Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Well hello there!

Well, I suppose its time for another update.

I can’t believe how fast this is all going. I just realized it’s been two weeks already since I returned from Italy. How is that possible? These past two weeks have been crazy. The Thursday before last, my parents came into town for a few days, which was amazing. They are way too good to me. I don’t know what I did to deserve them, but I like it. We had four fabulous days together and I miss them a ton. I also have to admit that I’ve been in quite a funk since they left. It’ll pass. I’m too busy for it to not pass.

Class has been interesting; we’ve had quite a bit of it lately. Last Wednesday was Marketing day, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like dying just a little inside. I actually understood what was going on, contributed to group work and even initiated a little. I’m embarrassed to say that I may have enjoyed it just a little. I’ve been doing quite a bit with my Intercultural Research Project lately, helping middle schoolers/high schoolers with their English homework. That can be quite boring from time to time seeing as they don’t always have English work to do and I just sit there awkwardly while they work with other people on their math and history homework.

In other news, I mysteriously injured my foot last weekend and have been suffering from complications all week. My foot swelled to be twice its normal size, sandwiching together all of my toes and causing major sock indentations on my ankle. It was so big by the end of the week that I couldn’t even stuff it into a single shoe I have here, other than my hiking boots. As Kelly says, I’m rocking the “rustic-chic look” with my sweaters and clunky hiking boots. I’m too scared to go to a doctor, so I’m trying the good old ICE method… Ice, Compression and Elevation. As a result of ICE, I’m bored out of my mind. I’ve watched 4 movies in the last 24 hours and eaten more than my share of chocolate (literally; I ate some of Sarah’s and Kelly’s too).

Thursday was the unveiling of 2006’s Beaujolais nouveau, so M. and Mme. Faure invited us over to their apartment for a tasting. I’m not gonna lie: it’s pretty bad, which is the general consensus amongst French people. Despite the fact that nobody likes how it tastes, in recent years the Beaujolais nouveau has become a commercial holiday in France and everybody drinks the stuff anyway. M. Faure I think just wanted us to drink with him. He always does this to us because he thinks we speak so much better when we drink (which we do). It was a fun evening. I like the Faures.

Sometime last week I had an encounter that I think is worth sharing. Actually, I had two encounters which are worth sharing. The first one was slightly terrifying. Sarah and I were walking up towards the cathedral, doing some shopping when we ran across a group of 5-6 guys in their 40’s wearing leather jackets, cut-off shorts, tennis shoes, and ponytails with skull caps. To my surprise, I kind of accidentally only somewhat discretely blurted out in English (?? Where did I learn to write like that?) “Are those guys FRENCH?” to which they turned around and were like “HEY, are you girls AMERICAN?” Shit. Turns out they were two heavy metal bands from the U.S. touring Europe, making a pit stop in Cl-Fd for the bus drivers on their way from Spain to Germany. They said the names of their bands but I wasn’t listening because a) I didn’t care and I don’t like heavy metal so I wouldn’t have known anyway, and b) I was trying to figure out an escape route. At any rate, you could tell that they thought they were pretty important stuff. God they were so obnoxious. They were making such a scene and they wanted to keep talking when Sarah and I wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction, especially when they asked what we were doing that night. It was terrifying, and they were such idiots. “Yeah, this is my 15th time touring Europe. Every European city is the same,” one of the guys said while we were standing in front of the cathedral. I so badly wanted to say to him “Oh yeah? And did you know this cathedral is black because it was built from volcanic rock? What an idiot.

My other incident worth mentioning happened on Thursday. I was in the middle of trying to print something out in a giant hurry before class when I heard the most special pick up line ever. I busted open the doors to the library and headed straight to the back of the room, where the printer is. On my way to the printer, I was caught off guard by a French student who had been sitting at a computer in the front of the room. He was turned around in his chair, looking at me as I charged by in a hurry. Suddenly, he grabbed his eyes and said slowly, in broken English, “My eyes hurt to see such beautiful girl.” What the hell?! I gave him a very confused look and when I finally got to the printer, what he had said finally registered and I burst out laughing. As far as lines go, that one is definitely up there. It was too hilarious. Once again, what an idiot.

That’s all for now! Love and miss you all!

Monday, November 13, 2006

PART IV: REFLECTION (Because I’m a Huge Nerd and I Can’t Help Myself)

Sorry this turned into a full fledged report. I don’t even know how to function when I’m not in school. Anyway, what an amazing fieldtrip. I learned so much on so many different levels. Aside from the amazing things I saw and did over the course of the past week and a half that brought to life what I’ve spent years learning in school, I have to say that going to Italy really put my study abroad experience in France into perspective. It was so refreshing to experience another culture and realize “Oh. Not all Europeans are the same.” I’ve spent the past two months really getting to know French culture, and having not experienced much else other that and my own culture, I started to lump Europeans into one big category. For being so geographically close to one another, it’s fascinating to me that the French and Italian cultures could be so incredibly different and not alike at all. Many of the Italians that we came across were such a lively, rowdy bunch that yelled and laughed heartily and were very warm and friendly to everyone. Almost everyone we did any kind of business with greeted us with a huge and jolly “Bonjourno!!” I half expected them to hug us or give us a giant slap on the back. On the other hand, we also observed lots of stubbornness, yelling, arguing and machoism. Not to mention the creepy guys that stared at us a little too long. Italians are very open with their emotions – all emotions – whereas in comparison, the French are so reserved and concerned about their personal privacy. A lot of them also really need to remove the stick from their lower-halves… I should stop here, but I think you get the picture without me needing to go further. I adore my host family and I like my French friends I’ve made, but let’s just say that now that I’m “home” I’m looking at French people as a whole in a different light than I was before I went to Italy, and I don’t necessarily mean this in a bad way. The French are much better than making bread than the Italians. (I’m kidding, only not really…)

I also have to add that for as lost as I felt in Italy without being able to speak a word of the language except for the names of my favorite pasta dishes, I found such comfort in hearing French being spoken by other tourists around us. I never imagined in a million years that I would think that. I found it more comforting than hearing English – American English more specifically. I think I cringed every time I heard a loud, unattractive American voice stick out in a crowd. Why are we so loud? Why do we do and say dumb and ignorant things? I was in line to board my plane in front of the quintessential Ugly American Tourist Family that you always hear about. When it came time to board the plane, everyone made a mad dash to the gate, pushing and shoving their way to the front of the “line”. The concept of a formed line doesn’t really exist here, and that wasn’t good enough for the Ugly American Tourist Family. This is sadly how the scene unfolded, and I’m not exaggerating in the slightest:

“This is UNFAIR!” whined the twenty-something year old daughter. “How can they get away with that? We were there first!”
“I don’t know, but this would NEVER happen in AMERICA”, the father yelled, raising his voice above the crowd towards the end of his stupid sentence.
“I’m gonna go YELL AT SOMEBODY!” cried the daughter.
“Oh yeah, and who are you gonna yell at?”
“I don’t know, SOMEBODY” she whined. “This is UNFAIR!”
“This system doesn’t work. This is unacceptable” he restated.
“So what are we supposed to do? Just SHOVE ourselves up there like THEY did? I want to sit with you guys” she continued to whine.
“NO. WE DON’T DO THINGS LIKE THAT IN AMERICA.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt embarrassed to be American since leaving the States.
I had some interesting experiences with some British folk as well, but seeing as I’m not British, I should probably bite my tongue. I justify talking about Americans the way I do because a) I am one, and b) I’m lamenting for my people. I probably did some dumb and ignorant things myself, and I accept that, but at least I’m learning and I can see the difference.

Anyway, the gelato was amazing.

Well my friends, if you hung in there until the end, I thank you, and even if you didn’t I still thank you. Like I said, I don’t kid myself about being long-winded. Hey, at least you got to experience all of Italy’s finest for a lot cheaper than I did. If you ever get a chance to go, you’ll at least now know what to look out for. I wasn’t kidding about the gelato.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

PART III: VENICE

PART III: VENICE (Wednesday – Friday)

Venice was a breath of fresh air. After checking off a list of places to go and things to see in Rome and Florence, we arrived in Venice without an agenda, and it was fabulous. It was dark already when we arrived on Wednesday evening. The train basically dropped us off on the water and we had to find the correct water taxi (vaporetto) to get us to the island that our hostel was on. Our hostel was a pit. It was sick. I don’t even want to talk about it. Let’s just say it was motivation to get the hell out every morning and to stay out until curfew every night. We explored the main island a little bit that night and then headed straight to Murano the next morning, where we saw a few glass blowing demonstrations and bought a lot of glass. We returned to the main island and proceeded to get lost in the tiny streets and numerous canals of Venice. We didn’t buy a map in Venice. We just wanted to get lost. We shopped for a while that day; I bought a Venetian mask, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. We were propositioned for a gondola ride, but we denied it even though the gondolier brought the price down from 80 E to 60. Our pockets were already feeling a little too light. We saw San Marco briefly – the hordes of tourists were terrible. We then took an elevator to the top of the Campanile (San Marco’s bell tower), which is the location where Galileo tested the first telescope. The view was yet again astounding, and we made an American friend…an older woman from New York who was desperate to talk to someone. We received the condensed version of her life story from the time we got in line until we rode the elevator back down. She scolded us for learning French instead of Chinese, which I thought was hilarious at the time, but now that I’m back, I’m starting to think she was right. Other than being overly ignorant, loud, and offensive, she was pleasant.

The following day, Friday, we explored the Peggy Guggenheim museum. It was weird to end a week of Italian renaissance masterpieces with a bit of modern art, but hey, when in Venice… Her collection included pieces by Picasso, Pollock, Kandinsky, and Dalí. It was pretty different, but very educational, nonetheless. That night we hopped a plane to Paris, but as with all of our experiences with public transportation on this trip, it wasn’t without a mishap. To make a short but embarrassing story shorter, let’s just say we ended up at the wrong airport and had to pay yet another 60 E taxi ride to get to the proper airport before our flight took off. No worries. Someone here is a stickler for leaving way too much margin for error in her travel plans because she knows herself extremely well, therefore we still ended up being 90 minutes early for our flight. I am a Topping after all. We don’t travel without situations. We got into Paris late that night and headed back over to Kelly’s cousin’s apartment. The next day we wandered around a little, ending up at Montmartre on the steps of Sacre Coeur. We lazed around all of Sunday until catching our train back to Cl-Fd, and now I’m here, wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

PART II: FLORENCE

PART II: FLORENCE (Sunday-Wednesday)

Sunday, we took a train from Rome to Florence, which was by far my favorite of the three cities we visited. We checked into our hotel immediately, which was surprisingly very agreeable. It was student run, which originally gave me pause, but the place was clean, breakfast was included, and it was in a good location. After dropping our bags, we ran to the Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David – the beauty that he is. Once again, textbooks just don’t do him justice. The Accademia is quite small, but included some other really beautiful works by Botticelli, Lippi, and Alloti as well. It also included a small instrument museum, which included a Stradivari violin and viola from the Medici Quintet. Dinner that night was amazing. We went to a place recommended to Sarah by her summer employers. Unfortunately, the meal cost us 50 euros each (ouch, and never again). Fortunately, our waiter, Antonio, was adorable. We spent three hours in the restaurant, and I’d be lying if we didn’t order dessert and then coffee just to stay a little longer. Antonio was very funny and enjoyed practicing his English (and charm) with us, even though he was a bit self-conscious about it. I think we were all blushing (even him). He was incredibly sad that we were leaving so soon and invited us back for drinks before we left, but our injured wallets (and better sense) prevented us from doing so.

The next day, we started off early at the Bargello museum, where we saw Donatello’s Davids, Giambologna’s Winged Mercury, and Brunelleschi and Ghiberti’s bronze competition panels for the baptistery doors (Ghiberti won), among other things. Next was Palazzo Vecchio, or Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s palace, which is now the mayor’s office. The palace is beautifully frescoed by Vasari and also served as the original home of Michelangelo’s David. We also explored the Loggia dei Lanzi, which is an outdoor sculpture garden in Piazza della Signoria, which is where Palazzo Vecchio is located. We ate lunch that day on the steps of the Duomo. While the Duomo’s exterior is beautifully ornate, I thought the inside was surprisingly quite plain! I guess it would have to be to counter the red, green and white marble plus frescoes on the outside! On our way to Santa Croce, we stopped and checked out the niches of Orsanmichele. Santa Croce was unfortunately undergoing some restorations on the inside and therefore we didn’t get the full effect, but we still got to see the final resting spots of some pretty big names, including Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelle, Rossini, Alberti, and Galileo. Not to mention the artwork covering the walls by Vasari, Donatello, Allori, Gaddi, Bartolini, Volterrano, and Giotto. How do you even describe a place like that? Oh, I’m forgetting something. Being the largest Franciscan church in the world, Santa Croce also contained the robe and girdle of St. Francis himself. Afterwards, we took my brother’s suggestion and instead of paying to climb to the top of the Duomo, we crossed the Arno and made the treck up to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset. That was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, my camera crapped out and I have nothing to show for it, except for a crappy picture I took on my cell phone. After the sun went down behind a hill, we kept heading uphill until we came across San Miniato al Monte, one of Florence’s oldest churches. We happened to get there at just the right time because as we walked around this old, dark, frescoed church, we were able to hear the haunting chants of monks coming from the back of the church. These guys were pretty serious. By the time we left the church, the sunset had been replaced by a beautiful night sky marked with city lights. We worked our way back down to the water and walked along the Arno for a while, exploring Ponte Vecchio and its environs. Eventually we made our way over to a restaurant recommended by Sarah’s guidebook. It was a small neighborhood trattoria that gave you four choices for each course and that’s it. There was no menu; the owner was our menu. It was amazing.

The next day was devoted entirely to the Uffizi and nothing else. It took us all day, but we saw every piece of art in the building. Among the masterpieces were Botticelli’s Primavera and Birth of Venus, as well as a whole bunch of Annunciations, Adorations of the Magi, Pietàs, and Madonnas with child by everybody and their brother. I think I saw 75% of the world’s greatest works of art in one week.

The next morning, before catching our train to Venice that afternoon, we ran over to Palazzo Pitti – yet another Medici palace. We walked through the Appartamenti Monumentali, which are rooms furnished with portraits, chandeliers and tapestries from the time of the Medici. We saw the Galleria Palatina, which included more Italian Renaissance paintings (surprise!), and then finished up at Pitti with the Galleria d’Arte Moderna.

PART I: ROME

Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: I decided to break this very very long post into a couple different ones. I got a little carried away. I realize that nobody has this kind of time to read, but I couldn't stop writing.

Disclaimer: This has potential to be a very long post. I’ll try my best to give the condensed version, but as a warning, I tend to be very long winded… (No way!) I suggest that you grab a snack, get comfy, and prepare to go to Italy.

PART I: ROME (Wednesday-Sunday)

Kelly, Sarah and I took the night train to Paris last Tuesday evening and stayed the night at Kelly’s cousin’s apartment. Our plane to Rome was the following night, so we spent the day in Jardin Luxembourg and pretty much just wandering around Paris in total anticipation for our trip to come. To make a long and not particularly interesting story short, we flew Ryanair and arrived in Rome at around midnight. We were whisked away by a taxi driver who spoke no English at all and who proceeded to get us lost, running the meter all the while. When the meter reached 60 euros, we told the taxi driver to pull over and we’d have our friends come pick us up (we stayed with my roommate from Kalamazoo, Whitney, and other K people studying in Rome). I was so pissed and I didn’t even know the right words to tell the guy so. We couldn’t argue the price, so we bucked up and paid it, even though my roommate and her housemates told us that they’ve never had a taxi driver who didn’t know how to find their apartment, and that the flat rate from the airport to their apartment is 30 euros. We made it to the apartment at around 1 am and stayed up talking with our friends, which was unfortunate because they had midterms the next morning… They must love us :)

The next day, Kelly, Sarah and I decided to attack ancient Rome. This included the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill. I could have spent much more time exploring all three places, but that was enough to fill an entire day. The following day, we hit the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps, Via Condotti (home of all Italian designers), Via del Corso (much less expensive shopping), the San Callisto catacombs of the Appian Way, as well as San Giovani in Appia, a church just outside of the old city walls. Saturday was devoted to the Vatican. Sarah, Kelly and I were joined by most of the K kids studying in Rome, which was really fun, especially since they were mostly Classics or Art History Majors. The first thing we did was hit the museum where we saw just the beginning of all the renaissance masterpieces that we would see during the week! This included walking through the Pinacoteca (Picture Gallery), the Raphael Rooms (which included The School of Athens), and of course, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. It’s amazing when you see pictures in textbooks, but when you see the chapel in person you realize that someone actually painted it with their own two hands, or in Michelangelo’s case, lying on his back, several meters off of the ground. Now that’s a labor of love. All I have to say is, not bad for someone who didn’t want to paint it in the first place. I guess when the Pope asks you to paint his chapel you don’t deny him, even if you consider yourself a sculptor first. Afterwards, Sarah, Kelly and I headed to St. Peter’s, which is equally captivating. We spent some time in the basilica, toured the tombs, and then climbed the 545 steps to the top of the cupola for a fabulous view of the city. Thus concludes Rome.