I'll be home for Christmas

It's been a while since the last time I posted here. Things have been a little crazy and a little exhausting.

As a quick update since Rome, I've gone to Oxford, Venice, the doctor's office about ten times and have officially returned to the United States.

Oxford was an amazing experience. It was a beautiful city with beautiful people (Kim, Spike, Ashley, Amy, Angela, etc). There was the Queer Bop and wonderful sight seeing, but unfortunately I managed to get rather sick. I lost my voice in the first day of being there.

Venice is officially my favorite city in Italy. While it was cold, wet and flooded the entire time, it was absolutely beautiful. It's actually very like New Orleans, which is more or less my favorite city in the US, so I suppose I just like cities near water. I always have loved the smell of the sea. Unfortunately, walking around soaking wet up to the knees for two days didn't help my sickness, which only got worse.

Thanksgiving dinner was spent with my school in a little ristorante near Santa Croce. I sat with the Count, whom I had met at a wine tasting. He took a liking to me, showed me around his historical home the next day and offered me his private and ancient library for my own use next semester for conference research. Yes, I realize it's an amazing opportunity, however it's also slightly terrifying.

After about a month of having fever and cough, I went to the doctor's. After a couple of visits and misdiagnoses, they managed to figure out what I had. Despite the fact that I had already bought tickets for England--where I was supposed to spend Christmas--I had to change my plans to come back to the states to spend time at home, sleep and recover. Thankfully, I managed to finish my papers and conference work early, so I left classes a week early and am now home. I'm recovering quickly and will be ready to return to Italy next semester.

My Italian professor is pleased with how my command of the language is coming along and has officially ok-ed me for finding an Italian Sign Language class next semester. I've also managed to find a young-adults-Catholic group at the Duomo (for English speakers), so next semester is going to be quite busy.

Happy Christmas, everyone, and have a wonderful New Year! God bless!

The Vatican-can

Art restoration, the highlight-class of every week, decided to take a day trip to Rome this past weekend. No wonder I love this class.

We started out at a special exhibit for Bellini. Ironically, one has to travel to Rome to see art from Venice. Restoration for Venetian art is incredibly interesting, considering the increased humidity of the environment.

After the exhibit, we joined up with another class to see the Forum, which was amazing of course (including the part where wer walked past the Colosseum and the ten or so men dressed up as gladiators much to my amusement), and then we went (drum roll please) to the Vatican!

Yes, above is a picture of me looking like a five year old on Christmas. There was a light on in the Pope's window. So yes, I have seen the same beams of light that the Pope has seen. Like Christmas.

Inside Saint Peter's was absolutely gorgeous, but most excitingly, I went to confession there and in English no less! Since I came to Italy, I haven't found a single place to go to confession--one of my favorite sacraments--and I was overjoyed to not only get to go, but to go in English and at the Vatican. Again. Like Christmas.

Visiting Rome has been one of the highlights of my time here. Ufortunately, I only got the chance to see about 1% of what I wanted to see. I guess I'll just have to go back on my own dime sometime. (Easter anyone?)

Catastrophe: November 5, 2008

Two days ago was Guy Fawkes' Day, Obama was officially elected our next President, and one of my best friends since fourth grade passed away. She was taken suddenly and unexpectedly--there was a tumor in her heart. This post is in her honor and in her memory.

She started out life in a difficult place. She was abused by a man who cut off part of her tail and broke the remaining bit (leaving it to look like a shepherd's crook for the rest of her days), then gave her to children who repeatedly threw her against a wall for fun. A woman saved her, brought her to the vet's office. I walked through a monsoon which poured sand from the Gobi desert to meet her, and despite the fact that I had wanted a dog, I fell in love the moment we met.

When I adopted her, I held her for hours at a time--she was starved for love and attention. I was allergic. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, but it didn't matter because she was mine.

Catastrophe was the pickiest eater that ever was. She loved food and wouldn't eat anything for longer than a month. The exceptions were manicotti shells, Popeye's Chicken, Twizzlers and bread. These she couldn't get enough of.

Her eyes twitched from brain damage, she drank boiling water and she watched the ceilings as if she could hear God.

She was always up for a game of tag. She had a love affair with my history textbook when I was in sophomore year of high school. She thought it was brilliant to hide in curtains and play in boxes too small for her. She loved to eat plastic. She got lost in the dark, was afraid of crickets, silverfish and spiders, and always tried to take my dad's chair at the dinner table.

She followed me everywhere, tried to save me from showers, scratched at the door if I was on the other side without her.

She always came to you if you cried. She didn't know how to do anything but love.

She was loved by my entire family. We will always love her, we will always remember her and we will always miss her.

I'm going to London!

In a month, so it'll be a while before anything of interest happens on the English front, but it's still ever so slightly my reason for life right now. I fly into London, take a train and spend a wonderful weekend with one of my very best friends at Oxford. Sleeping on her floor for free. Yay for freeness.

Life's been kind of put more or less on hold lately because both of my banks are acting idiotic. One more or less doesn't acknowledge me as a customer (aka, doesn't let me sign in online) and the other has frozen but un-frozen but hasn't really my account. Woot! I've been literally penniless for a week now, but I finally have 50euro of my very own! I'm doing a happy dance for Bank of America!

I spent an amazing weekend with my Italian class in Umbria. We stopped in Cortona, Assissi, Spoleto, Orvieto--I think that was it, but I'm not entirely sure. I will put pictures up of the utterly breath-taking views, but unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries half-way through the trip, so there aren't as many pictures as there could have been. (I would have bought more batteries, but I had no money for some reason...)

I descended the 258 stairs down the St. Patrick Well, which is only named for St. Patrick because it resembles caves in Ireland (I think possibly I maybe got through the Italian text?) The views were spectacular, but even I'm getting tired of words like this. Breath-taking, beautiful, pretty even. I need to find new synonyms.

My art restoration class went into the church at Santa Croce. I feel like it's really the only place I've seen any hint at the flood (whose anniversary is coming up Nov. 4). You can see the water line on the walls, the paintings are still undergoing restoration (which made it ideal for my art RESTORATION class). It's amazing how high the water got. Ah, memories of New Orleans houses.

If my banking gets sorted, I have an incredibly free weekend at the end of the week. Pompeii sounds like a good place to head (if it stops raining.) We shall see.

Pictures soon!

I'm More Interested in Tuffa Than Spike Lee

To start, here's the fabulous picture of Spike Lee (and son?) that I took:

This was at the Italian premier of the Miracle at St. Anna, which my school ever so kindly arranged for its students to attend. The movie was very good, although it was dubbed in Italian so I really only understood half the words. (Nothing like jumping in feet first?)

It's funny, because I look in the newspapers and see them making this big deal about how outraged Italy is at the film having been made. Not a single Italian I've talked to about it has a problem with it. It's historical fiction and everyone knows it.

That was two weeks ago or so. More recently, I made a trip to Siena with my art history class. The town is amazing--completely beautiful with ancient brick buildings and an extravagant church, but I'm glad I'm studying in Florence rather than there.

Most exciting in my nerdy opinion is that I got to not only see a tuffa wall, but touch it. (Tuffa is an incredibly important stone in the history of Roman architecture. When dry, it's rock-hard, but when wet, you can cut it like clay. Much architectural progress was made because of the stone's properties.) It made me think fondly of freshman year art history.

And here's the tuffa wall, if you wanted to see it:

I can currently feel the world turning beneath my feet

I've been nearly a month in Italy and classes only just started last week. I am, in fact, in both Art Restoration and Art History, and it looks like the one will couple very nicely with the other. None of my classes seem too concerned with scheduling conferences yet--a vague mention of "We'll meet on Tuesdays" from Art History is all I've gotten so far. Tuesdays look like they'll be busy.





By pure luck, I don't have class on Mondays, so it looks like I might be able to take an extended trip out to see some darling friends in Scotland and England, which I look very forward to. It also means that they can come and visit me for a weekend!

Unfortunately, having no class on Mondays means I have all three classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, one class Wednesday and one class Friday. The Duomo choir, which I got into after the audition, meets on--surprise!--Tuesdays and Thursdays. Untill 11:00pm. Even after the first day, I was too exhausted to know to get off at the right bus stop. Which means that, for me, no Duomo choir.

On top of that, the entirety of my school has gotten some kind of malicious cold. I spent most of the weekend bundled up in bed (watching Doctor Who) trying to kick it, but I woke up this morning even worse than before. Now not only do my throat, stomach, head and nose hurt, but I'm altogether quite dizzy.





SLC took us on a trip to Carrara, where Michelangelo's white marble came from. It was very beautiful--there are man-made caverns beneath the mountain and white faces of sheer rock along the mountainside. We saw marble workshops and marble sculpture exhibits. Everything was marble.

Vino Rossa o Vino Bianchi?

I've been in Italy for two weeks now, and the only class that has started is Italian. Art restoration and (hoping I don't get bumped) Art History will be starting next week. So many things have happened in the past two weeks that I can't think of a way to start; you'll have to make due with a bullet list, or else this could last forever.

*Had the longest day possible, starting at 8:00am in the US and ending at 11pm the next day in Italy
*Petted about thirty outdoor cats, much to the dismay of my classmates
*Spent four days in Pescia (here read ultimate perfection in Italian countryside)
*Saw the hometown of Pinnochio
*Climbed a Tuscan mountain (from one Tuscan town to the next)
*Witnessed a Vespa on Vespa crash
*Saw an exhibitionist Italian man on a Vespa
*Have eaten the best food the world has ever seen.
*Found that water (naturale OR frizzante, but particularly naturale) is not available unless you ask for it specifically. The availability of wine, however, is not a problem.
*Have not yet even thought to turn on my own computer (I use the school's, but only when absolutely necessary)

Mia donna's name is Giovanna. She has a husband and a thirty year old son who got married last week, and there are two other American students living in our house. Mi famiglia is the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my life, and despite their lack of English and my lack of Italian, they make me feel incredibly at home. (Giovanna and I have a date to watch House M.D., as we have established that we are both in love with Hugh Laurie.)

We live across the Arno from Florence; I see the rowers on the river every day as I cross the bridge, and it makes me realize how much I really miss sports. I have yet to get involved with anything activity-wise here, but I have an audition for the choir at the Duomo next Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. Depending on scheduling, I may even see how much joining a boat house costs. I doubt I could keep a single afloat, however.

Florence is incredible. It's raining right now, and the city is still beautiful. It's impossible to get lost, because even if you've gone down a street you've never seen before, you will inevitably run into one that you have. My school, in Santa Croce, is about twenty minutes from both the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. I'm already beginning to hate the tourists. But if that's the most of my troubles, I have to say I'm incredibly lucky. Despite my initial fears, I'd say a study abroad in Italy was the perfect choice for me.

This weekend I have a classical concert to go to, and on Sunday, a wine tasting with an Italian count. Let's see how this goes for the non-drinker. It should be fun. Everything's fun in Italy.

When you go, will you send back a letter from America?

“Don’t be precise,” said Dwalin, “and don’t worry! You will have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs, and a good many other things, before you get to the journey’s end.” –The Hobbit

My flight for Italy leaves today. While I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get online, I’ll try to put timely updates here about my year abroad, complete with pictures. This is just an introductory post so everyone knows where to look. For more interesting stories (hopefully) check back in a week or so!