on Carla's arm. Hahaha. Good times!

My Verona

So I had another post here, but I had to switch computers because I was once again stuck between two morons who needed to talk around me, so that is now gone. However, our weekend in Verona/Padua was really good! The Scrovegni Chapel was amazing. It was built in Padua by a man whose father had appeared in Dante's Inferno as a Usurer suffering eternal damnation, in order to expiate his family's sins. He had it decorated, on all four walls, floor to ceiling, by Giotto, one of the most famous artists of the Early Renaissance. Usually when you think of the Early Ren period, you think of a slightly inferior style of art that preceded the greats like Raphael--the colors and figures weren't highly naturalistic, there was still a great deal of stiffness and stylization from the medieval period, etc etc. I have never been that fond of Early Ren myself for these reasons. I had heard that the frescoes in the Arena Chapel, which is also what this place is called, because it was built on the ruins of the Paduan Arena, marked a turning point in Western Art, that Giotto became the leading force of the Early Renaissance because of this work, etc etc, but I didn't understand what that meant until I got in there.

First of all, Giotto rocks in what they call pure "painterly-ness". He decorated this entire chapel with a fictive architectural structure that makes it seem as though all the walls are covered with colored marble around the paintings and along the floor--but none of the marble is real. I never would have suspected it actually, had they not mentioned it in the introduction--unless, like Carla, I noticed places where the fresco was wearing off, taking the "marble" with it. More important, though, is the amazing level of expressivity that Giotto was able to give to his figures and to the narratives---there were several, including the lives of Mary and Jesus. Example: one of the paintings shows the moment where Judas betrays Jesus, kissing him in front of the soldiers to mark him as the condemned one. It was an extraordinary work because, despite the number of figures involved, it really appears to the viewer like time has stopped, that Jesus and Judas are, for lack of a better word, "having a moment". Judas is leaning in to kiss him and Jesus is not flinching away but his eyes are open, watching Judas calmly, understanding exactly what's going on. Another painting showed the deposition and burial, and here the most interesting figures were the cherubim in the sky, their features contorted into varying expressions of grief and pain, some scratching their cheeks, some howling. Best of all ,Giotto painted them in motion, their wings fluttering hummingbirds, as if he had captured them on a superfast camera. All in all I was hugely impressed, because never before had I seen these familiar scenes recreated in such a fascinating way, a way that really interested the viewer in the actions and motivations of the figures. Kudos to Giotto.

After this, we went down to the Basilica of St. Anthony, he of the "please find me this" prayers, because Anna had a strong yearning to see the mummified tongue and vocal cords of this particular saint. Don't ask. The church itself was massive, had four or five domes in it, and was breathtaking. The most amazing part of it, though, was the tomb of the saint, which has been turned into basically a shrine of thanksgiving by grateful believers. It was covered with ex-votos, pictures, notes, and photographs, all of them expressing thanks to St. Anthony for blessings given and graces received. Some of the most affecting were those people who left a photo of their cars, destroyed in accidents from which they miraculously escaped, and people who left photos of children, some who died young, others who survived childhood disease. There were gifts of needlepoint and embroidery, and notes from children, including one from a little boy who thanked St. Anthony for saving his mother's life. The notes were in many languages, including English and German and several written in Cyrillic. Walking around the tomb, many people stopped and pressed their hands and foreheads to the marble, while others left candles to be offered to St. Anthony. The tomb was incredibly affecting because it was such a proof of faith on the part of those who came to offer thanks. To think of all those individuals, many of whom must have traveled a distance to be able to make their offering, truly believing that somewhere up there they have a divine intercessor, is a powerful thought indeed. I felt somewhat the poorer for having no such belief myself.

My mother, however, has always been a believer in St. Anthony and his power of finding lost objects. Many a time I have lost things, my keys, my license, my glasses, and been unable to find them for days, but after my mom says a prayer to St. Anthony they turn up in a random spot soon afterward. This could be coincidence, of course, but it's happened too many times to be coincidence. I felt I should offer St. Anthony something on my mother's behalf, but lacking anything extraordinary, I left some money in the collection box instead.

After this we headed back to Verona, where we checked into our first hostel. It was a really nice place, in a converted mansion, with its own gardens, etc except it was dark and we were tired, so we just dropped our stuff and went out for dinner. When we returned, there were two other girls asleep in the six person room, so we went to bed early, and got up around 7:30. "Breakfast" was included in our 14 euro stay, but this turned out to be rolls and coffee lol. But off we went, four intrepid travelers, to explore the city of Verona. The first place we went was the Roman theater, which was massive and well preserved, although the climb to the hilltop museum was pretty tough. From there we visited several churches, but it being Sunday mass was in session. In one church we stayed for about ten minutes, while the mass was sung partially in Latin. That was pretty cool, it sounded very elegant. We also visited a Roman-Etruscan house museum, meaning the personal collection of someone dead.

Then it was time for the most touristy thing to do in Verona--visit Juliet's house. The museum, if it can be called that, was pretty ridiculous, there was nothing really of value or interest. However, they did have red boxes where you could leave a letter for Juliet, which are actually answered by a club which the museum runs. They even had some computers where you could email her, so naturally, Carla and Anna and I sent some ridiculous emails. The balcony itself was tiny, but the amusing part is that an older Asian guy, who I had waved ahead of us with his wife, asked me and Meredith to pose for a photo on the balcony. So now our photo is in some Asian guy's scrapbook! The final piece of ridiculousness was the statue of Juliet in the courtyard, where you're supposed to rub her breast for luck in love, so I made the other girls do it, but refrained myself, since I have already been so lucky as to find it, muahaha.

Verona itself, by the way, was quite lovely. Like all Italian cities, a river winds its way through the center and is crossed by a number of picturesque bridges. From the very top of the Roman theater's mini mountain, we had a great panoramic view. So after all this we hopped on the train home, and spent a good hour of the travel time in a theological debate on the nature of faith, which religion is the right one, etc etc. My position is of course a rather free floating one, as I don't subscribe to any particular religion. Carla is of course a Protestant, and Anna I would describe as a very liberal Catholic. Meredith didn't really join in the debate, but is nominally Catholic, I think. It was interesting, and certainly occupied our time. When we got home, Carla and I embarked on what would turn out to be a 1.5 hr walk around the city in order to locate a Blockbuster--because our other big news is that we spent 40 euro on a DVD player because we were dying without any American media to occupy our downtime--where we finally, successfully got Bridget Jones Diary. If we couldnt watch the new Pride and Prejudice, this was as close as we could get, and it was a damned good time.

Different Strokes

Reading Sara's journal entry about her weekend in Rome, I was surprised by the different impressions we each had from our time there. Sara said that she could "fall in love in Rome, and live in Florence", while I don't think I could ever find much to love about it beyond a few day's visit. It was too much of a city for me, a fact not even a plethora of Roman ruins could overcome, but hey, different strokes.

After seeing the highly Baroque adornments of St. Peter's, and then just the all-out crazy fest of St. Mark's this weekend, I still have to say that the most astonishing works of art that I've seen so far have been the mosaics of Ravenna. I have never seen their equal for sheer color and magnificence, undimmed by centuries. And Florence is still my favorite kind of place, small without being limited, relatively tranquil without being boring, and elegantly historic without being overwhelming or pedantic. I feel at home here, like I actually belong, while in Rome I felt like I was a mere spectactor in a grand drama that had been in the making for two millenia.

I remarked to Anna the other day that I had been thinking of people I knew back in America who take such overzealous pride in one part of their ethnicity that they really think it makes them better, and somehow distinct, from the people around them. Specifically, the people who are so proud of being Italian American that they wear things like those awful FBI (full blooded italian) shirts. Those people would be a laughingstock here, and would probably find themselves at an absolute loss, because the Italian identity they have constructed in America is quite unlike what you actually find in Italy. Actually living in another country, where people don't need to ask what ethnicity you are, because they already know, makes it so apparent how little that matters. What does it matter if I have Italian blood, or not? Here I'm just another ignorant American. They don't give a damn.

People put so much emphasis on this kind of identity in the states, but it is so often divergent from the actual culture from which it originated as to be almost unrecognizable. In the US there's always a lot of interest in your family's "heritage", but really, until you go to those places, you have no idea what you're inheriting. None of us are that special, if we're more than second-generation immigrants, we're just Americans, like everyone else, with no special claim to being "of" one country or another, especially one that doesn't want us anyway. For all my jokes about being Syrian, do I consider myself to be one whit like the people of that country? Nope. I have no idea what they're like, or their lives, or their culture. I could never understand what it's like to be them unless I lived among them, so why bother laying claim to a patrimony that I neither understand nor value?

I think ethnicities now are simply a method of supporting a shared pride and egotism at being more "this" than someone else, and preserving idiocies like how great it is to be Irish American, or Italian American, or what have you, because your "people" have so much culture. You're not Irish. You're not Italian. Those peoples don't recognize your claim to be one of them, nor do you really probably want to be, because then, once again, you would not be special in the way you can claim to be now. I'm not saying that we should do away with inherited traditions or knowledge and interest in our forefathers, but simply recognize that you are only constructing your own little dreamworld when you boast about how cool it is to be this or that. Accept being an American; we all have to do it someday.

Venice and Carnival

This weekend was nothing short of amazing. We left here at 7am for the lengthy bus trip to Venice. Naturally, everyone knows that Venice is on little islands with the canals, gondolas, etc etc, but I was definitely not aware that the lagoon in which the various islands of the city are located is enormous! It took us about half an hour to cross between some of them. The main island is where the stuff everything thinks of as Venice is located, but there were lots of other smaller ones: an island inhabited only by Franciscan monks, a cemetery island, Murano, island of the glass factories, Burano, ie the most picturesque place ever, among others. We went first for a tour of St. Mark's square, where the massive cathedral of St. Mark is located. I have never seen anything so highly decorated in my life. Every inch of the interior and exterior of this place was covered in multi colored marble, mosaics, or gilded. Gold mosaic tiles covered huge expanses of space in between the actual mosaic images inside the building--and not just up on the ceiling, either; the tiles went right down to the floor, so you could actually touch them.

The church was consecrated back in 700 AD and is the burial place of St Mark...the second burial place, because the Venetians went to Alexandria and dug up and stole his corpse in order to fulfill the prophecy of an old legend. Apparently, St. Mark was once shipwrecked in the Venetian lagoon when an angel appeared to him and the following: "Peace unto you, Mark, my evangelist. Here one day your body will find rest". So the Venetians apparently saw nothing wrong with divinely-sanctioned graverobbing. Part of the angel's phrase, in Latin, appears in almost every image of the icon of Venice--the Lion of St. Mark, who is usually depicted with wings and with one paw on an open book, which says Pax Tibi Marce, Evangelista Meus.

This lion is an awesome symbol. They have a huge gold lion perched on a column by the harbor in St. Mark's Square, next to an older statue of Theodoric, a Byzantine soldier saint who slew a dragon. This young man was once the patron saint of Venice, till the city decided it would not do to have a Byzantine as their patron, since that would suggest that they owed something to the eastern Empire. So they picked Mark as a sign of their independence, because really, who ever cared what Mark had to say anyway? People were more interested in Peter and Paul, but other locations had already bogarted those two as symbols. Venetian independence was extremely important to its people. It had the honor of being probably the longest running independent city-state in Europe, as it was never conquered until Napoleon invaded in the 18th century. It its prime, though, Venice was one of the most powerful forces on the Continent, since they owned the seas with their navy. In fact, a line from a really good historical novel, the title of which I cannot now remember, went "When the lion of St. Mark roared, the whole world trembled".

After our tour of the square, we got back on the boat and went to Murano, where they make the famous blown-glass items which are usually ridiculously expensive. We got to watch a demonstration in one of the factories, where the masters--who are trained for more than ten years--made the art of glass-blowing look amazingly easy. The glass, once hot, is as pliable as taffy, and we watched them make parts of chandeliers, vases, and even a little statue of a horse, in just seconds. They can blow the glass to such thinness that it's like plastic. We know this because one of the masters did exactly that: basically, he picks up a piece of molten glass on the end of a hollow metal tube about 8 feet long, then blows into one end to make the glass swell up like a balloon. After it had reached unbelievably large proportions, the glass exploded in a shower of plasticky fragments all over us, the audience. The shards, of which I naturally saved several, couldn't really cut you, but it was still freaky. After this we visited their shop, where we were delighted to learn that because of our tour we were being granted half off everything in the store. Delicious! I bought gifts for my mom and Hubbard for a much more reasonable price than I had expected.

Next it was over to Burano, a charming little village-island still populated by fisherman, which is reknowned only for the picturesque atmosphere of its houses, each one painted a different brilliant shade, like rows upon rows of jewels. This was apparently a local fisherman tradition dating back centuries, and only in Burano has it been preserved. I've never seen anything like it, not even in California where all the houses are pastel colors. Here they were every color and shade, from olive green to teal blue to lavender to crimson. It was gorgeous!

That night we were to go to a famous Venetian restaurant for a Carnival feast. This feast, which was quite literally seven or eight courses long, had several shady elements for me, including some nasty proscuitto, a polenta dish, gnocchi with radicchio aka bitter lettuce, etc. The final main course was a roast chicken, which I gave in an ate, despite all fears of bird flu, and it was freaking delicious. Now, the only problem with this feast was that they provided free and unlimited wine to every table. My table sampled the wine and declared it disgusting, as it was only a year old. Other tables, however, went through about ten bottles per group--that's more than a bottle per person, since only 8 people sat at a table. So you can imagine the hellish return bus ride to our hotel, with a group full of drunks who are idiots and asses even while sober. Naturally, one guy who had chugged his wine was puking in the stairwell of the bus shortly after we left, and I had to listen to the rest of the moron crowd shrieking, blowing their noisemakers, and calling and texting each other from different parts of the SAME BUS. Anna, Meredith and Carla, damn them, managed to sleep through this cacophony, but I was full of bitter rage by the time we reached the hotel (which was really nice, btw, and the four of us had our own separate bungalow apartment) and spent some time ranting about the cuntiness of the "swine" with the insanity born of being awake far, far too long for one day, which Carla found absolutely hysterical. I've never seen her laugh that hard.

The next morning, sadly, all of the idiots were still alive, although the one who is now officially known to all as the Chugger looked slightly under the weather. The morning was bitterly cold and foggy, to the extent that we couldnt see a thing on the crossing to the main island. We also had to stand in the cold waiting for the boat for half an hour because these same swine delayed our exit from the hotel, and therefore other groups got ahead of us. I'm pretty sure our poor guide, Stefano, wanted to kill them all, especially the girl who came up and started whining about when were we getting on a boat, because she was sooo cold, and she was getting sick, even though she was perfectly healthy in Florence. He looked at her in disbelief and said that at the meeting he had said it would be cold because--shocker--Venice is in the NORTH, to which she replied that she wasn't at said meeting because she had gone to the Olympics. Boo fucking hoo, although I loved Anna's response " If you're cold, zip up your coat, you dumb bitch".

Due to this delay, we were late for our guided tours of the Peggy Guggenheim museum. Ok, no big deal, you might think, but alas, the opening ceremony of Carnival was to be held in St. Mark's square at 12, and our 1 hr tour finally commened at the museum at 11:10. There was no way we'd make it, and we had heard that part of the ceremony was a person dressed as an angel jumping off the giant belltower, which was not to be missed. So naturally the four of us snuck out of the tour after seeing just a single Picasso (yes, it was that horror of horrors, the modern art museum) and raced back to the square. I've never been in the middle of such a press of people before, and now I understand how riots and stampedes can kill people. It's pretty tight in there. We couldn't see all that much in the middle of the crowd, especially not poor Anna, but there were knights jousting, a juggler, and two full courts of knights, ladies, lords, doges and a pope, along with a sort of fashion show of amazing Carnival costumes on this big stage (Carnival costumes are, btw, indescribably amazing. Some of them look cheaper and rented, but a great many are made of real lace, silk, etc, and these people go entire all out. Plus, unlike the crappy guys in Rome who dress up as gladiators, these people don't charge any money to take a picture with them; they love it! Look up some google pics if you want an idea).

Finally at noon the drumbeats came to a pulsing head and the "angel" began her descent from the massive belltower. It was not, however, as stunning as we'd thought. Her outfit was rather silly, no wings, even, and she didn't dive off, just came very, very slowly down a zip line. Oh well--it was Carnival! I have never in my life seen anything to compare to Carnival, except maybe partially a Ren fair on crack ,but that only accounts for the historical costumes, not the insane masked Carnival revelers. I didn't buy a mask, though they were beautiful, because they were also quite expensive.

We were some of the few who opted to visit the Doge's palace that afternoon instead of just wandering the streets. I'm glad I did, because it was really impressive, everything done in dark wood and gilding, and every ceiling covered with massive paintings and frescoes by Tintoretto and Veronese. We saw the armory, which had amazing pieces of armor, and some weird things like a combination gun-sword, and a real, live, chastity belt, with TEETH. We also crossed the famous Bridge of Sighs, which is so named not because of any romantic associations, but because it connected the palace to the prison, and if you crossed that bridge you were probably never coming back. The prisons were dark, completely without heat, and frightening. I can't imagine that prisoners lasted long there in the damp.

Our return trip was exceedingly long due to traffic and delays--we left Venice at 5:30 and reached home at 10:30. I slept for about 11 hours and last, and it was gooood. The weekend, I must say, was very much worth the $250 I paid for it, but I am so glad I'm not signed u p for any more of the group trips. I hate the people who go to this program, I really do! Swine. All swine.