I am sooooo sorry that I haven't been writing here! I am trying to write two term papers in Italian and one in English and travel with visitors, and I have been failing to have enough time to write here.
Things are great! I will send pictures to anyone who wants them, just leave a comment with your email.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
When there are people like these, there is hope for all of us
Watch out! This is a really long blog. I suggest reading it in phases.
This weekend I went to Assisi, where Saint Francis is from, which is one of my very favorite places to be in the whole world. I went alone because I feel confident in my abilities to speak Italian and travel well, and because I know this area anyway. This is a good little practice trip for when I take a big solo trip at the end of April for a week all around Italy and France and Switzerland.
There is something to be sad for traveling all by yourself. I was thinking today that the first time I came to Italy, I traveled alone a little, but I only went as far as here in Assisi, which is only 20 minutes away from Perugia in the train. This time I had to take a 2 and a half hour train from Ferrara, change trains in Arezzo, and then another 2 hours in the train to Assisi.
While on the train Friday, I had a remarkable experience that I want to remember always. I was on a regional train from Ferrara to Arezzo and I was in a compartment with another girl when we stopped in Bologna to pick up more people. A couple and a mother with her son, Jacabo, who was about four years old, joined us
Jacobo was a hilarious little ball of energy and he made a point of being friends with anyone he met. He was wearing a little hand-knitted blue and yellow sweater and wouldn’t keep his shoes on even though his mom kept telling him to do so. Everyone shared food with him, like little pies and orange slices, and candy. He had a stick that he had carved himself and he kept brandishing it at everyone in the compartment as though he was a pirate. The couple was two young people who put up with him very well. I started to take out my headphones and listen to the conversation, and the young man picked up on my listening and asked me in English, “Where are you from?”
I automatically responded in Italian, which made everyone really excited. Jacobo decided to show off his own English skills and asked me, “What is your name?” and I said, “Coleen.” But he didn’t understand that “Coleen” was a name and he got very confused. Poor little guy. Then he noticed my ipod and asked to listen. “Watch out,” I warned him, “All the songs are in English!” He liked them anyway and started to dance around the compartment.
When we got to the Florence station Jacobo and his mother had to leave, but she gave me her card and asked me to call her any time I was in Bologna and she would cook for me and give me a place to stay if I wanted. I was left in the compartment with the couple.
We talked about everything for another hour and a half until we arrived at Arezzo. They wanted to know all about New York and Colorado and Texas, and how people see Italians there. They thought that Americans see Italians really badly, but I explained that half the people from the States it seems have Italian blood and also everyone loves the food! They seemed so excited to hear that, especially since they thought we saw Italians as only Mafiosi and Mammoni.
They both told me multiple times, “Me tu sei veramente brava in italiano” which means, “But you’re really good at Italian!” They said that I have very little American accent when I speak and that everyone would be able to understand me. They couldn’t believe (like I can’t believe) that I had learned the language so quickly. “Quando torni negli Stati-Uniti,” diceva la ragazza. “A maggio,” ho detto e poi lei ha detto, “Wow, c’e’ ancora piu tempo per imparare, e quindi quando torni sarai capace di parlare veramente…come una italiana!”
(“When are you going back to the States,” the girl was saying. “In May,” I said and then she said, “Wow, there’s still more time to learn, and so when you go back you will be able to really speak, like an Italian!”)
And then I arrived in Arezzo and had to change trains. Valentina gave me her email address and asked me to please send her a note when I am in Rome in April with Michael, so that she can tell us where to eat and what cool, not-usually-for-tourists things we can see. And then I was on the train to Assisi in the fading light. We passed Perugia and I got all excited because I could see the main Piazza which was where I lived for a while two summers ago. Everyone else on the train was commuting, and so I looked at little foolish being so excited.
I arrived in Assisi, and the woman from the Bed and Breakfast was waiting at the train station for me! I got into the car and she said, “Do you mind if we stop at the store for some mozerella before we go home?” So we went. And then she drove me around the town for a half an hour pointing out where to go and how to take the bus and making sure I knew where to eat and how to get home. We came to her house (which was gorgeous by the way, all wooden accents and floors and HUGE) and she introduced me to her husband and showed me to my room.
It turned out I could be an internet pirate and use someone else’s wi-fi while there, and so I was able to do homework and talk to my family and Michael! And the room had a stand-up shower, which I used to the fullest extent because I hadn’t had a standing-up shower in TWO MONTHS! It was awesome.
I woke up on Saturday early, and went out to have breakfast. The husband brought me some coffee and milk, and made sure I knew how to cut the yummy coffee cakes that they had set out for me. And then he gave me a ticket for the bus that he had laying around, and I set off for my day in Assisi.
There is a huge Bascillica here, down in the lower part of the town where I was staying, built in the 1500s around a tiny little church that was made by the fransiscans on the site of St. Francis’ death. It is strange because the huge church around it is baroque and eleaborate and massive, but the original church is tiny and made of normal rocks. There is a special dispensation from the Catholic church for those who come to the tiny church on pilgrimage. If you go inside the tiny church and say an Our Father and a Credo, and then go to confession and Mass, then return and say an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be, you get what the church calls a “plenary indulgence.” That means that all sins are taken away and you will no longer be sent to purgatory.
I’m not sure I believe in any of that, especially since I don’t believe you need a priest to confess to and I don’t believe in purgatory, so I was planning on just going into the little church and praying a bit and then going on my way. But as I was walking around in the church grounds I stumbled right into the procession at the beginning of a Mass. So I decided to stay. And what was the reading from the Gospel? The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
So I ended up doing the plenary indulgence! And afterward I walked up to the bus stop and took the bus to the town itself on the hill. I got off at the stop for San Damiano, which is the convent of St. Clare where she lived and died and where there are still soure di closure (cloistered nuns). They have the crucifix there that spoke to St. Francis and told him to rebuild the Church at the start of his life as a holy man. The crucifix is as vibrant and clear as if it were made yesterday, but it is in fact nearly a thousand years old.
To get to San Damiano, you have to walk a kilometer from the bus stop. On the way back, it is all up a very steep hill, but there are beautiful olive trees everywhere and the countryside is peaceful. An amazing thing about olive trees…the trunk may have holes in it and the whole bottom of the tree will seem for all intents and purposes completely dead, but then at the top there will be beautiful and fruitful branches.
I hiked from San Damiano up to the town itself and went along the street to the Bascillica of Santa Chiara, where her body was buried. I went inside a bar outside the church because I was dying for some coffee and water, and then I went into the church and saw the relics of St. Clare and St. Francis, which are kept in the same place because they were very close friends, or according to some even kind of married. I think it’s incredibly romantic to think that they would have been in love and I don’t think that would get in the way of them being saints and holy. They were just people like anyone else, and I’d hope that they found a soulmate just like I hope that for anyone else.
After that, I climbed the town to the top of the mountain, where the castle of the town is (the Rocca Maggiore). There I could see the whole valley and Perugia in the distance, even though it was pretty hazy and hard to see. In the course of the day I would do about 7 miles on foot, with over a thousand feet of elevation change. It was humid and hot and I was tired from hiking, but I went back down and walked along the streets of the town trying to find a specific store.
When I was here last time, the very first time that I ever traveled alone, I went into a store to look at the ceramics. The woman was really nice to me and so excited that I could understand Italian (even though my responses were completely terrible), that she talked to me for ten minutes and gave me a postcard to give to my mother with sunflowers on it. I brought the crucifix that I bought there to my mom and she keeps the postcard on the fridge in our kitchen.
This time I went into her store, and she recognized me! We talked for a while about the ceramics and I bought a little box made by hand. My Italian is much better this time, and she told me about her husband who works as a police officer in Perugia’s drug unit. Apparently last summer, a big dog in the city bit two of his fingers off on his left hand! “Oh, god!” I said, “That’s terrible!” But she said, “No, it’s fine, I mean it could’ve been worse.” She was very cheerful about the whole thing and gave me another sunflowers postcard to take to my mother. “A la prossima volta!” she said and shook my hand as a left (“Until next time!”).
After that I walked down to the Bascillica of St. Francis, which I think is one of the most beautiful churches in the world. I sat down for about an hour and painted a picture of the façade, while a barefooted Franscican in a hair shirt wandered around next to me preaching and collecting money for a mission in the United States. There were so many Americans every that I was getting annoyed with, because they were loud and disrespectful and obnoxiously American (by that I mean expecting everyone to speak English and everything to be exactly like home). They were mostly high schoolers and parents on Spring Break. Ugh.
Apparently I don’t look like one of those Americans anymore. Italians can tell I’m not from here, but until I open my mouth they usually think I’m German. And as I was sitting there I had several annoying touristy Americans come up to me and say very slowly and like I was stupid or something, “Wow…that is very pretty. Do…you…speak…English?” And each time I took off my sunglasses and said, “Yeah, I’m American actually.” Mildly frustrating.
I finished my painting and I had to pee really really badly. Unfortunately for me, although not unusually for Italy, the public restrooms were locked. Damn! This meant that I had to walk down to a pizzeria and ask for a slice, eat it as quickly as possible (actually I didn’t even sit down, I just took the pizza and ate it right in front of the cashier to the affronted looks of the owners) and then ask, “Ok, can I use your bathroom now?” and run in there. All of this because it’s rude to use the restroom without buying something first. When I came out of the restroom, barefoot preaching dude was there! He apparently did the same thing I did.
I then went into the church itself and visited St. Francis’ tomb again. I had picked some flowers on my walk up the mountain, and I put them through the grate and onto the rocks of his tomb. The entire church is covered in frescos by the main artists of the time (meaning right after St. Francis’ death). Giotto, the same guy who painted the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova, did most of the church with the help of his assisitants. The colors are still bright and beautiful, 700 years on. There is also beautiful marblework all over the church, but interestingly, there are stars of David everywhere! All over the church! I’m not sure why, but it was cool.
In the top part of the church, there are more Giotto frescos, which are among the most famous in the world. The one recognized the most is the one with St. Francis preaching to the birds about how awesome God is. And there were three groups, lead by friars, wandering around the church and talking about the paintings. One was in English, one in Italian, and one in French. I wandered between the groups that were being conducted in my three languages…just listening and being grateful I could understand everything. I really liked hearing French, so I stopped and hung out with that group for a couple of minutes. Seeing as I clearly don’t look French, the people in the group kept looking at me like, “Um, what the hell are you doing?” but I was just happy to still be able to understand it.
At this point, I realized that I had caught the cold that is going around our group. My sinuses were pounding and I had a fever, so wandering around in the cold church was aggravating my condition. I walked around asking every friar I could find if they knew where a pharmacy was to buy medicine, but many of them had not left the monastery attached to the church for years and so I had to ask at the information desk. They pointed me back to the main piazza, which was unfortunately about a kilometer away uphill. I resigned myself to walking it, and started off.
When I reached the pharmacy, it was closed! I was so tired and sick feeling that I just went over to the Temple of Minerva, which is a Roman Temple converted now into a church but with the same ancient façade, and sat in the sun trying to figure out what I was going to do for two hours while I waited for the pharmacy to open. I opened my backpack to get my phone and realized not only had I left it at home, but that my paints had exploded inside a bit and paint water was getting on everything.
Ok, no big deal, right? I mean what can you do when these things happen? I needed a plastic bag and fast, though. So I went into the first store I saw, and immediately picked up the cheapest bottle of wine in there. “You want this one?” the lady asked incredulously when I set it on the counter. “Yep! Is it good?” “Um, yeah, sure, whatever you like, “ she answered. But I got my plastic bag and could fix my stupid backpack, so I was happy.
As I left the store, I heard next to me, “Hello, are you American too?” There were three girls sitting on some steps and so I answered them. As usual, I was having trouble transitioning from Italian to English, but they were nice and asked me if I was traveling alone. “That’s really cool,” they said when I answered yes. They were on a day trip from Siena, where they were studying. We commiserated about the study abroad experience and how hard the language can be, and then one of the girls gave me her email and told me to let them know if I was going to be in the Siena area.
After all of that, I still had an hour until I could buy medicine, so I went to the piazza in front of St. Clare’s Bascillica and laid down on a bench in the sun with my backpack tucked under my legs. This is a HUGE faux pas in Italy, because the only people who lay down in public are homeless and it is contrary to the “Bella Figura” (cross between good manners, good appearance, and education). But I didn’t care. My face hurt and I was tired.
Finally after an hour, I went into the pharmacy and asked them to help me because I had a tremendous cold. The ladies were really nice and basically pulled out every type of cold medicine possible and asking me if I was allergic to anything and where it hurt and how old I was, etc etc. They decided on two things, a nasal spray and a decongestant. Pointing to the box of decongestant--“Attenzione, ok?” dise la donna farmacista, “Qui dentro c’e’ ‘sleepy,’ ok?” (“Watch out, ok? The pharmacist lady said, “There’s ‘sleepy’ in here”). The sleepy was in English, and her son started laughing because it was funny to say sleepy when you meant drowsiness. The medicines cost 17 euro, and I was shocked, but I wasn’t about to turn them down.
Outside the pharmacy, I opened the nasal spray and went into an alley to put it in because I was desperate to have some relief. I put the nozzle in my nose and sprayed it, and swore out loud. It burned so badly! And it felt like I had sprayed Vick’s Vapor rub right up my nostril. And then I had to do the other one. I don’t even want to know what the passing Italians thought of me, but after ten minutes of sheer pain my sinuses did start to feel better.
At this point the sun was getting low, and so I walked down to the square where the buses leave from. A bus came and I was so exhausted that I just got on the bus and rode it all around the town, up to where I had climbed in the morning and to the very town of the town. On our way back down, we made a sudden stop and I thought we were going to hit a tree head on. It turned out we were stopping to pick up a couple, and I heard the man who was wearing shorts and a fanny pack and looked like Grandpa with his glasses speaking to the bus driver in English. Surely only an American would do that, I thought, and I got up and went to sit near them and started talking to them, which I would like to point out is something that I would never do at home…just walk up to strangers and start talking to them.
I asked them where they were from, and discovered I had completely misjudged their accents. They were Irish! And now I was really in trouble because I was having a hard enough time understanding American English. They were visiting Assisi from Dublin because their son was studying in Rome. We talked about how awesome it was to study abroad and about my family and how I’m Irish too. We got to the station down the hill from town and they had to leave.
The woman, who was wearing a leopard-print scarf wrapped around her shoulders grabbed my arm and hand and said, “Good luck with everything and God Bless you. Here’s a prayer for you.” She handed me a prayer card for St. Francis, with the most famous fransican prayer on it, the “Make me an instrument of your peace” one. I’ve always liked how much the Irish love to bless people.
I got home and the couple welcomed me back. “Sei stanca? Vuoi un po’ di caffe’ o un the?” (“Are you tired? Would you like some coffee or tea?”) The woman proceeded to make me a cup of tea with lemon and sugar, and to feed me a bunch of sweets until I couldn’t eat anymore. We talked about the day and about what I do in the States, and about my family. The husband was working on hanging up things in the kitchen, and he kept asking me where to hang the new tapestries. They were so nice to include me in their lives.
Then they hustled me up to bed and I called Michael and my family. I spent the night laying down and trying to rest, and took another fantastic standing-up shower. I noticed in the mirror that I look very skinny, maybe even as skinny as I was my freshman year. I’ve lost a lot of weight in my face especially. I decided to make something for the couple to leave at their house, because they had been so kind. I painted a picture of St. Francis and wrote on the back:
“Grazie per tutto! Riccordero’ sempre il mio tempo passato qui, e raccomandero’ il Bed and Breakfast San Francesco in Assisi ad ogni dei miei che verra’ nel futuro.
Baci ed amore sempre- Coleen Monroe”
“Thanks for everything! I will always remember my time spent here, and I will recommend the San Francesco in Assisi Bed and Breakfast to any of mine who will come here in the future.
Kisses and love always-Coleen Monroe”
I woke up in the morning and went to have breakfast. When I paid for my stay, the couple gave me a bunch of gifts (magnets, keychains, a pen) and I said that I had made something for their house. I gave them the painting and they said, “Wow, not only and anthropologist but also an artist!” And the husband gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek as a left. His wife took me to the train station in their car and said, “Well, bye! Good wishes on everything and live well!”
I went into the station and sat on a bench to write this blog. Just as my train was arriving, all the bells in the city began to ring joyfully and loudly, like Assisi was saying goodbye to me. I climbed onto the train with tears in my eyes because I just wanted to stay there forever, and I watched as the city faded into the hills. I blew kisses at Assisi and watched the countryside roll by on my way back to Ferrara.
I have a new goal in life. I want to retire after whatever I end up doing after college, go somewhere pretty, and own and operate a Bed and Breakfast so that I can repay the kindness of the couple who took me right in.
This weekend I went to Assisi, where Saint Francis is from, which is one of my very favorite places to be in the whole world. I went alone because I feel confident in my abilities to speak Italian and travel well, and because I know this area anyway. This is a good little practice trip for when I take a big solo trip at the end of April for a week all around Italy and France and Switzerland.
There is something to be sad for traveling all by yourself. I was thinking today that the first time I came to Italy, I traveled alone a little, but I only went as far as here in Assisi, which is only 20 minutes away from Perugia in the train. This time I had to take a 2 and a half hour train from Ferrara, change trains in Arezzo, and then another 2 hours in the train to Assisi.
While on the train Friday, I had a remarkable experience that I want to remember always. I was on a regional train from Ferrara to Arezzo and I was in a compartment with another girl when we stopped in Bologna to pick up more people. A couple and a mother with her son, Jacabo, who was about four years old, joined us
Jacobo was a hilarious little ball of energy and he made a point of being friends with anyone he met. He was wearing a little hand-knitted blue and yellow sweater and wouldn’t keep his shoes on even though his mom kept telling him to do so. Everyone shared food with him, like little pies and orange slices, and candy. He had a stick that he had carved himself and he kept brandishing it at everyone in the compartment as though he was a pirate. The couple was two young people who put up with him very well. I started to take out my headphones and listen to the conversation, and the young man picked up on my listening and asked me in English, “Where are you from?”
I automatically responded in Italian, which made everyone really excited. Jacobo decided to show off his own English skills and asked me, “What is your name?” and I said, “Coleen.” But he didn’t understand that “Coleen” was a name and he got very confused. Poor little guy. Then he noticed my ipod and asked to listen. “Watch out,” I warned him, “All the songs are in English!” He liked them anyway and started to dance around the compartment.
When we got to the Florence station Jacobo and his mother had to leave, but she gave me her card and asked me to call her any time I was in Bologna and she would cook for me and give me a place to stay if I wanted. I was left in the compartment with the couple.
We talked about everything for another hour and a half until we arrived at Arezzo. They wanted to know all about New York and Colorado and Texas, and how people see Italians there. They thought that Americans see Italians really badly, but I explained that half the people from the States it seems have Italian blood and also everyone loves the food! They seemed so excited to hear that, especially since they thought we saw Italians as only Mafiosi and Mammoni.
They both told me multiple times, “Me tu sei veramente brava in italiano” which means, “But you’re really good at Italian!” They said that I have very little American accent when I speak and that everyone would be able to understand me. They couldn’t believe (like I can’t believe) that I had learned the language so quickly. “Quando torni negli Stati-Uniti,” diceva la ragazza. “A maggio,” ho detto e poi lei ha detto, “Wow, c’e’ ancora piu tempo per imparare, e quindi quando torni sarai capace di parlare veramente…come una italiana!”
(“When are you going back to the States,” the girl was saying. “In May,” I said and then she said, “Wow, there’s still more time to learn, and so when you go back you will be able to really speak, like an Italian!”)
And then I arrived in Arezzo and had to change trains. Valentina gave me her email address and asked me to please send her a note when I am in Rome in April with Michael, so that she can tell us where to eat and what cool, not-usually-for-tourists things we can see. And then I was on the train to Assisi in the fading light. We passed Perugia and I got all excited because I could see the main Piazza which was where I lived for a while two summers ago. Everyone else on the train was commuting, and so I looked at little foolish being so excited.
I arrived in Assisi, and the woman from the Bed and Breakfast was waiting at the train station for me! I got into the car and she said, “Do you mind if we stop at the store for some mozerella before we go home?” So we went. And then she drove me around the town for a half an hour pointing out where to go and how to take the bus and making sure I knew where to eat and how to get home. We came to her house (which was gorgeous by the way, all wooden accents and floors and HUGE) and she introduced me to her husband and showed me to my room.
It turned out I could be an internet pirate and use someone else’s wi-fi while there, and so I was able to do homework and talk to my family and Michael! And the room had a stand-up shower, which I used to the fullest extent because I hadn’t had a standing-up shower in TWO MONTHS! It was awesome.
I woke up on Saturday early, and went out to have breakfast. The husband brought me some coffee and milk, and made sure I knew how to cut the yummy coffee cakes that they had set out for me. And then he gave me a ticket for the bus that he had laying around, and I set off for my day in Assisi.
There is a huge Bascillica here, down in the lower part of the town where I was staying, built in the 1500s around a tiny little church that was made by the fransiscans on the site of St. Francis’ death. It is strange because the huge church around it is baroque and eleaborate and massive, but the original church is tiny and made of normal rocks. There is a special dispensation from the Catholic church for those who come to the tiny church on pilgrimage. If you go inside the tiny church and say an Our Father and a Credo, and then go to confession and Mass, then return and say an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be, you get what the church calls a “plenary indulgence.” That means that all sins are taken away and you will no longer be sent to purgatory.
I’m not sure I believe in any of that, especially since I don’t believe you need a priest to confess to and I don’t believe in purgatory, so I was planning on just going into the little church and praying a bit and then going on my way. But as I was walking around in the church grounds I stumbled right into the procession at the beginning of a Mass. So I decided to stay. And what was the reading from the Gospel? The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
So I ended up doing the plenary indulgence! And afterward I walked up to the bus stop and took the bus to the town itself on the hill. I got off at the stop for San Damiano, which is the convent of St. Clare where she lived and died and where there are still soure di closure (cloistered nuns). They have the crucifix there that spoke to St. Francis and told him to rebuild the Church at the start of his life as a holy man. The crucifix is as vibrant and clear as if it were made yesterday, but it is in fact nearly a thousand years old.
To get to San Damiano, you have to walk a kilometer from the bus stop. On the way back, it is all up a very steep hill, but there are beautiful olive trees everywhere and the countryside is peaceful. An amazing thing about olive trees…the trunk may have holes in it and the whole bottom of the tree will seem for all intents and purposes completely dead, but then at the top there will be beautiful and fruitful branches.
I hiked from San Damiano up to the town itself and went along the street to the Bascillica of Santa Chiara, where her body was buried. I went inside a bar outside the church because I was dying for some coffee and water, and then I went into the church and saw the relics of St. Clare and St. Francis, which are kept in the same place because they were very close friends, or according to some even kind of married. I think it’s incredibly romantic to think that they would have been in love and I don’t think that would get in the way of them being saints and holy. They were just people like anyone else, and I’d hope that they found a soulmate just like I hope that for anyone else.
After that, I climbed the town to the top of the mountain, where the castle of the town is (the Rocca Maggiore). There I could see the whole valley and Perugia in the distance, even though it was pretty hazy and hard to see. In the course of the day I would do about 7 miles on foot, with over a thousand feet of elevation change. It was humid and hot and I was tired from hiking, but I went back down and walked along the streets of the town trying to find a specific store.
When I was here last time, the very first time that I ever traveled alone, I went into a store to look at the ceramics. The woman was really nice to me and so excited that I could understand Italian (even though my responses were completely terrible), that she talked to me for ten minutes and gave me a postcard to give to my mother with sunflowers on it. I brought the crucifix that I bought there to my mom and she keeps the postcard on the fridge in our kitchen.
This time I went into her store, and she recognized me! We talked for a while about the ceramics and I bought a little box made by hand. My Italian is much better this time, and she told me about her husband who works as a police officer in Perugia’s drug unit. Apparently last summer, a big dog in the city bit two of his fingers off on his left hand! “Oh, god!” I said, “That’s terrible!” But she said, “No, it’s fine, I mean it could’ve been worse.” She was very cheerful about the whole thing and gave me another sunflowers postcard to take to my mother. “A la prossima volta!” she said and shook my hand as a left (“Until next time!”).
After that I walked down to the Bascillica of St. Francis, which I think is one of the most beautiful churches in the world. I sat down for about an hour and painted a picture of the façade, while a barefooted Franscican in a hair shirt wandered around next to me preaching and collecting money for a mission in the United States. There were so many Americans every that I was getting annoyed with, because they were loud and disrespectful and obnoxiously American (by that I mean expecting everyone to speak English and everything to be exactly like home). They were mostly high schoolers and parents on Spring Break. Ugh.
Apparently I don’t look like one of those Americans anymore. Italians can tell I’m not from here, but until I open my mouth they usually think I’m German. And as I was sitting there I had several annoying touristy Americans come up to me and say very slowly and like I was stupid or something, “Wow…that is very pretty. Do…you…speak…English?” And each time I took off my sunglasses and said, “Yeah, I’m American actually.” Mildly frustrating.
I finished my painting and I had to pee really really badly. Unfortunately for me, although not unusually for Italy, the public restrooms were locked. Damn! This meant that I had to walk down to a pizzeria and ask for a slice, eat it as quickly as possible (actually I didn’t even sit down, I just took the pizza and ate it right in front of the cashier to the affronted looks of the owners) and then ask, “Ok, can I use your bathroom now?” and run in there. All of this because it’s rude to use the restroom without buying something first. When I came out of the restroom, barefoot preaching dude was there! He apparently did the same thing I did.
I then went into the church itself and visited St. Francis’ tomb again. I had picked some flowers on my walk up the mountain, and I put them through the grate and onto the rocks of his tomb. The entire church is covered in frescos by the main artists of the time (meaning right after St. Francis’ death). Giotto, the same guy who painted the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova, did most of the church with the help of his assisitants. The colors are still bright and beautiful, 700 years on. There is also beautiful marblework all over the church, but interestingly, there are stars of David everywhere! All over the church! I’m not sure why, but it was cool.
In the top part of the church, there are more Giotto frescos, which are among the most famous in the world. The one recognized the most is the one with St. Francis preaching to the birds about how awesome God is. And there were three groups, lead by friars, wandering around the church and talking about the paintings. One was in English, one in Italian, and one in French. I wandered between the groups that were being conducted in my three languages…just listening and being grateful I could understand everything. I really liked hearing French, so I stopped and hung out with that group for a couple of minutes. Seeing as I clearly don’t look French, the people in the group kept looking at me like, “Um, what the hell are you doing?” but I was just happy to still be able to understand it.
At this point, I realized that I had caught the cold that is going around our group. My sinuses were pounding and I had a fever, so wandering around in the cold church was aggravating my condition. I walked around asking every friar I could find if they knew where a pharmacy was to buy medicine, but many of them had not left the monastery attached to the church for years and so I had to ask at the information desk. They pointed me back to the main piazza, which was unfortunately about a kilometer away uphill. I resigned myself to walking it, and started off.
When I reached the pharmacy, it was closed! I was so tired and sick feeling that I just went over to the Temple of Minerva, which is a Roman Temple converted now into a church but with the same ancient façade, and sat in the sun trying to figure out what I was going to do for two hours while I waited for the pharmacy to open. I opened my backpack to get my phone and realized not only had I left it at home, but that my paints had exploded inside a bit and paint water was getting on everything.
Ok, no big deal, right? I mean what can you do when these things happen? I needed a plastic bag and fast, though. So I went into the first store I saw, and immediately picked up the cheapest bottle of wine in there. “You want this one?” the lady asked incredulously when I set it on the counter. “Yep! Is it good?” “Um, yeah, sure, whatever you like, “ she answered. But I got my plastic bag and could fix my stupid backpack, so I was happy.
As I left the store, I heard next to me, “Hello, are you American too?” There were three girls sitting on some steps and so I answered them. As usual, I was having trouble transitioning from Italian to English, but they were nice and asked me if I was traveling alone. “That’s really cool,” they said when I answered yes. They were on a day trip from Siena, where they were studying. We commiserated about the study abroad experience and how hard the language can be, and then one of the girls gave me her email and told me to let them know if I was going to be in the Siena area.
After all of that, I still had an hour until I could buy medicine, so I went to the piazza in front of St. Clare’s Bascillica and laid down on a bench in the sun with my backpack tucked under my legs. This is a HUGE faux pas in Italy, because the only people who lay down in public are homeless and it is contrary to the “Bella Figura” (cross between good manners, good appearance, and education). But I didn’t care. My face hurt and I was tired.
Finally after an hour, I went into the pharmacy and asked them to help me because I had a tremendous cold. The ladies were really nice and basically pulled out every type of cold medicine possible and asking me if I was allergic to anything and where it hurt and how old I was, etc etc. They decided on two things, a nasal spray and a decongestant. Pointing to the box of decongestant--“Attenzione, ok?” dise la donna farmacista, “Qui dentro c’e’ ‘sleepy,’ ok?” (“Watch out, ok? The pharmacist lady said, “There’s ‘sleepy’ in here”). The sleepy was in English, and her son started laughing because it was funny to say sleepy when you meant drowsiness. The medicines cost 17 euro, and I was shocked, but I wasn’t about to turn them down.
Outside the pharmacy, I opened the nasal spray and went into an alley to put it in because I was desperate to have some relief. I put the nozzle in my nose and sprayed it, and swore out loud. It burned so badly! And it felt like I had sprayed Vick’s Vapor rub right up my nostril. And then I had to do the other one. I don’t even want to know what the passing Italians thought of me, but after ten minutes of sheer pain my sinuses did start to feel better.
At this point the sun was getting low, and so I walked down to the square where the buses leave from. A bus came and I was so exhausted that I just got on the bus and rode it all around the town, up to where I had climbed in the morning and to the very town of the town. On our way back down, we made a sudden stop and I thought we were going to hit a tree head on. It turned out we were stopping to pick up a couple, and I heard the man who was wearing shorts and a fanny pack and looked like Grandpa with his glasses speaking to the bus driver in English. Surely only an American would do that, I thought, and I got up and went to sit near them and started talking to them, which I would like to point out is something that I would never do at home…just walk up to strangers and start talking to them.
I asked them where they were from, and discovered I had completely misjudged their accents. They were Irish! And now I was really in trouble because I was having a hard enough time understanding American English. They were visiting Assisi from Dublin because their son was studying in Rome. We talked about how awesome it was to study abroad and about my family and how I’m Irish too. We got to the station down the hill from town and they had to leave.
The woman, who was wearing a leopard-print scarf wrapped around her shoulders grabbed my arm and hand and said, “Good luck with everything and God Bless you. Here’s a prayer for you.” She handed me a prayer card for St. Francis, with the most famous fransican prayer on it, the “Make me an instrument of your peace” one. I’ve always liked how much the Irish love to bless people.
I got home and the couple welcomed me back. “Sei stanca? Vuoi un po’ di caffe’ o un the?” (“Are you tired? Would you like some coffee or tea?”) The woman proceeded to make me a cup of tea with lemon and sugar, and to feed me a bunch of sweets until I couldn’t eat anymore. We talked about the day and about what I do in the States, and about my family. The husband was working on hanging up things in the kitchen, and he kept asking me where to hang the new tapestries. They were so nice to include me in their lives.
Then they hustled me up to bed and I called Michael and my family. I spent the night laying down and trying to rest, and took another fantastic standing-up shower. I noticed in the mirror that I look very skinny, maybe even as skinny as I was my freshman year. I’ve lost a lot of weight in my face especially. I decided to make something for the couple to leave at their house, because they had been so kind. I painted a picture of St. Francis and wrote on the back:
“Grazie per tutto! Riccordero’ sempre il mio tempo passato qui, e raccomandero’ il Bed and Breakfast San Francesco in Assisi ad ogni dei miei che verra’ nel futuro.Baci ed amore sempre- Coleen Monroe”
“Thanks for everything! I will always remember my time spent here, and I will recommend the San Francesco in Assisi Bed and Breakfast to any of mine who will come here in the future.
Kisses and love always-Coleen Monroe”
I woke up in the morning and went to have breakfast. When I paid for my stay, the couple gave me a bunch of gifts (magnets, keychains, a pen) and I said that I had made something for their house. I gave them the painting and they said, “Wow, not only and anthropologist but also an artist!” And the husband gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek as a left. His wife took me to the train station in their car and said, “Well, bye! Good wishes on everything and live well!”
I went into the station and sat on a bench to write this blog. Just as my train was arriving, all the bells in the city began to ring joyfully and loudly, like Assisi was saying goodbye to me. I climbed onto the train with tears in my eyes because I just wanted to stay there forever, and I watched as the city faded into the hills. I blew kisses at Assisi and watched the countryside roll by on my way back to Ferrara.
I have a new goal in life. I want to retire after whatever I end up doing after college, go somewhere pretty, and own and operate a Bed and Breakfast so that I can repay the kindness of the couple who took me right in.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Making all kinds of Progress
I love Ferrara when the streetlights are shining off the rainy pavement of Via Mazzini. It reminds me of when I first arrived here, when it was the middle of winter and there was fog everywhere. Ferrara is a city that has dynamism I have rarely seen in my life, and by that I meant that the character of the city changes dramatically depending on the weather and even depending on the time of day. When it is rainy or foggy, the buildings seem closer together and gray, not exactly claustrophobic but more cozy. When the sun is out, the colors of the buildings change and become bright and gorgeous, and the tower of the cathedrale is lit up against the blue sky.
Today it is raining, hard. I can hear it hitting the windows. These are the days that I will not want to leave when I have to go home.
It is hard sometimes to appreciate just how much I have done and learned since I have been in Ferrara, because everything has become everyday and normal and I am beginning to forget how it feels to be at home in Colorado. I think I may be “going native” a little bit, because I can understand everything, I feel at home, and I don’t feel like I am in a foreign country anymore.
But when I think about it, a lot has changed since I’ve been gone. At this point, I’ve been gone from Colorado for 51 days. In that very short time, I’ve become conversational in a language that I didn’t speak at all when I arrived. I even am taking two college-level classes in that language, and I am not failing! In fact, I’m getting good grades!
I’ve learned to ride a bike through crowds without hitting old women, small children, dogs in sweaters, or baby strollers, and at the same time to avoid being hit by cars and giant trucks that really have no business flying along down a pedestrian mall. I can stop my bike on a dime, despite it not having front brakes, and I can cover two miles to class in eight minutes if I really haul.
I’ve gotten funnier since I’ve been here. I think this is because I have stopped caring what people think, be they American or Italian, because everyone either judges you constantly regardless of what you do, or people just don’t care about things like you think they do. Also, I’ve stopped worrying about making mistakes in Italian because I know every time I open my mouth it will be a mistake. So if I make a joke and it bombs, who cares? At least I said something that I thought was funny.
Today, I spent four hours writing about seven pages worth of exams in Italian, on complex concepts like the First World War, fascism, historical psychology, and mathematical perspective in Renaissance art. I had to stop for a second halfway through the second and ask myself, “WHAT? I AM WRITING IN A LANGUAGE I HAVE ONLY KNOWN FOR A MONTH!!!” but then I had to keep writing or I wouldn’t be finished in time.
I weighed myself today and I’ve lost almost 15 pounds since I’ve been here. My clothes don’t fit and are all too big (partly because they don’t get shrunken in the wash…no dryers) and my legs are strong and hard from riding my bike everywhere.
I’ve learned to do my hair without a hairdryer. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a hairdryer, and so I have not dried my hair even once since I’ve lived in Ferrara. I’ve learned a completely different way of showering (standing in the bathtub with a moveable sprayer and not under the water).
I can now understand even the really fast talking on TV about racism and crazy things.
I am really happy! This is an experience that luckily, I have forever in my memory.
Today it is raining, hard. I can hear it hitting the windows. These are the days that I will not want to leave when I have to go home.
It is hard sometimes to appreciate just how much I have done and learned since I have been in Ferrara, because everything has become everyday and normal and I am beginning to forget how it feels to be at home in Colorado. I think I may be “going native” a little bit, because I can understand everything, I feel at home, and I don’t feel like I am in a foreign country anymore.
But when I think about it, a lot has changed since I’ve been gone. At this point, I’ve been gone from Colorado for 51 days. In that very short time, I’ve become conversational in a language that I didn’t speak at all when I arrived. I even am taking two college-level classes in that language, and I am not failing! In fact, I’m getting good grades!
I’ve learned to ride a bike through crowds without hitting old women, small children, dogs in sweaters, or baby strollers, and at the same time to avoid being hit by cars and giant trucks that really have no business flying along down a pedestrian mall. I can stop my bike on a dime, despite it not having front brakes, and I can cover two miles to class in eight minutes if I really haul.
I’ve gotten funnier since I’ve been here. I think this is because I have stopped caring what people think, be they American or Italian, because everyone either judges you constantly regardless of what you do, or people just don’t care about things like you think they do. Also, I’ve stopped worrying about making mistakes in Italian because I know every time I open my mouth it will be a mistake. So if I make a joke and it bombs, who cares? At least I said something that I thought was funny.
Today, I spent four hours writing about seven pages worth of exams in Italian, on complex concepts like the First World War, fascism, historical psychology, and mathematical perspective in Renaissance art. I had to stop for a second halfway through the second and ask myself, “WHAT? I AM WRITING IN A LANGUAGE I HAVE ONLY KNOWN FOR A MONTH!!!” but then I had to keep writing or I wouldn’t be finished in time.
I weighed myself today and I’ve lost almost 15 pounds since I’ve been here. My clothes don’t fit and are all too big (partly because they don’t get shrunken in the wash…no dryers) and my legs are strong and hard from riding my bike everywhere.
I’ve learned to do my hair without a hairdryer. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a hairdryer, and so I have not dried my hair even once since I’ve lived in Ferrara. I’ve learned a completely different way of showering (standing in the bathtub with a moveable sprayer and not under the water).
I can now understand even the really fast talking on TV about racism and crazy things.
I am really happy! This is an experience that luckily, I have forever in my memory.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Left, Left, Right, Left, Oops That's a Canal...
Venice is a mildly panic-inducing place. It’s not too hard to get completely and totally lost in a matter of a few steps, and given that the city was put together without a plan and without accounting for carriages or cars (because why would you need those when you have a boat?) there are streets that are literally only wide enough for two people to pass next to each other in opposing directions. And those that only one person can fit through at any given time.
The whole city is paved in the usual Italian gray slate sidewalk that looks like tiles on a floor, the buildings are close together so you can’t see any towers or structures to help you know where you are, and the signs leading or from the main sights seem to be leading you ‘round and ‘round in circles.
Left, right, right, right, cross the square, wait, where’s the sign? Left, right, around the random medieval church, right, left, oops that’s a canal, back, right? Where are the signs? Back, canal again. Map. Are there street signs here? Nope. Back, right, left, guy trying to get you to eat dinner in his restaurant who won’t leave you alone, left, right, wow this is a tiny street, scusi, scusi, ok, right…pause…A SIGN! Left right, bridge, straight, bridge, right, left, cross square…AH HA train station! But the canal is in the way!
That’s how it feels to try to navigate Venice. We were only doing it with three people, and it was stressful. I can’t even imagine trying to do it with a big group or with a family. Be forewarned, therefore, don’t go to Venice unless you are prepared to get lost and end up in some pretty shady alleyways and/or have everyone gets really tired and frustrated on the way back to the station.
That said, the city is very beautiful. The buildings are striking and the Grand Canal in particular makes it feel very lovely and old. I could not stop thinking that A) I wanted a long flowing gown to swish around the city streets in and B) every depiction of the Black Death I had ever seen was probably drawn in Venezia. There is an air of absolute desertedness in most of the city, and that is surreal and creepy beyond belief, especially given that you seem to walk miles in twists and turns without seeing anyone.
Sometimes you’ll hear a song from the 1950s playing on an old radio from somewhere that you can’t see as you cross a deserted square with a Medieval well in the middle of it. Since everyone is lost, you’ll run into the same people (often at the same places) over and over, adding to the feeling of surreality. And then, after about an hour of walking and crossing canals and being confused…POOF there is Piazza San Marco and tons of people milling arou
nd in masks.
The piazza was decorated really prettily, with Christmas lights everywhere and a big stage in the very center in a fake kind of “Garden of the Senses” made especially for Carnevale. We had all bought masks to wear and the light glinted off of the glitter of every person’s mask making the whole crowd twinkle in the fading daylight.
So many languages were being spoken that it was impossible to predict where someone might be from until they began to speak. American English, British English, Japanese, Italian with various regional accents, German, French, Arabic, Russian, North African variants of French/local languages, Romanian…it was an experience to behold.
There was a troupe of actors putting on a very old style show in the area of the square closer to the water, with just a sheet over some twine for a backdrop and with masks for everyone. They seemed to be straight out of the Middle Ages, when groups of actors would travel around the countryside and entertain people. The show was a mixture of a bunch of different Shakespeare plays, all in Italian! The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice (of course), and of course lots of cross-dressing women and people falling in love. At the end, everyone died melodramatically, and then Shakespeare revealed himself and raised everyone from the dead with the magic of the written word. It was fun!
Many people with enough money to do it go ALL OUT for Carnevale in Venice. They dress in regal costumes from the Golden Age of the city, or from other great courts in Europe in the past (for instance I definitely saw a King Henry the VII). They are usually in couples, with masks and rich outfits, parading around the square and posing for pictures with tourists. They also all go out to dinner in the fancy restaurants around the edges of the square, which have huge plate glass windows, so everyone gathers around and takes their pictures while the dine.
The people who go all out are likely members of the modern aristocracy, so it is part fantasy and part reality that they put on looks that say, “Why yes, my darling peasant, you may take a photo of my resplendent outfit and escort” when people try to take pictures of them. I was slightly uncomfortable, since that is one of the only times that it is acceptable for the modern day nobility of the Rich to look down on those below them so obviously, even if it was supposed to be in good fun.
As for me, I wore a blue and glittery mask with a big glittery bow from the 99-cent store in my hair, and I sprayed golden glitter onto my head. Laura and Carol, the two girls I was with, both got masks that matched their outfits, and we all looked pretty fantastic if you ask me.
As the night drew on we were standing in the crowd, and I was looking around the square until I felt someone staring at me. It was two women who were trying to take a photo of my profile in my mask with the tower and the square behind me. I tried to duck and said, “Oh excuse me!” but they told me to keep looking up so they could take a picture. They took it and then just walked off, making me feel odd that someone in the world has a picture of me they took on purpose. I took one from the same angle so I could see what it looked like.
After the awkward picture moment, a grand beauty pagent began in the square! It was a beautiful show, with lovely ladies in fanciful outfits and beautiful dancing and singing routines. Everyone in the square was watching, and admiring the beautiful women. Except that they were all drag queens! They were exceptional! Every one had a different look, and they all did a beautiful walk on the catwalk in the spotlight. The hostess of the whole event was THE drag queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I of England!
While we were standing and watching, a lovely lady dressed in a stunning Carnevale costume walked up next to me. She had a wig and a mask, but so did all of the other women in costume in the square. Everyone clamored to take her picture, and then she seemed to grow bored and walked away from the stage. Two minutes later, she was on the catwalk and strutting her stuff! I had no idea that Madame X was a drag queen, and I had been standing right next to her!
I’m not sure who won the pageant, but it was a thing to behold! The fact that this could go on in a country where it is still very difficult to be of a different sexual persuasion was wonderful. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and no one made fun of the ladies onstage because they were striking and talented, and frankly put my everyday boring femininity to shame.
After that, we wandered back through the dark and deserted streets to the train station. We got onto the first train leaving to the next station on the tracks, where our train home was leaving from, with some German/Austrian guys standing in the same little compartment. They were funny, especially when the train made a random stop to wait for another one to pass and they stuck their heads out the door, saying in English, “Where are we…?”
Then we took the long and crowded train ride back to Ferrara, ending up at home at 2:00 AM on the dot. It was a wonderful adventure.
The whole city is paved in the usual Italian gray slate sidewalk that looks like tiles on a floor, the buildings are close together so you can’t see any towers or structures to help you know where you are, and the signs leading or from the main sights seem to be leading you ‘round and ‘round in circles.
Left, right, right, right, cross the square, wait, where’s the sign? Left, right, around the random medieval church, right, left, oops that’s a canal, back, right? Where are the signs? Back, canal again. Map. Are there street signs here? Nope. Back, right, left, guy trying to get you to eat dinner in his restaurant who won’t leave you alone, left, right, wow this is a tiny street, scusi, scusi, ok, right…pause…A SIGN! Left right, bridge, straight, bridge, right, left, cross square…AH HA train station! But the canal is in the way!That’s how it feels to try to navigate Venice. We were only doing it with three people, and it was stressful. I can’t even imagine trying to do it with a big group or with a family. Be forewarned, therefore, don’t go to Venice unless you are prepared to get lost and end up in some pretty shady alleyways and/or have everyone gets really tired and frustrated on the way back to the station.
That said, the city is very beautiful. The buildings are striking and the Grand Canal in particular makes it feel very lovely and old. I could not stop thinking that A) I wanted a long flowing gown to swish around the city streets in and B) every depiction of the Black Death I had ever seen was probably drawn in Venezia. There is an air of absolute desertedness in most of the city, and that is surreal and creepy beyond belief, especially given that you seem to walk miles in twists and turns without seeing anyone.
Sometimes you’ll hear a song from the 1950s playing on an old radio from somewhere that you can’t see as you cross a deserted square with a Medieval well in the middle of it. Since everyone is lost, you’ll run into the same people (often at the same places) over and over, adding to the feeling of surreality. And then, after about an hour of walking and crossing canals and being confused…POOF there is Piazza San Marco and tons of people milling arou
nd in masks.The piazza was decorated really prettily, with Christmas lights everywhere and a big stage in the very center in a fake kind of “Garden of the Senses” made especially for Carnevale. We had all bought masks to wear and the light glinted off of the glitter of every person’s mask making the whole crowd twinkle in the fading daylight.
So many languages were being spoken that it was impossible to predict where someone might be from until they began to speak. American English, British English, Japanese, Italian with various regional accents, German, French, Arabic, Russian, North African variants of French/local languages, Romanian…it was an experience to behold.
There was a troupe of actors putting on a very old style show in the area of the square closer to the water, with just a sheet over some twine for a backdrop and with masks for everyone. They seemed to be straight out of the Middle Ages, when groups of actors would travel around the countryside and entertain people. The show was a mixture of a bunch of different Shakespeare plays, all in Italian! The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice (of course), and of course lots of cross-dressing women and people falling in love. At the end, everyone died melodramatically, and then Shakespeare revealed himself and raised everyone from the dead with the magic of the written word. It was fun!
Many people with enough money to do it go ALL OUT for Carnevale in Venice. They dress in regal costumes from the Golden Age of the city, or from other great courts in Europe in the past (for instance I definitely saw a King Henry the VII). They are usually in couples, with masks and rich outfits, parading around the square and posing for pictures with tourists. They also all go out to dinner in the fancy restaurants around the edges of the square, which have huge plate glass windows, so everyone gathers around and takes their pictures while the dine.
The people who go all out are likely members of the modern aristocracy, so it is part fantasy and part reality that they put on looks that say, “Why yes, my darling peasant, you may take a photo of my resplendent outfit and escort” when people try to take pictures of them. I was slightly uncomfortable, since that is one of the only times that it is acceptable for the modern day nobility of the Rich to look down on those below them so obviously, even if it was supposed to be in good fun.
As for me, I wore a blue and glittery mask with a big glittery bow from the 99-cent store in my hair, and I sprayed golden glitter onto my head. Laura and Carol, the two girls I was with, both got masks that matched their outfits, and we all looked pretty fantastic if you ask me.
As the night drew on we were standing in the crowd, and I was looking around the square until I felt someone staring at me. It was two women who were trying to take a photo of my profile in my mask with the tower and the square behind me. I tried to duck and said, “Oh excuse me!” but they told me to keep looking up so they could take a picture. They took it and then just walked off, making me feel odd that someone in the world has a picture of me they took on purpose. I took one from the same angle so I could see what it looked like.
After the awkward picture moment, a grand beauty pagent began in the square! It was a beautiful show, with lovely ladies in fanciful outfits and beautiful dancing and singing routines. Everyone in the square was watching, and admiring the beautiful women. Except that they were all drag queens! They were exceptional! Every one had a different look, and they all did a beautiful walk on the catwalk in the spotlight. The hostess of the whole event was THE drag queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I of England!
While we were standing and watching, a lovely lady dressed in a stunning Carnevale costume walked up next to me. She had a wig and a mask, but so did all of the other women in costume in the square. Everyone clamored to take her picture, and then she seemed to grow bored and walked away from the stage. Two minutes later, she was on the catwalk and strutting her stuff! I had no idea that Madame X was a drag queen, and I had been standing right next to her!
I’m not sure who won the pageant, but it was a thing to behold! The fact that this could go on in a country where it is still very difficult to be of a different sexual persuasion was wonderful. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and no one made fun of the ladies onstage because they were striking and talented, and frankly put my everyday boring femininity to shame.
After that, we wandered back through the dark and deserted streets to the train station. We got onto the first train leaving to the next station on the tracks, where our train home was leaving from, with some German/Austrian guys standing in the same little compartment. They were funny, especially when the train made a random stop to wait for another one to pass and they stuck their heads out the door, saying in English, “Where are we…?”
Then we took the long and crowded train ride back to Ferrara, ending up at home at 2:00 AM on the dot. It was a wonderful adventure.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Leo=Cutest dog in the world
Last night we all went to dinner with our families and with the students from Darsena. It was really fun, and Carmen was hilarious because she dressed all up in a sexy outfit and put on pretty makeup and did her hair nicely. She looked awesome, in fact I felt really underdressed despite wearing pearls and a nice shirt.
When we got home, the cutest thing I have ever seen happened because of Leo. He was barking at the door when we got back and as soon as it was open, he bolted out into the street wagging the second half of his entire body. He couldn’t have been happy to see Carmen and he ran around in circles barking and wagging his tail like he hadn’t seen her in years!
We went inside and he was still super excited, but then he began to bark at Carmen’s feet and seemed to be attacking her shoe. “Ok, ok, hang on a second…” she said, and she took off her right shoe. Immediately Leo picked it up in his mouth and ran off with it. “See,” Carmen said, “When he has the shoe he knows that mamma can’t leave again!”
Leo kept running around with the shoe in his mouth and Carmen couldn’t get him to give it back. He is a smart dog if he figured out that stealing her shoes means she can’t leave all by himself!
When we got home, the cutest thing I have ever seen happened because of Leo. He was barking at the door when we got back and as soon as it was open, he bolted out into the street wagging the second half of his entire body. He couldn’t have been happy to see Carmen and he ran around in circles barking and wagging his tail like he hadn’t seen her in years!
We went inside and he was still super excited, but then he began to bark at Carmen’s feet and seemed to be attacking her shoe. “Ok, ok, hang on a second…” she said, and she took off her right shoe. Immediately Leo picked it up in his mouth and ran off with it. “See,” Carmen said, “When he has the shoe he knows that mamma can’t leave again!”
Leo kept running around with the shoe in his mouth and Carmen couldn’t get him to give it back. He is a smart dog if he figured out that stealing her shoes means she can’t leave all by himself!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Florence in less than Five hours
Today was an awesome day! I went alone to Florence on the train this morning at 11 AM and I went to the same train station that I went to when I came to Florence two years ago. I recognized the station and walked out along the street in the direction of the Duomo. It was an absolutely beautiful day, chilly but bright with sunshine, and I walked along in the pretty atmosphere.
I had planned on just going to the Uffizi Gallery and then leaving, but the museum took much less time than I had thought it would. I was in awe of all of the works of art, that I had seen in books and posters and talked about in tons of classes, right there in front of me, just behind the glass. I could walk up and basically put my face onto the paintings by Carevaggio, Michaelangelo, and Giotto, some of the greatest painters that the world has ever known. I saw the Venus of Urbino and the Holy Family (by Michaelangelo).
The Holy Family by Michaelangelo
Venus of Urbino
It was incredible to be so close to the great works of art, and there were also original statues from Roman times, of Julius Cesar and Augustus and Cicero. It was crazy to have them staring back at me!! I liked walking around by myself and moving however I wanted to, and not having to wait for anyone or anything.
After the Uffizi, I went for a walk in the sunshine on Ponte Vecchio. It was way more beautiful than I thought it would have been. The Arno river is a really cool color of greenish-white-blue, which I think is from is absorbing minerals in the mountains. I walked along the river to Santa Croce, which is the church where Michaelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are buried! What a day of being close to history’s giants!
After the church, I walked back to the main square and from there to one of the markets in the city that I had passed earlier. I bought myself a pretty necklace and then I found the most perfect Venetian Carnevale mask ever. It is beautiful and blue and sparkly, with jingle bells.
After that, I still had an hour and a half until the train left for Ferrara, so I just went on a walk though the city and wandered into and out of the many very very fashionable stores all around the city center. I went and got a caffe and a bottle of San Pellegrino at a café right next to the Duomo. Then I went back to the station and got onto my train to Ferrara, and was back in time for dinner.
An interesting phenomenon began today. As I was walking around in Firenze, four separate times someone walked up to me and asked me for directions in Italian! I think I must have looked like I knew where I was going, and I must have dressed appropriately for the city because people mistook me for a citizen. I’m not sure what that means in practice, since I tend to think that I look very not-Italian. Either way, it was really exciting to have Italians asking me for help!
Another interesting thing that I noticed today was that I was not singled out as an American by the multitudes of foreign tourists in the city. It was actually kind of off-putting to hear English spoken in such thick American accents…I purposely said very little so that I wouldn’t be identified as one of them. It was very weird to feel like I was a foreigner to people of my our nationality, and made me feel slightly like I am floating around through space without a country or a home. Then again as soon as I got back to Ferrara I felt at home.
Over the last week I’ve seen some really interesting things about Italian culture. This country lives in a constant and open state of contradiction and juxtaposition, and I appreciate and hate it in the exact same moment.
-On Friday, I saw one of the most pregnant women I have ever seen in my life load her one year old son into a bike seat and take off across the cobblestones on her bici. I am terrified of riding on main streets here sometimes (though I am slowly losing my fear of cars and getting more confident on my bike, which by the way literally has no brakes anymore because they broke off in my hand yesterday morning. I use my right foot to stop. Have you ever seen a “hot foot” in a cartoon where someone is dragging their feet along the ground? Yeah, that actually happens.)
-About two hours after Fearless Pregnant Woman, I saw a grown man walking arm in arm with his girlfriend and wearing UGG BOOTS tucked with his jeans tucked into them. They were exactly like the ones girls wear in the States, and they matched his fur-lined jacket. This is why Gay-Dar (Gay Radar) does not work in Italy.
-On the sides of the highways there are pit stops with trashcans. These are empty, and the trash is all around them, not in them. Italy isn’t exactly a “green” country yet.
-There are a million stores in Ferrara that would never make it in the States. For example, a specialty lightbulb store.
-Italy drinks more bottled water per capita than any nation in the world, and yet they do not recycle plastic. Bottles are everywhere!!
I like that Italy is a constant, open contradiction. Thank you for all the letters everyone!! I an happy to have you all!
I had planned on just going to the Uffizi Gallery and then leaving, but the museum took much less time than I had thought it would. I was in awe of all of the works of art, that I had seen in books and posters and talked about in tons of classes, right there in front of me, just behind the glass. I could walk up and basically put my face onto the paintings by Carevaggio, Michaelangelo, and Giotto, some of the greatest painters that the world has ever known. I saw the Venus of Urbino and the Holy Family (by Michaelangelo).
The Holy Family by Michaelangelo
Venus of UrbinoIt was incredible to be so close to the great works of art, and there were also original statues from Roman times, of Julius Cesar and Augustus and Cicero. It was crazy to have them staring back at me!! I liked walking around by myself and moving however I wanted to, and not having to wait for anyone or anything.
After the Uffizi, I went for a walk in the sunshine on Ponte Vecchio. It was way more beautiful than I thought it would have been. The Arno river is a really cool color of greenish-white-blue, which I think is from is absorbing minerals in the mountains. I walked along the river to Santa Croce, which is the church where Michaelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are buried! What a day of being close to history’s giants!
After the church, I walked back to the main square and from there to one of the markets in the city that I had passed earlier. I bought myself a pretty necklace and then I found the most perfect Venetian Carnevale mask ever. It is beautiful and blue and sparkly, with jingle bells.
After that, I still had an hour and a half until the train left for Ferrara, so I just went on a walk though the city and wandered into and out of the many very very fashionable stores all around the city center. I went and got a caffe and a bottle of San Pellegrino at a café right next to the Duomo. Then I went back to the station and got onto my train to Ferrara, and was back in time for dinner.
An interesting phenomenon began today. As I was walking around in Firenze, four separate times someone walked up to me and asked me for directions in Italian! I think I must have looked like I knew where I was going, and I must have dressed appropriately for the city because people mistook me for a citizen. I’m not sure what that means in practice, since I tend to think that I look very not-Italian. Either way, it was really exciting to have Italians asking me for help!
Another interesting thing that I noticed today was that I was not singled out as an American by the multitudes of foreign tourists in the city. It was actually kind of off-putting to hear English spoken in such thick American accents…I purposely said very little so that I wouldn’t be identified as one of them. It was very weird to feel like I was a foreigner to people of my our nationality, and made me feel slightly like I am floating around through space without a country or a home. Then again as soon as I got back to Ferrara I felt at home.
Over the last week I’ve seen some really interesting things about Italian culture. This country lives in a constant and open state of contradiction and juxtaposition, and I appreciate and hate it in the exact same moment.
-On Friday, I saw one of the most pregnant women I have ever seen in my life load her one year old son into a bike seat and take off across the cobblestones on her bici. I am terrified of riding on main streets here sometimes (though I am slowly losing my fear of cars and getting more confident on my bike, which by the way literally has no brakes anymore because they broke off in my hand yesterday morning. I use my right foot to stop. Have you ever seen a “hot foot” in a cartoon where someone is dragging their feet along the ground? Yeah, that actually happens.)
-About two hours after Fearless Pregnant Woman, I saw a grown man walking arm in arm with his girlfriend and wearing UGG BOOTS tucked with his jeans tucked into them. They were exactly like the ones girls wear in the States, and they matched his fur-lined jacket. This is why Gay-Dar (Gay Radar) does not work in Italy.
-On the sides of the highways there are pit stops with trashcans. These are empty, and the trash is all around them, not in them. Italy isn’t exactly a “green” country yet.
-There are a million stores in Ferrara that would never make it in the States. For example, a specialty lightbulb store.
-Italy drinks more bottled water per capita than any nation in the world, and yet they do not recycle plastic. Bottles are everywhere!!
I like that Italy is a constant, open contradiction. Thank you for all the letters everyone!! I an happy to have you all!
Monday, February 9, 2009
Tongues, Chapels, and SPAL
Yesterday I went to my first sporting event ever outside the USA. It was a game of the Ferrara soccer team, SPAL, against Ravenna. SPAL is ranked pretty highly in our league and beat Ravenna 3-1 last time they played before yesterday. As we were walking in, Riccardo (our CIEE housing director who also is a rabid SPAL fan) bought us all blue and white SPAL soccer scarves so that we would have the right colors on.
We had to bring our passports to confirm our identities as we went into the stadium. They checked our purses and patted us down, and then we were free to go into tour section. The rowdy fans (among whom we put ourselves) are put into a locked kind of cage, complete with a chain link fence with razor-sharp triangles on top of it and a net to prevent fans from chucking things onto the field. They had also blocked off a huge section of the stadium seats to make the opposing fans at least a hundred yards away. All of this to keep us from starting a riot! Also the opposing fans do not have a cover over their heads and so have to stand in the rain.
This is the rowdy-fan cage. There weren't this many people there but this is what it looks like!
As we were walking in, the girls began to realize that we were at about a 50 to one ratio with all the men everywhere, and I joked that I should’ve put a bag over my head to prevent everyone from staring at the blondeness. We went into the bleachers and stayed standing up, because of course, true fans don’t sit to watch their team.
Because two SPAL fans were arrested in another city last weekend for fighting with the fans of the opposite team, there was a 15-minute cheering/singing “strike” during which no one was allowed to cheer or sing the team songs to show the authorities that we were supporting the guys who got put in jail.
After the cheering strike, three guys started leading the crowd in cheers and songs. They were hilarious!! And really vulgar. I will put some of them below, but I’m not going to translate them just in case someone doesn’t want to know. You can all go to google translate and find out for yourselves or ask me in an email! Keep in mind these are just the ones I remember…
“Forza SPAL! Forza SPAL!”
“Ravenna, Ravenna, vaffanculo! Ravenna, Ravenna, vaffanculo!”
“Alle, alle, Ferrara, alle alle!”
“Tu sei la merda…quando ti penso, voglio cacare…”
And then when we were down three goals to none:
“Che sara, sara…”
It was really fun even though they ended up losing terribly in a shut out. Afterwards there was the only traffic jam I have yet seen in Ferrara, with everyone trying to get home. Today, on Tuesday, Riccardo sent us all an email that goes like this:
" La presente per ringraziarVi di cuore a titolo personale ed a nome della Curva Ovest Ferrara con la viva Speranza che la sconfitta di ieri non sia un deterrente al Vostro avvicinamento al cuore pulsante della città......Grazie Ragazzi !! Sempre FORZA SPAL !!
I would like to thank you personally, and on behalf of the CURVA OVEST , for coming to support SPAL. I hope that the defeat will not act as a deterrent for your involment with the beating heart of the town.... Thank you guys!!
On Saturday we went to Padova (Padua), and we had a tour of the city. We went inside the Bascillica di San Antonio, and saw his tomb and all the letters people from all over the world had written to him. I have never seen so many letters to a saint, or so many candles and offerings to one. We walked through the church and arrived in the reliquary room, where they have an absolutely huge golden case that holds Saint Antonio’s jaw, and his tongue and vocal cords.
This is San Antonio's Jawbone!
Because Saint Antonio was a preacher, he spoke the Gospels to many people. The Church exhumed his body a few years after his death, they found his tongue and vocal cords were incorrupt (not decayed). They took them out and put them into the reliquary that you can see today. It was a little weird to be honest, staring at a 780-year old tongue.
After that we went to the Cappella degli Scrovegni, which is covered in frescos by Giotto. The works in the chapel are about 150 years before their time in terms of art history. Giotto painted the people with expressions rarely seen in art even of later periods. It was absolutely breathtaking. The frescos were finished in 1305, a good 100 years before even the first works of the Renaissance.
Everything was changing in these frescoes. There is perspective, and the sky is actually blue! The people are interacting and look frighteningly lifelike. I want to post pictures of the chapel, but I couldn’t bring in my camera. So here is a link to the website of the chapel, and you can see the frescos here:
http://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/eng/index_e.htm
We had free time, and I went with Laura to go back to the Bascillica. We got there just in time for the end of Mass, which was great timing! I had bought a little tiny Saint Anthony picture and I went around asking the friars that were standing around if they could bless it for me. I got sent from one to the other, until I asked one tall priest and he told me to wait by the door (he was talking to the Vatican Guards that looked slightly annoyed since I had kind of been following them around).
He brought me off to a small room in the cloisters adjacent to the church and asked me, "Where are you from?" I was flustered that he was speaking English, and I forgot how to answer for a second. But eventually I told him that I was American, and he said, "Ok, I will first bless you, and then bless the little object."
In Italian, he said, "Oh God the Father Almighty, watch over and protect you faithful daughter, and also send your spirit over this medallion. And I bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." I said "Amen." and he gave me a hug and said, "God Bless you," in English. He was a wonderful and nice priest, and young too! There is hope yet for the Catholic preisthood lol!
When we came out of the church, the sky was aflame with the sunset and the clouds were moving quickly, like people running late for an appointment. It was gorgeous.
Overall, another great weekend! Send me emails and Let me know if you guys want something from a specific place!
We had to bring our passports to confirm our identities as we went into the stadium. They checked our purses and patted us down, and then we were free to go into tour section. The rowdy fans (among whom we put ourselves) are put into a locked kind of cage, complete with a chain link fence with razor-sharp triangles on top of it and a net to prevent fans from chucking things onto the field. They had also blocked off a huge section of the stadium seats to make the opposing fans at least a hundred yards away. All of this to keep us from starting a riot! Also the opposing fans do not have a cover over their heads and so have to stand in the rain.
This is the rowdy-fan cage. There weren't this many people there but this is what it looks like!As we were walking in, the girls began to realize that we were at about a 50 to one ratio with all the men everywhere, and I joked that I should’ve put a bag over my head to prevent everyone from staring at the blondeness. We went into the bleachers and stayed standing up, because of course, true fans don’t sit to watch their team.
Because two SPAL fans were arrested in another city last weekend for fighting with the fans of the opposite team, there was a 15-minute cheering/singing “strike” during which no one was allowed to cheer or sing the team songs to show the authorities that we were supporting the guys who got put in jail.
After the cheering strike, three guys started leading the crowd in cheers and songs. They were hilarious!! And really vulgar. I will put some of them below, but I’m not going to translate them just in case someone doesn’t want to know. You can all go to google translate and find out for yourselves or ask me in an email! Keep in mind these are just the ones I remember…
“Forza SPAL! Forza SPAL!”
“Ravenna, Ravenna, vaffanculo! Ravenna, Ravenna, vaffanculo!”
“Alle, alle, Ferrara, alle alle!”
“Tu sei la merda…quando ti penso, voglio cacare…”
And then when we were down three goals to none:
“Che sara, sara…”
It was really fun even though they ended up losing terribly in a shut out. Afterwards there was the only traffic jam I have yet seen in Ferrara, with everyone trying to get home. Today, on Tuesday, Riccardo sent us all an email that goes like this:
" La presente per ringraziarVi di cuore a titolo personale ed a nome della Curva Ovest Ferrara con la viva Speranza che la sconfitta di ieri non sia un deterrente al Vostro avvicinamento al cuore pulsante della città......Grazie Ragazzi !! Sempre FORZA SPAL !!
Riccardo
I would like to thank you personally, and on behalf of the CURVA OVEST , for coming to support SPAL. I hope that the defeat will not act as a deterrent for your involment with the beating heart of the town.... Thank you guys!!
FORZA SPAL FOREVER!!
Riccardo"
On Saturday we went to Padova (Padua), and we had a tour of the city. We went inside the Bascillica di San Antonio, and saw his tomb and all the letters people from all over the world had written to him. I have never seen so many letters to a saint, or so many candles and offerings to one. We walked through the church and arrived in the reliquary room, where they have an absolutely huge golden case that holds Saint Antonio’s jaw, and his tongue and vocal cords.
This is San Antonio's Jawbone!After that we went to the Cappella degli Scrovegni, which is covered in frescos by Giotto. The works in the chapel are about 150 years before their time in terms of art history. Giotto painted the people with expressions rarely seen in art even of later periods. It was absolutely breathtaking. The frescos were finished in 1305, a good 100 years before even the first works of the Renaissance.
Everything was changing in these frescoes. There is perspective, and the sky is actually blue! The people are interacting and look frighteningly lifelike. I want to post pictures of the chapel, but I couldn’t bring in my camera. So here is a link to the website of the chapel, and you can see the frescos here:
http://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/eng/index_e.htm
We had free time, and I went with Laura to go back to the Bascillica. We got there just in time for the end of Mass, which was great timing! I had bought a little tiny Saint Anthony picture and I went around asking the friars that were standing around if they could bless it for me. I got sent from one to the other, until I asked one tall priest and he told me to wait by the door (he was talking to the Vatican Guards that looked slightly annoyed since I had kind of been following them around).
He brought me off to a small room in the cloisters adjacent to the church and asked me, "Where are you from?" I was flustered that he was speaking English, and I forgot how to answer for a second. But eventually I told him that I was American, and he said, "Ok, I will first bless you, and then bless the little object."
In Italian, he said, "Oh God the Father Almighty, watch over and protect you faithful daughter, and also send your spirit over this medallion. And I bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." I said "Amen." and he gave me a hug and said, "God Bless you," in English. He was a wonderful and nice priest, and young too! There is hope yet for the Catholic preisthood lol!
When we came out of the church, the sky was aflame with the sunset and the clouds were moving quickly, like people running late for an appointment. It was gorgeous.
Overall, another great weekend! Send me emails and Let me know if you guys want something from a specific place!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
400 year old mosaics and old fashionedness
We walked into the baptistery and looked up above our heads. The description outside the building said that this small church had been constructed in the 400s, before Christianity had gotten it’s act together and consolidated the ideas of the Church into any kind of coherent ideology. The tiny chapel had once belonged to the Arian cult of early Christianity, who gave it its mosaic-covered ceiling.
And the Baptistery of the Arians in Ravenna is stunning. It looks as though it were tiled just yesterday, when in fact the images are over 1500 years old. They are strikingly accurate depictions of people, with each of the disciples around the perimeter with a distinct face, and with Jesus and John the Baptist at the center. In this tiny town that was once the capital of three separate empires (the Roman, the Byzantine, and the Ostrogoth) has some of the oldest intact mosaics in the world!
There are at least five sites in the town that have intact paleo-christian art inside them, and they are all unbelievably well preserved. The church of San Vitale had a huge and mosaic-covered apse, with an arch covered in the Apostles and at the center an image that me and Laura dubbed, Rainbow Jesus, because he has a circle of rainbow colors around him.
It was interesting to see how certain symbols have changed over the more-than-one-thousand years since the mosaics were made. For instance I doubt you would ever see a Rainbow Jesus these days because of the connotation rainbows have with the gay community, and some religious people have become so anti-gay that Rainbow Jesus to them might border on blasphemy. Another example is that of the ancient floor of the church, which was once covered wall to wall in swastikas. For obvious reasons, that is no longer an acceptable symbol to cover a church with, but in the 400s it was a sacred symbol.
The town itself is really tiny and sleepy, but for some reason it, too was bombarded during the war. It is amazing that only one of the churches with the beautiful mosaics was hit. This was unfortunately one of the oldest, San Giovanni Evangelista, founded by the Empress Galla in the early 400s. They rebuilt the church after the war, but the mosaics that were there were mostly destroyed.
It rained the entire day, from the moment we stepped off of the train in Ravenna. Luckily it was not very cold there, but when we returned to Ferrara it was snowing! And bitter, humid cold! Me and Laura rode our bikes down Viale Cavour from the station back to our house, which is actually kind of far. Once we were here we had just enough time to put on warm clothes and then leave again to go to Mass at the cathedral.
Mass is at 6:00 PM every Sunday in the cathedral, and the words are exactly the same as in the States. There are nuns who sing (terribly) and do all the readings, and the music is all very similar to the way it is in the USA. Except that the wine is for the priest only (I think that has something to do with people realizing if they shared the cup of wine, they died of plague…) One funny thing is that when it’s time for Communion everyone just sort of mashes forward toward the altar, because there are no ushers to keep everyone in line! Everyone just jostles for position like they are at a sporting event. It’s hilariously Italian. Also the priest tonight sounded a bit like the Godfather to me.
Today was the first time I had taken the train since arriving in Italy! The trains are really nice here in the North, since even the regional “Bacon Trains” have new seats and some even have a computer that tells you how fast you are going! In Ferrara over the last week I finished my intensive language class (which was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken, since we crammed 40 hours of class into two weeks), and on Friday I took my bike around the city because the sun was out and it was pretty.
I rode about 7 km through the city and around the outside of the walls, and there were so many cute dogs everywhere that kept coming up to my bici (bike) and wanting to play with me. I saw the most beautiful boxer I have ever seen in my life! And I nearly ran over a Chihuahua that had wandered into my path. The walls are really pretty and it is amazing how well they have held up against time (and bombs).
I am slowly learning more and more about this city and everything is becoming more home-like. I love coming back to Carmen’s house and having dinner. Everything I eat is the greatest thing ever because I never have time to eat during the day, and plus Carmen is a great cook. I finally managed to take a picture of Leo, but he is terrified of my camera now since the flash popped up and startled him. Apparently Leo is inammorated with blondes, because he has always tried to give “bacini” (read: licks all over my hands and face) to the blonde girls that have lived here.
He is kind of like Italian men, because last night on my way home from Bar Tsunami (a bar near the university that I go to a lot) with my friends a young man came running up beside me as I went past the bar he was leaving on my bici. He grabbed my shoulder, saying, “Amore della mia vita! Bionda, ‘morosa,! Cosa posso fare per innamorarti di me?” (“Love of my life! Blonde, love! What can I do to make you fall in love with me?”) I didn’t even look at him, and I put out my left hand and pushed him away from me as we went down the street.
When I told Carmen about that today at dinner, she said that I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have kicked him with my foot instead! I think it’s funny how the Italian women just brush men off.
Writing in English is like having a conversation with an old friend. It’s comfortable and I’m really happy to be able to form sentences that express my thoughts. In English you can make up a metaphor on the spot to express exactly how you feel, but here I think that people just use old proverbs. The language itself seems to be much less flexible, which honestly fits somewhat with the reluctant-to-change Italian ideology.
For instance, people here are actually pretty racist. And contradictory. The other night, Carmen got to talking about immigrants who have come into the country as clandestini (illegals), and how angry she is that she pays taxes that go to put them on a plane to deport them back to Libya or Albania or wherever. When she gets angry, her Calebrase accent comes out a lot, kind of like someone from the South of the USA becoming angry and suddenly regaining their accent. She even said, “Italy is a racist country. And nobody wants to talk about it.” And then two seconds later, she is talking about how Gypsies live by stealing and how they have bad blood. Nothing to be done if you are born a Gypsy. And my brain goes, “What is that?!” It’s not always about skin color, either, because they seem to hate Romanians just as much as they hate Tunisians.
I keep getting angry with myself because I keep making excuses for the Italians’ racism. I say to myself, “They’re just a bit old-fashioned.” Of course, I then realize that “old-fashioned” generally also means “ass-backwards,” and I get mad at them for being so out of the loop and mad at myself for not speaking up against it. Certainly every country has its racial problems, but I think that because Italy and France and other Western European countries never had a Civil Rights movement like the US did in the 1950s and 1960s, they are wayyyyyyy behind the times in terms of race relations. And I think that it’s only going to get harder as this decade goes on and the people on whom racism is being exacted get more and more vocal in their demands for equality.
More than anything I am learning that it is really hard to be this far away from everyone you love. I try to keep myself busy with trips and sightseeing and classes, but I find myself daydreaming about being home with the Colorado sunshine and the kitties and my family and Michael. I want a Chipotle burrito and a hug from everyone. I want KBCO, and downtown Louisville, and open spaces. I want snow and not sleet. I want to be able to watch TV and not constantly be tearing my brain out trying to comprehend not just the language but also the giant female bodybuilder in a bikini in the background of a variety show. But it’s ok. Things will get easier.
Something that helps majorly is that is appears that Spring has kind of arrived in Ferrara!! There are more days of sunshine and the grass is all green and beautiful. I don’t think that it gets cold enough here for grass to go dormant in the winter, which is a strange thing. Today I took a walk around the walls in the sunshine. It was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Also, I am switching up into more difficult classes. Three will be in Italian and then one in English.
This weekend we are going to Padova (Padua). I promise to write more often now that I have conquered the Italian internet, and to stop writing a novel every time.
Pictures from Ravenna:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=2359841&id=10231884
And the Baptistery of the Arians in Ravenna is stunning. It looks as though it were tiled just yesterday, when in fact the images are over 1500 years old. They are strikingly accurate depictions of people, with each of the disciples around the perimeter with a distinct face, and with Jesus and John the Baptist at the center. In this tiny town that was once the capital of three separate empires (the Roman, the Byzantine, and the Ostrogoth) has some of the oldest intact mosaics in the world!
There are at least five sites in the town that have intact paleo-christian art inside them, and they are all unbelievably well preserved. The church of San Vitale had a huge and mosaic-covered apse, with an arch covered in the Apostles and at the center an image that me and Laura dubbed, Rainbow Jesus, because he has a circle of rainbow colors around him.
It was interesting to see how certain symbols have changed over the more-than-one-thousand years since the mosaics were made. For instance I doubt you would ever see a Rainbow Jesus these days because of the connotation rainbows have with the gay community, and some religious people have become so anti-gay that Rainbow Jesus to them might border on blasphemy. Another example is that of the ancient floor of the church, which was once covered wall to wall in swastikas. For obvious reasons, that is no longer an acceptable symbol to cover a church with, but in the 400s it was a sacred symbol.
The town itself is really tiny and sleepy, but for some reason it, too was bombarded during the war. It is amazing that only one of the churches with the beautiful mosaics was hit. This was unfortunately one of the oldest, San Giovanni Evangelista, founded by the Empress Galla in the early 400s. They rebuilt the church after the war, but the mosaics that were there were mostly destroyed.
It rained the entire day, from the moment we stepped off of the train in Ravenna. Luckily it was not very cold there, but when we returned to Ferrara it was snowing! And bitter, humid cold! Me and Laura rode our bikes down Viale Cavour from the station back to our house, which is actually kind of far. Once we were here we had just enough time to put on warm clothes and then leave again to go to Mass at the cathedral.
Mass is at 6:00 PM every Sunday in the cathedral, and the words are exactly the same as in the States. There are nuns who sing (terribly) and do all the readings, and the music is all very similar to the way it is in the USA. Except that the wine is for the priest only (I think that has something to do with people realizing if they shared the cup of wine, they died of plague…) One funny thing is that when it’s time for Communion everyone just sort of mashes forward toward the altar, because there are no ushers to keep everyone in line! Everyone just jostles for position like they are at a sporting event. It’s hilariously Italian. Also the priest tonight sounded a bit like the Godfather to me.
Today was the first time I had taken the train since arriving in Italy! The trains are really nice here in the North, since even the regional “Bacon Trains” have new seats and some even have a computer that tells you how fast you are going! In Ferrara over the last week I finished my intensive language class (which was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken, since we crammed 40 hours of class into two weeks), and on Friday I took my bike around the city because the sun was out and it was pretty.
I rode about 7 km through the city and around the outside of the walls, and there were so many cute dogs everywhere that kept coming up to my bici (bike) and wanting to play with me. I saw the most beautiful boxer I have ever seen in my life! And I nearly ran over a Chihuahua that had wandered into my path. The walls are really pretty and it is amazing how well they have held up against time (and bombs).
I am slowly learning more and more about this city and everything is becoming more home-like. I love coming back to Carmen’s house and having dinner. Everything I eat is the greatest thing ever because I never have time to eat during the day, and plus Carmen is a great cook. I finally managed to take a picture of Leo, but he is terrified of my camera now since the flash popped up and startled him. Apparently Leo is inammorated with blondes, because he has always tried to give “bacini” (read: licks all over my hands and face) to the blonde girls that have lived here.
He is kind of like Italian men, because last night on my way home from Bar Tsunami (a bar near the university that I go to a lot) with my friends a young man came running up beside me as I went past the bar he was leaving on my bici. He grabbed my shoulder, saying, “Amore della mia vita! Bionda, ‘morosa,! Cosa posso fare per innamorarti di me?” (“Love of my life! Blonde, love! What can I do to make you fall in love with me?”) I didn’t even look at him, and I put out my left hand and pushed him away from me as we went down the street.
When I told Carmen about that today at dinner, she said that I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have kicked him with my foot instead! I think it’s funny how the Italian women just brush men off.
Writing in English is like having a conversation with an old friend. It’s comfortable and I’m really happy to be able to form sentences that express my thoughts. In English you can make up a metaphor on the spot to express exactly how you feel, but here I think that people just use old proverbs. The language itself seems to be much less flexible, which honestly fits somewhat with the reluctant-to-change Italian ideology.
For instance, people here are actually pretty racist. And contradictory. The other night, Carmen got to talking about immigrants who have come into the country as clandestini (illegals), and how angry she is that she pays taxes that go to put them on a plane to deport them back to Libya or Albania or wherever. When she gets angry, her Calebrase accent comes out a lot, kind of like someone from the South of the USA becoming angry and suddenly regaining their accent. She even said, “Italy is a racist country. And nobody wants to talk about it.” And then two seconds later, she is talking about how Gypsies live by stealing and how they have bad blood. Nothing to be done if you are born a Gypsy. And my brain goes, “What is that?!” It’s not always about skin color, either, because they seem to hate Romanians just as much as they hate Tunisians.
I keep getting angry with myself because I keep making excuses for the Italians’ racism. I say to myself, “They’re just a bit old-fashioned.” Of course, I then realize that “old-fashioned” generally also means “ass-backwards,” and I get mad at them for being so out of the loop and mad at myself for not speaking up against it. Certainly every country has its racial problems, but I think that because Italy and France and other Western European countries never had a Civil Rights movement like the US did in the 1950s and 1960s, they are wayyyyyyy behind the times in terms of race relations. And I think that it’s only going to get harder as this decade goes on and the people on whom racism is being exacted get more and more vocal in their demands for equality.
More than anything I am learning that it is really hard to be this far away from everyone you love. I try to keep myself busy with trips and sightseeing and classes, but I find myself daydreaming about being home with the Colorado sunshine and the kitties and my family and Michael. I want a Chipotle burrito and a hug from everyone. I want KBCO, and downtown Louisville, and open spaces. I want snow and not sleet. I want to be able to watch TV and not constantly be tearing my brain out trying to comprehend not just the language but also the giant female bodybuilder in a bikini in the background of a variety show. But it’s ok. Things will get easier.
Something that helps majorly is that is appears that Spring has kind of arrived in Ferrara!! There are more days of sunshine and the grass is all green and beautiful. I don’t think that it gets cold enough here for grass to go dormant in the winter, which is a strange thing. Today I took a walk around the walls in the sunshine. It was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Also, I am switching up into more difficult classes. Three will be in Italian and then one in English.
This weekend we are going to Padova (Padua). I promise to write more often now that I have conquered the Italian internet, and to stop writing a novel every time.
Pictures from Ravenna:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/album.php?aid=2359841&id=10231884
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Bologna...In the Rain
On Saturday I went to Bologna with the group. It rained all day, and I had no umbrella so I wore one of my scarves wrapped over my head like a nun or an old woman. We went to the cathedral and the municipal buildings, most of which still had their original frescos from the 1500s. It occurred to me that Bologna was lucky that Fascism did not erase their beautiful buildings and art.
I did not know that Bologna used to have over twenty brick towers, like San Gimignano in Toscana. It’s like other cities in Italy, founded by the Romans or the Etruscans and inhabited ever since. We climbed the taller of the only two towers that remain, and it is taller than almost any in the whole country. I took pictures, but it has plaques inside it that tell you exactly how high up you are. There is one that says, “55 meters. Leaning Tower of Pisa.” You then continue up about another 40 meters or so, and then you can see the whole city.
After everything, we met in the main piazza and the people who run the CIEE program took us back to the bus. The rain had really picked up, and we were walking along and talking because we were tired. Suddenly Ricardo (one of the organizers) started telling us to speed up, go faster, go faster…until we were literally running through the slippery streets and past the people dressed in fine clothing to the bus. As we were crossing the street to get on it, I looked to my right and saw tons of police lights, and the Caribineri (military branch of the police) filling the street. They hurried us onto the bus and told us to sit, because we were leaving right then.
It turns out there was a huge protest moving our way. All the people were yelling and carrying on, and we had to take the long way out of the city because they had blocked the main road. They were protesting the war in Gaza. And it occurred to me that people here have a very different view of war than people in the US do.
Right now, I am feeling the very heavy weight of the way they see and remember war on my heart. In Northern Italy there were whole cities flattened, like in other parts of Europe. In fact, the university at Bologna, which is the oldest in the Western World (yes, there were universities in the Middle East and Africa and Asia long before there were in Europe), was hit directly with a bomb in 1944. The anatomy room, which was used for dissections and contributed to the first modern knowledge of the human body, was destroyed. They have rebuilt it, but it was leveled.
I had been walking all day and feeling sicker and sicker, and we were about to all meet to go back home to Ferrara. I was with two other girls in the main square, and there was a huge memorial to the people who fought from 1943 to 1945 for the Italian resistance in Bologna. There was an entire wall, full of pictures and names…thousands. People who laid down their lives to stand up to Nazism. Men, women, children. A man who had Down’s Syndrome. Whole families, their names erased from future generations. Most of the pictures were high school graduation portraits, posed and not particularly notable. There were two pictures of two sisters side by side, and I noticed the quiet, unwavering stare they both gave in their portraits. It was like they were saying, “Yes. We are here. And we are not afraid.”
I don’t know the stories that led to their deaths, but I would like to believe that they were trying to hasten the war’s end. There was a photo of a man, tied to a roadsign. He was dead, and above his head was a sign that said he was an anti-German spy. That’s the kind of thing that I haven’t seen in the States, because I think we forget the realities of war. Because we haven’t had one on our own soil in a very long time, I believe that we feel collectively that war is something very distant. In Vietnam, in Iraq, in the Gulf…never in our own towns or our own lives. Or, we think that war is something we can wage on problems, like drugs or terrorism.
Tons of people were milling around in the piazza: talking, laughing, and carrying on with their lives. I would think that this was exactly what the people whose pictures are on the wall would have wanted for their city, sixty years after the war. Peaceful, prosperous, rebuilt, and above all compassionate for the wars that still exist in the world today. An old woman with a scarf over her head, like I had mine, walked past me. She seemed to be a reminder that people did go on with their lives, even though they remember the times that people were being killed for standing up to a seemingly insurmountable foe.
As we were driving to the airport before I left, my dad was talking about how I would be the first person in our family to spend this much time away from the States since the Korean War. I keep thinking about Uncle Joe, and how he was here when the war had flattened everything. I told Carmen that he was in Paris when the Allies freed the city, and that he helped liberate Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp. She looked at me and said, “Ah. Then he was a hero.” And he definitely was.
Basically, I feel the weight of the war itself on me tonight. There is always the question, “What would I have done, in the same situation?” I’d like to think that I would have been brave and fought, and stood up for those that had no voice. Of course, you can tell yourself that you would act courageously and that you would not fall victim to the persuasion of evil people…but you do not know it would not happen.
And what was on the TV when I got home? Schindler’s list.
Tonight a prayer for all of us, and that we may be given strength to do the right thing. And that we may always remember that those who are fallen were once alive and breathing, just like us.
“And God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes, and their shall be no more death; neither suffering nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away…” –Revelations 21:4
Here is the link to the photos:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=10231884#/album.php?aid=2357482&id=10231884
I did not know that Bologna used to have over twenty brick towers, like San Gimignano in Toscana. It’s like other cities in Italy, founded by the Romans or the Etruscans and inhabited ever since. We climbed the taller of the only two towers that remain, and it is taller than almost any in the whole country. I took pictures, but it has plaques inside it that tell you exactly how high up you are. There is one that says, “55 meters. Leaning Tower of Pisa.” You then continue up about another 40 meters or so, and then you can see the whole city.
After everything, we met in the main piazza and the people who run the CIEE program took us back to the bus. The rain had really picked up, and we were walking along and talking because we were tired. Suddenly Ricardo (one of the organizers) started telling us to speed up, go faster, go faster…until we were literally running through the slippery streets and past the people dressed in fine clothing to the bus. As we were crossing the street to get on it, I looked to my right and saw tons of police lights, and the Caribineri (military branch of the police) filling the street. They hurried us onto the bus and told us to sit, because we were leaving right then.
It turns out there was a huge protest moving our way. All the people were yelling and carrying on, and we had to take the long way out of the city because they had blocked the main road. They were protesting the war in Gaza. And it occurred to me that people here have a very different view of war than people in the US do.
Right now, I am feeling the very heavy weight of the way they see and remember war on my heart. In Northern Italy there were whole cities flattened, like in other parts of Europe. In fact, the university at Bologna, which is the oldest in the Western World (yes, there were universities in the Middle East and Africa and Asia long before there were in Europe), was hit directly with a bomb in 1944. The anatomy room, which was used for dissections and contributed to the first modern knowledge of the human body, was destroyed. They have rebuilt it, but it was leveled.
I had been walking all day and feeling sicker and sicker, and we were about to all meet to go back home to Ferrara. I was with two other girls in the main square, and there was a huge memorial to the people who fought from 1943 to 1945 for the Italian resistance in Bologna. There was an entire wall, full of pictures and names…thousands. People who laid down their lives to stand up to Nazism. Men, women, children. A man who had Down’s Syndrome. Whole families, their names erased from future generations. Most of the pictures were high school graduation portraits, posed and not particularly notable. There were two pictures of two sisters side by side, and I noticed the quiet, unwavering stare they both gave in their portraits. It was like they were saying, “Yes. We are here. And we are not afraid.”
I don’t know the stories that led to their deaths, but I would like to believe that they were trying to hasten the war’s end. There was a photo of a man, tied to a roadsign. He was dead, and above his head was a sign that said he was an anti-German spy. That’s the kind of thing that I haven’t seen in the States, because I think we forget the realities of war. Because we haven’t had one on our own soil in a very long time, I believe that we feel collectively that war is something very distant. In Vietnam, in Iraq, in the Gulf…never in our own towns or our own lives. Or, we think that war is something we can wage on problems, like drugs or terrorism.
Tons of people were milling around in the piazza: talking, laughing, and carrying on with their lives. I would think that this was exactly what the people whose pictures are on the wall would have wanted for their city, sixty years after the war. Peaceful, prosperous, rebuilt, and above all compassionate for the wars that still exist in the world today. An old woman with a scarf over her head, like I had mine, walked past me. She seemed to be a reminder that people did go on with their lives, even though they remember the times that people were being killed for standing up to a seemingly insurmountable foe.
As we were driving to the airport before I left, my dad was talking about how I would be the first person in our family to spend this much time away from the States since the Korean War. I keep thinking about Uncle Joe, and how he was here when the war had flattened everything. I told Carmen that he was in Paris when the Allies freed the city, and that he helped liberate Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp. She looked at me and said, “Ah. Then he was a hero.” And he definitely was.
Basically, I feel the weight of the war itself on me tonight. There is always the question, “What would I have done, in the same situation?” I’d like to think that I would have been brave and fought, and stood up for those that had no voice. Of course, you can tell yourself that you would act courageously and that you would not fall victim to the persuasion of evil people…but you do not know it would not happen.
And what was on the TV when I got home? Schindler’s list.
Tonight a prayer for all of us, and that we may be given strength to do the right thing. And that we may always remember that those who are fallen were once alive and breathing, just like us.
“And God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes, and their shall be no more death; neither suffering nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away…” –Revelations 21:4
Here is the link to the photos:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=10231884#/album.php?aid=2357482&id=10231884
Monday, January 26, 2009
Photos!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=41551939&l=c899b&id=10231884
That's the link to my first facebook photo album, in case anyone could not see them.
That's the link to my first facebook photo album, in case anyone could not see them.
Friday, January 23, 2009
And you are sitting right where Copernicus used to sit...
There is a big vote in the Italian Senate tonight, and I am watching the equivalent of CSPAN. I don’t understand everything because it is a lot of rhetoric and words meant to make oneself sound smart. Think how hard it would be to try to learn English from the proceedings of the House of Representatives in t he USA, and you will know how I feel. I think that it’s cool that I was right there on the Senate floor in Roma two summers ago for my tour.
I want to be able to talk about world politics with people, especially here because the Italian political system is so confusing and has so much history. Hardly anything ever gets done, and it’s a coalition government with many different parties and even those that are not recognized by the State. Like the Anarchists, of whom there are a ton at Ferrara’s University. A lot of them have dreadlocks down past their butts, and they hand out pamphlets about Gaza and write “Fasci Morti” (“Dead fascists”) on the walls of the school. They are nice though, and their hair makes me feel at home.
TV here (which the Italians call “la Tee-Voo) is ridiculous most of the time. I am going to try to take videos so that I can post them and you can all see just how weird it is. There are so many shows like American Idol here, and some of them involve just one person or teams of competitors. All have judges that are very strange to watch (for instance last night, I watched a show with a huge transvestite as one of the judges. S/he was wearing the biggest wig I have ever seen outside of a picture of Louis XIV of France or something. It was awesome.
I wish DD was here to watch the TV with me, because we always laugh at people who dance and sing ridiculously and every show (even ones that have nothing to do with song or dance) has random professional dancers who come out and dance whenever something is going on. Yesterday there were a bunch on the show with the transvestite judge who were men wearing tiny tiny spandex shorts and undulating around on the floor. I could not stop laughing.
Of course, the biggest show here is GrandeFratello (Big Brother). This is a perfect example of how women on Italian TV always dress up and put on tons of makeup. If you’ve ever seen the Spanish-language news shows in the USA, you know exactly what I mean. Here though, many of the famous personalities have had a lot of plastic surgery. The girls on Grande Fratello all have fake breasts, and it’s like the surgeon didn’t even try to make them look normal. Maybe that’s the point, like a status symbol to show that you had enough money to buy fake boobs. They shock me every time I see them though.
Carmen, my hostess is really nice. She is very patient with me because I am still struggling with my Italian on a moment by moment basis. I’m getting closer to stringing sentences together, but I almost always conjugate the verbs wrong and have to pause and sigh and hope they know what I was trying to say. Yesterday morning she told me that my perfume smells like the Italian equivalent of Yankee Candle. Haha! She also makes my food and gives me stuff for my room like rugs, and she even does my laundry!
I have a really bad cold that came on yesterday, and Carmen is sick too. She brought me some hot milk with honey in it and Nesquik, to make me feel better. Leo, her dog, is a hilarious little guy. He growls at Great Danes (he is tiny), but he is terrified of houseflies. He trembles and hides from them until you open a door, and then he flees the room! I’ve never seen anything like it.
I have a bike now, and it is a piece. I like it though, because it’s so much faster than walking. My brakes don’t really work, especially when it is raining, and it doesn’t have shocks. Keep in mind that just about every street in Ferrara is cobblestone. My bici (bike) makes a hellacious noise when I ride over the cobblestones, and I always feel like I’m waking people up since I’m rolling along their street at 7 AM with my bike going BANG-bangitty-bangitty-bang-bang-bangitty-EHRT (brakes squeaking). Also you have to ride very slowly here, since there are cars everywhere, and it’s hard to keep up enough speed to balance.
Today I almost ate it hardcore riding down the street in front of one of the university buildings today. I had to put my foot down and bounce off the curb, and an Italian guy laughed at me while he rode past me, gliding by on his not-POS bike. I find it really hard to steer and balance on my bike, and of course I always have my backpack on and that sucks for balancing too.
Yesterday I was incredibly hungry, and sense I haven’t been eating anything during the day, I went Birdisi, a bar that the Guiness Book of world records recognizes as the oldest wine bar in all of the world!!! How did I not know it was here in Ferrara?! It’s awesome. I had cappelaci (I’m not sure of the spelling) which are the pasta from Ferrara. They are shaped like little hats and are filled with pumpkin and served with a meat sauce. It’s seriously like eating pumpkin pie pasta. And Birdisi has the best I’ve had so far.
No one knows how old the wine bar actually is. The first mention of it is in a document in 1435, but by then it was already popular and famous in the surrounding areas. Tons of famous people used to frequent it, like Ariosto (a local writer), Rosetti (a famous architect), and the most famous of all, Nicolas COPERNICUS!!! In the 1970s, Pope John Paul II went there to commemorate the 400th birthday of the astronomer. Craziness!
I am doing well. I already feel like Carmen’s house is homey and nice, and I like it a lot. Tomorrow we are going to Bologna. Should be fun! I’ll keep you posted.
P.S. I learned that you say "Oh cavolo!" to say "Oh crap!". Cavolo is "Cabbage". Haha!
I want to be able to talk about world politics with people, especially here because the Italian political system is so confusing and has so much history. Hardly anything ever gets done, and it’s a coalition government with many different parties and even those that are not recognized by the State. Like the Anarchists, of whom there are a ton at Ferrara’s University. A lot of them have dreadlocks down past their butts, and they hand out pamphlets about Gaza and write “Fasci Morti” (“Dead fascists”) on the walls of the school. They are nice though, and their hair makes me feel at home.
TV here (which the Italians call “la Tee-Voo) is ridiculous most of the time. I am going to try to take videos so that I can post them and you can all see just how weird it is. There are so many shows like American Idol here, and some of them involve just one person or teams of competitors. All have judges that are very strange to watch (for instance last night, I watched a show with a huge transvestite as one of the judges. S/he was wearing the biggest wig I have ever seen outside of a picture of Louis XIV of France or something. It was awesome.
I wish DD was here to watch the TV with me, because we always laugh at people who dance and sing ridiculously and every show (even ones that have nothing to do with song or dance) has random professional dancers who come out and dance whenever something is going on. Yesterday there were a bunch on the show with the transvestite judge who were men wearing tiny tiny spandex shorts and undulating around on the floor. I could not stop laughing.
Of course, the biggest show here is GrandeFratello (Big Brother). This is a perfect example of how women on Italian TV always dress up and put on tons of makeup. If you’ve ever seen the Spanish-language news shows in the USA, you know exactly what I mean. Here though, many of the famous personalities have had a lot of plastic surgery. The girls on Grande Fratello all have fake breasts, and it’s like the surgeon didn’t even try to make them look normal. Maybe that’s the point, like a status symbol to show that you had enough money to buy fake boobs. They shock me every time I see them though.
Carmen, my hostess is really nice. She is very patient with me because I am still struggling with my Italian on a moment by moment basis. I’m getting closer to stringing sentences together, but I almost always conjugate the verbs wrong and have to pause and sigh and hope they know what I was trying to say. Yesterday morning she told me that my perfume smells like the Italian equivalent of Yankee Candle. Haha! She also makes my food and gives me stuff for my room like rugs, and she even does my laundry!
I have a really bad cold that came on yesterday, and Carmen is sick too. She brought me some hot milk with honey in it and Nesquik, to make me feel better. Leo, her dog, is a hilarious little guy. He growls at Great Danes (he is tiny), but he is terrified of houseflies. He trembles and hides from them until you open a door, and then he flees the room! I’ve never seen anything like it.
I have a bike now, and it is a piece. I like it though, because it’s so much faster than walking. My brakes don’t really work, especially when it is raining, and it doesn’t have shocks. Keep in mind that just about every street in Ferrara is cobblestone. My bici (bike) makes a hellacious noise when I ride over the cobblestones, and I always feel like I’m waking people up since I’m rolling along their street at 7 AM with my bike going BANG-bangitty-bangitty-bang-bang-bangitty-EHRT (brakes squeaking). Also you have to ride very slowly here, since there are cars everywhere, and it’s hard to keep up enough speed to balance.
Today I almost ate it hardcore riding down the street in front of one of the university buildings today. I had to put my foot down and bounce off the curb, and an Italian guy laughed at me while he rode past me, gliding by on his not-POS bike. I find it really hard to steer and balance on my bike, and of course I always have my backpack on and that sucks for balancing too.
Yesterday I was incredibly hungry, and sense I haven’t been eating anything during the day, I went Birdisi, a bar that the Guiness Book of world records recognizes as the oldest wine bar in all of the world!!! How did I not know it was here in Ferrara?! It’s awesome. I had cappelaci (I’m not sure of the spelling) which are the pasta from Ferrara. They are shaped like little hats and are filled with pumpkin and served with a meat sauce. It’s seriously like eating pumpkin pie pasta. And Birdisi has the best I’ve had so far.
No one knows how old the wine bar actually is. The first mention of it is in a document in 1435, but by then it was already popular and famous in the surrounding areas. Tons of famous people used to frequent it, like Ariosto (a local writer), Rosetti (a famous architect), and the most famous of all, Nicolas COPERNICUS!!! In the 1970s, Pope John Paul II went there to commemorate the 400th birthday of the astronomer. Craziness!
I am doing well. I already feel like Carmen’s house is homey and nice, and I like it a lot. Tomorrow we are going to Bologna. Should be fun! I’ll keep you posted.
P.S. I learned that you say "Oh cavolo!" to say "Oh crap!". Cavolo is "Cabbage". Haha!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Where do I live?
I am at my homestay now and I am really excited!! I have a hostess who is named Carmen who has a dog named Leo. He is really cute. There is another girl from the States who is going to be living here, whose name is Laura. My room is huge! I think it is bigger than my room at home, and has really pretty orange curtains on the windows.
When we arrived on Saturday, Carmen was babysitting her niece and nephew, Alfonso and Marisola. He is 15 and she is two and four months. Nobody really speaks English at all, and I am really lucky to have Laura to help since she can speak pretty well. I understand almost everything, but it was like I was mute and couldn't answer.
We came in and we were shown our rooms and asked to unpack everything from our bags. I even have a couple shelves for my shoes! I have a table and a couch in my room, and even a TV (way different from the last time I was in Italy when I had nothing at all). DD will be happy to know that there is even a Turner Classic Movies in Italian channel!!
The housing I am staying at is really nice. There is even a backyard! I was confused as to where in the city we are exactly and I keep getting lost every day, but it gets easier. The Archeological Museum is about a block away, which is hilarious because I really wanted to go there. I need to go out of the house and explore a bit to get my bearings.
I spent a bunch of time with Carmen and everyone, and after about seven hours I felt like I had smoke coming out of my ears from trying to understand. I keep thinking I’m going to make a huge faux pas of some kind and really embarrass myself, and to be honest after all the time spent trying to understand, in a house I don’t know, and a new language, and feeling awkward beyond belief…I pretty much was trying to stave off a panic attack before bed. The following days have been much better. Carmen is really nice and she laughs that I understand better than she thought I did and I have never taking an Italian class. She says that in a month me and Laura will be speaking fluently-ish.
I am constantly lost here. The day before yesterday, I had to go with a friend to his homestay and his host mom had to show me how to get home. I keep thinking, "Where do I live? I don't know how to get there and all the buildings are in the way!!" But I'm learning.
I am cold all the time, as there isn’t any central heating in Italy. They see it as not only a hassle to install, but also a waste of energy and money. They are probably right, but I sometimes feel like I am camping! I have to wear long sleeves to bed and bury myself under the covers. I think I’m just going to have to deal with the cold. This is yet another example of Italy being energy efficient without even trying, and how they have been forever and ever. I took a shower a couple days ago and it was one of the coldest experiences of my life. Today I'm going to buy a hot water bottle so I don't freeze to death.I'm getting used to it, piano piano (step by step).
I think this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I am hungry ALL of the time, because people eat a lot less here, and my language skills are kind of bad, even though they get better every day. I am SO much bigger (tall and wide wise) than most of the women here, which is also hard since I’m seriously conspicuously blonde and so people stare.
But I guess that if it’s really hard, I will grow a lot. It will get easier I am sure! I really like Italy and I really like the people and the food and the buildings. We have class for four hours a day, all in Italian, and I have never had so much homework for one class! Seriously, like 10 exercises a night or more. And then, when I go home for dinner, I have another "class" with my hostess because I have to speak at home and learn there too. I always wanted to be immersed in another language, because I know this is how you learn it, but IT IS HARD. Do not underestimate how humbling learning a new language is.
I walk around in a constant state of half-faintingness from low blood sugar. I have decided to eat chocolate during class to avoid this, but I don't really eat breakfast or lunch. I walk everywhere (probably 6-7 miles a day) and so I think I'm going to lose a bunch of weight here. I feel like my stomach is constantly eating itself. Today I've eaten a tiny piece of crunchy bread with marmelade, and a bar of chocolate. Oh yeah and a shot of espresso. I feel dizzy.
Now I have to leave to go to the police station and apply for my permesso di sogiorno (permit to stay in the country). I'd love to have emails from everyone!! Cmonroe161@gmail.com.
Love you all!
When we arrived on Saturday, Carmen was babysitting her niece and nephew, Alfonso and Marisola. He is 15 and she is two and four months. Nobody really speaks English at all, and I am really lucky to have Laura to help since she can speak pretty well. I understand almost everything, but it was like I was mute and couldn't answer.
We came in and we were shown our rooms and asked to unpack everything from our bags. I even have a couple shelves for my shoes! I have a table and a couch in my room, and even a TV (way different from the last time I was in Italy when I had nothing at all). DD will be happy to know that there is even a Turner Classic Movies in Italian channel!!
The housing I am staying at is really nice. There is even a backyard! I was confused as to where in the city we are exactly and I keep getting lost every day, but it gets easier. The Archeological Museum is about a block away, which is hilarious because I really wanted to go there. I need to go out of the house and explore a bit to get my bearings.
I spent a bunch of time with Carmen and everyone, and after about seven hours I felt like I had smoke coming out of my ears from trying to understand. I keep thinking I’m going to make a huge faux pas of some kind and really embarrass myself, and to be honest after all the time spent trying to understand, in a house I don’t know, and a new language, and feeling awkward beyond belief…I pretty much was trying to stave off a panic attack before bed. The following days have been much better. Carmen is really nice and she laughs that I understand better than she thought I did and I have never taking an Italian class. She says that in a month me and Laura will be speaking fluently-ish.
I am constantly lost here. The day before yesterday, I had to go with a friend to his homestay and his host mom had to show me how to get home. I keep thinking, "Where do I live? I don't know how to get there and all the buildings are in the way!!" But I'm learning.
I am cold all the time, as there isn’t any central heating in Italy. They see it as not only a hassle to install, but also a waste of energy and money. They are probably right, but I sometimes feel like I am camping! I have to wear long sleeves to bed and bury myself under the covers. I think I’m just going to have to deal with the cold. This is yet another example of Italy being energy efficient without even trying, and how they have been forever and ever. I took a shower a couple days ago and it was one of the coldest experiences of my life. Today I'm going to buy a hot water bottle so I don't freeze to death.I'm getting used to it, piano piano (step by step).
I think this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I am hungry ALL of the time, because people eat a lot less here, and my language skills are kind of bad, even though they get better every day. I am SO much bigger (tall and wide wise) than most of the women here, which is also hard since I’m seriously conspicuously blonde and so people stare.
But I guess that if it’s really hard, I will grow a lot. It will get easier I am sure! I really like Italy and I really like the people and the food and the buildings. We have class for four hours a day, all in Italian, and I have never had so much homework for one class! Seriously, like 10 exercises a night or more. And then, when I go home for dinner, I have another "class" with my hostess because I have to speak at home and learn there too. I always wanted to be immersed in another language, because I know this is how you learn it, but IT IS HARD. Do not underestimate how humbling learning a new language is.
I walk around in a constant state of half-faintingness from low blood sugar. I have decided to eat chocolate during class to avoid this, but I don't really eat breakfast or lunch. I walk everywhere (probably 6-7 miles a day) and so I think I'm going to lose a bunch of weight here. I feel like my stomach is constantly eating itself. Today I've eaten a tiny piece of crunchy bread with marmelade, and a bar of chocolate. Oh yeah and a shot of espresso. I feel dizzy.
Now I have to leave to go to the police station and apply for my permesso di sogiorno (permit to stay in the country). I'd love to have emails from everyone!! Cmonroe161@gmail.com.
Love you all!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Things you notice in transit
When you go from place to place, especially internationally, things tend to get interesting. I've been on the road 24 hours and now, from my vantage point in my hotel in Ferrara, I want to share a couple of the weird little things that have happened so far.
-I sat on the flight from Denver next to a woman who was also named Coleen
-I encountered my first "Euro-trash" teenager as soon as I stepped up to the gate at DIA
-Every annoucement is in a language that is confusing because it kinda sounds like English but isn't, like German. Mach Schnell!
-Real German beer is really good. Also every beer calls itself the king of beers.
-Janitors in Frankfurt's airport apparently do not care if they are following you into the bathroom of the opposite gender, and your looks of confusion do nothing to stop him.
-Ordering a bottle of champagne and putting it on the tab of the school is perfectly right, as is not asking beforehand and not offering it to all at the table
-Blisters are as inevitable as walking 15 km through winding airport terminals to get to your connecting flight
-I sat on the flight from Denver next to a woman who was also named Coleen
-I encountered my first "Euro-trash" teenager as soon as I stepped up to the gate at DIA
-Every annoucement is in a language that is confusing because it kinda sounds like English but isn't, like German. Mach Schnell!
-Real German beer is really good. Also every beer calls itself the king of beers.
-Janitors in Frankfurt's airport apparently do not care if they are following you into the bathroom of the opposite gender, and your looks of confusion do nothing to stop him.
-Ordering a bottle of champagne and putting it on the tab of the school is perfectly right, as is not asking beforehand and not offering it to all at the table
-Blisters are as inevitable as walking 15 km through winding airport terminals to get to your connecting flight
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