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.