Art History

Vesuvius from Sorrento

Puppets (Mantova)

Pisa

Calcio

Milan

I have recently taken to resetting the high-scores on Minesweeper with the names of the classes' work that I'm avoiding while playing. There's a few Italian scores, but the majority of the scores are set by Art History. Updating my blog is no different. I have two very simple, very short papers to write for class tomorrow, but I simply cannot bring myself to do them.

So I'll update anyone who cares to know on the current aspects of my life instead.

Since the trip to Viareggio, I have been to Milan (and two smaller cities outside of Milan that are so tiny that I can't remember their names), a partita di calcio, Pisa, Mantova, Napoli, Pompeii, Herculano, Vesuvius and Sorrento.

These were all amazing trips. Milan, unfortunately, failed to impress as the point of going was to see infinite examples of Futurism (which I think of more as a paint-filled-sneezing-period than art....) But each of the others was incredibly fun.

At the partita, the game was between Florence and Palermo. My Italian prof knew all of the words to each of the chants and fight songs and battle cries, so it was great fun watching. The fans from Palermo were caged--literally caged--and when Palermo won, we saw why. Florentines wouldn't have minded killing their own team after they lost, let alone killing the Palermians for having won.

Pisa was a day trip that I decided to take spur of the moment. Although I've been told that it's a boring city, I had more fun than I've had in a really long time. I bought the ticket for the Duomo, Basilica, Cemetario, Opera dell Duomo and Museo di Sinopie. Each was more amazing than the last, and the Sinopias will be very useful for conference. It cost 15euro to climb the leaning tower, so I decided against that, but it was an impressive monument from the ground at least!

Mantova was a school trip for art history; there we saw Montagna's frescos and a fresco/sinopia by Pisanello which I'm looking at for conference. It was quite amazing, but the best part was when two girls from the school found hand puppets in a market and spent the rest of the trip doing funny voices. Priceless entertainment.

And then we have Napoli. Napoli, Pompeii, Herculano, Vesuvius and Sorrento. I can't describe how perfect this trip was. I left on Friday and got back at 3:00am Monday morning. Everything was ideal. I achieved a life goal in seeing Pompeii, saw art I never thought to see in person in Napoli, overcame my phobia of volcanos by climbing up a dangerous one known to destroy cities once in a while, and met some of the nicest people (one Brit, two Brazilians and a Californian). Then to top it off, I went to the beach. Perfect. Perfect perfection.

This Sunday I'm flying to London to meet my parents, and then it's two blissful weeks of spring break in a country where they speak English. Life couldn't get any better.

And now to my papers.