This past weekend sorta feels like a week's worth of time. It's 8 pm on a Monday night and I feel as exhausted as a Thursday morning. It had ups and downs, bout 3/5 up, so not bad. Writing a paper is never an up, which took up plenty of time.
Since I have to turn my paper in tomorrow (Tuesday at 9 am) at a site visit (in town), i had to print it on campus tonight. Since the library closes at 8:30, I had to guarantee the paper would be done before that, and I did very well. Finished about 7:30, which is the earliest I think I've ever finished a paper. haha. It's all right, but boring.
Last friday I had a field trip with Fam & Gender. It went to Bagno Vignoni and then Pienza. Bagno Vignoni is pretty much a smalllll village, with the main center, or "piazza" in most cases in towns, as a Bath, or just huge pool. It was a hot spring, so was boiling so that was pretty neat to see. You can check it out on Picasa. It was very beautiful and peaceful and as always really nice to get out of Florence. I've realized the best part of field trips with this program is putting my headphones in and listening to my ipod while watching the Italian countryside pass by outside my window on the bus. I don't think there is anything better, anything more beautiful, anything more that makes me feel like me.
After walking around the bath, our Prof made a family move just so we could have lecture in the very spot she wanted to (so OCD). And that's what we did... for like two hours. At first it was really interesting, just sorta learning about the bath, how it worked, what it was for (healing, cleansing, etc), but after awhile, how could my mind not drift?? I'm in the Italian countryside, surrounded by Italian rolling hills and vineyards and farms, sitting next to a hot spring. I doodled. I cant draw, at all... but I designed a floor plan for a house, haha. Then she took us to see the fertility pool which was down the hillside a bit away from the main bath and that's where women went to, you guessed it, getttt fertillle. If a couple was having trouble having trouble, no one thought for a single instant that it could be a male problem, the blame was always placed on the woman. surprise! anyway, some women would spend forty days at the pool tryinnnnng to get fertile. pretty cool.
After that we headed to Pienza, which was like fifteen minutes away. it was kinda cool because to get to this little Italian town you had to drive like straight up a hill/mountain, and you could tell you were literally...approaching it, because it still maintains its city walls and everything... so it actually looked like a town on top of a hill.
The town itself was so adorable! I wanted to explore! there were all these cute little italian shops, and alleys, but we had an hour break for lunch and by the time we were done eating, all our time was up... we toured the church and a palazzo and left. I was angry. I get there are specific things you want me to see in these towns, but i didn't get to see ANY of Pienza, except one street.
Anyway, the place we went for lunch was really cute and actually very cheap. We all got pasta and marinara sauce for five euro and a girl and i split a 4 euro platter of cheese. Apparently Pienza is known for its cheese. Anyway, everything was delish. And I actually hung out with three girls that I enjoyed the company of, so that was VERY nice. two of them live in my apartment,.... I just think the cooler people here keep to themselves while the others are obnoxious.
After touring the church and the palazzo there (famous for Pope Pius II living there at some point), we left. The point was to see a town that really maintains the Renaissance feel and architecture of the time... and we saw jack squat. I had a really good time, but not because of the field trip itself.
Saturday I broke down and did laundry. I was down to two pair of underwear and said.... Becca.... It's time..
[random side note: Beccare means "To Peck" in italian, making Becca He/She/It pecks. haha]
laundry took from 10:30 am until 7ish that evening. and then the stuff hanging in my room to dry I just took down today. I only got in a fight with one girl (totally not my fault, dont leave your dry laundry in the drier for three hours with the machine turned off and maybe I wont split move your clothes to on top of the drier), turned two white tshirts blue (my clara one. :( ), and turned one pair of underwear pink. Italians are so ridic about being resourceful, you pay for bags, they dont believe in driers... but i dont think they understand that if you had a 1/2 hour wash cycle and a 1 hr dry cycle, youd say SOOOO much energy than a 3 hour wash cycle and a 6 hour dry cycle. I'm serious.
that.....my friends, was laundry in Italy. Jealous? Yeah, i didn't think so. I miss taking four washers and then four driers and being down after 2 hours at duke!
Meanwhile, I caught up on readings for writing my paper and planned my paper. That night when Catherine got back from a field trip she went on to Genoa, we went to Grom (Because they have new October flavors! YUUUUMMMM i got ricotta and fig, vaniglia from madagascar, and something with hazelnuts.) the ricotta and fig was baller. we just walked around and then booked another hostel. We're completely booked hostel-wise for ALL our planned trips, Dublin, London, Barcelona, Fall break, etc. Allllll set. so glad thats all taken care of.
Then sunday was a ton of fun. We got up super early and went to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. Opera means work, by the way, not opera. Anyway, this museum is located right behind the Duomo, since we were early we went and got Becca a coffee because she was gonna die. Then we went back. It was one of our favorite museums so far:
-It's actually located on the site where Michelangelo caved the David, but the museum is dedicated to the Duomo....over time. This means it has all sorts of stuff from the original building, and then pictures of how the duomo changed over time.
-There was this really weird statue of the madonna with glass eyes that was originally on the top of the duomo, and it was the creepiest thing ever.
-and then we saw this incredible sculpture by Michelangelo called Pieta' Bandini, which is of Christ slithering from the grasp of Nicodemus. It was supposed to be Michelangelo's Tomb Stone, the face of Nicodemus bears his image (they had a picture of him right next to it so you could compare, haha), but apparantly he went crazy, and got really frustrated by the piece and smashed Christ's left arm, and you can still see where it's messed up today and then where it was left unfinished, mostly on the right side. IT WAS SO COOL, plus so ...human, you know. minus him going kinda crazy, but i dunno, when you see these incredible sculptures that are literally perfect, it's hard to remember that imperfect people made them.
-Also there was some original choir lofts by Donatello and Luca Della Robbia.
-another thing that was my favorite was a wood sculpture of Mary Magdalene by Donatello. it was the nastiest thing ever. and was an example of how donatello used naturlaism instead of like gothic-ness... her hair covered her entire body and she looked disgusting and dirty and ugly. it was so bizarre, but really cool.
-Something kinda funny: we saw this wooden seat with curved railings coming off of it and apparently it was used to carry Grand Duke Cosimo III de'Medici up the spiral steps to the top of the Dome without getting stuck. I guess he couldn't just walk up the steps but needed to be carried, haha.
-random; we saw the tiniest mosaics I have ever seen. They had a magnifying glass on top of them so you could see the tiny little squares, I have no idea how people made them.
-apparently they have bones of saints in religious paraphernalia... I tried to not look at those things for too long. gross.
-We also saw pulleys, etc that were used to helped build the duomo by lifting the materials and men. Brunelleschi was the guy who not only figured out how to build a dome that big (because people had apparently forgotten, haha), but also figured out HOW to build it... im pretty sure he was a genius.
We had a great time at that museum, after that we went and saw the Baptistry... If you look at a picture of Piazza Del Duomo/ San Giovanni, it's the smaller building next to the Duomo, but still extremely ornate, that was used for Baptisms. It was Beautiful, like everything else in europe, haha. The entire ceiling was a gold mosaic, a HUUGE jesus ("Good God, Jesus, you were so important.") then circles of different thigns: adam and eve, mary's life, Jesus's life, st. John's life, etc. it was very beautiful and catherine and i sorta just sat in there chilled, looked at it, talked, etc.
After that we climbed the Campanile! the bell tower! 420 steps.... but there were levels to stop at so I never got too winded, though my thighs were burning. at the very top there were obvi some great views of Florence, THE PRETTIEST ITALIAN CITY IN THE WORLD. and we talked to two middle aged ladies who were doing a two week tuscan bike tour but had been here for a few days before it started. they were pretty funny, and catherine I talked about how most of the people we've met sightseeing have been older women in pairs and we agreed we'd do the same when we were older. :)
After that we got lunch at Antico Noe.... we tried to go to Oil Shoppe, this panini shop everyone recommends, but we've gone three times and theyd been closed every dang time. Anyway, antico noe panini are fabulous... then we headed home because i had to write my paper.
Then the rest of sunday consisted of my writing my paper.
Other things I did this weekend: Looked into internships for next summer with Royal Caribbean, Time Out Magazine in NYC, and Anthropologie. Any of those would be HEAVEN. I also decided for some reason that now was the time to finally voice my opinion about Spring Break, "Let Hoof n Horn do something together over Spring Break, and God saw that it was good." I'm aiming for a cruise, and have ..... six people in support of it so far.... which meeeannns, that it could happen!!! dude, if just the seven of us went, it'd be the best week ever.... add in anyone else in HnH, and you have the best week ever... so either way I'm happy and keeping my fingers crossed. I found some incredible prices (I found a 7 night cruise that was 100 more than a 4 night cruise mom!) which i thought was whack, but I'm hoping to aim for a five nighter.... four night would be AWESOME of course... but theyre so short! anyway, i would seriously be happy with anything... I have a Excel spreadsheet of all the cruises I've found that I think would work. ... and dude, I'm even willing to go on a Carnival to make this happen, and that's really saying something.
thaaat was my weekend. :)
Today!
Today was also a lot of fun. Catherine and I got up early again (We like doing that, haha) and went to the Museo di Firenze com'era. That means Museum of Florence As It was. The museum is dedicated to the city's development over time, using maps, and paintings and junk. Catherine is really loving her Culture of the City class, all about urban development and how the city has changed over time, so she was dying to go, and of course, would never argue to go to a museum. the museum itself was really cute, they had models of Florence at different times and TONS of maps and pictures of what it looked like. We saw a painting of it from the 1430s, to be totally honest with you, it looks exactly the same to me. haha tan buildings, red roofs. I am proud to live in a city that hasnt changed all that teribbly much in 500 years... mostly just what's in those buildings now is different. anyway it was really neat. but the security guard followed us to every room and wouldn't stop looking at us. i almost wanted to touch a map just to see what he'd do. Like lay off man, we're just looking. anyway that was fun and then OIL SHOPPE WAS OPEN! it was really cute and super cheap and really yummy... but im still kinda bitter that theyre always closed when we go over there (during hours theyre supposed to be open, at that!) anyway i got a sandwhich that was kinda breakfast-y... it was only 11: fried egg, cheese, mushrooms, and walnut sauce. twas DELISH. and catherine got a turkey panini that was really good. then we headed off to campus.
I went to OSL (office of student life) because i had a million things to do, fax some paperwork to Duke that they need for RLHS to know that I'm allergic to everything and need AC, get a letter for my Permesso meeting this wednesday that I'd lost, and sign up for an opera by Puccini (next thursday night). I ended up hanging out in there because sign ups always fill up early and so i got there an hour before just so id make it on the list (they also only have liek 14 spots for events... usually theyre full ten minutes after the sign up time starts)... anyway, while I was sitting in there working on my works cited for my paper, I realized why the lady in there is always acting like she doesnt have the time of day for us. She has to deal with literally everyone's problems (i'd realized i counted for a couple of those that morning), but there were freshman who couldnt speak english who had lost towels and couldnt find another one,a nd people trying to sign up for all sorts of things, people who'd broken their cell phones, or missed their permesso meeting. i was getting stressed out just sitting there.
I ended up signing up for a Peruggia Pregame... which is apparently going to be eating chocolate before you go eat chocolate for a day. Julian, one of the guys in OSL and I joked around about going to give some chocolate to amanda knox.... not funny.... but really funny. finally i got out of there, went to get some work done, went to italian watched a girl act like a five year old in front of our professor, and then finished my paper and came home!
up this week:
-tomorrow night catherine and I are going to a party/ball thing at Palazzo Strozzi. There's an exhibit we get into free there and food and whatnot. It's probably gonna be a lot of italians, but I'm excited because we get to go to a museum... at night.... dressed up. :) should be lots of fun. :)
-I have a hardcore assignment for italian. Wednesday we're meeting in the center to talk to Italian students at the University of Florence. we have to ask them a whole bunch of questions about what they like to do, etc. and then on Thursday we have an in class oral where we talk about ourselves for two minutes and then we have to write a written assignment on the italian student we met the day before. I've learned so much ....but still very basic... italian since I've been here.
-Tons of rehearsal: Our show is not this wednesday, but next, OCT 13th!!
-Permesso meeting on wednesday: to be honest, I cant really explain what this is to you. All i know is that it is yet another meeting i have to go to in order to have permission to be here until December 17th... Why it's occurring one month after me being here, I couldn't tell you. Why it's occurring at 8 am at a location 15 minutes of a walk from here, I couldn't tell you either. Maybe I'll know more after I go... but i had to get passport photos for the second time done here. Why didnt they do a better job of saying: Bring 85 passport photos with you when you come??? although the Italian size for passports is smaller than ours... i dunno....
-this weekend we have rehearsal all day on friday, but we're gonna try to go to Cinque Terre on Saturday.
Okay, I'm all caught up. it's much harder to blog here than it was when I was in london with duke. Lots more work, haha.
Con Amore,
Becca
p.s. i found another thing I wont miss about florence: smoking, GAH. i cant breathe!!!
