I left the blog on a sour note, but I would just like to take this moment to sit down and say a few nice things about the program before I continue my onslaught of disparagement.
I said it once and I’ll say it again. This home stay program is UNbelievable. I’ve heard one complaint about host families but that was from a psychotic, racist whore in my women’s studies class so her opinion doesn’t matter. The man in charge of student housing, Jim, is a wonderful fellow who is always willing to chat about anything. He loves me. He personally knows all the host families and even though the host families make fun of him about his poor Italian skills, they all like him a lot. My host Mama is amazing. She is the most genuinely kind, good-natured woman, who is full of love. When she gets excited, she uses all sorts of delightful hand gestures that I’ve never seen, but I unabashedly and unsuccessfully try to replicate later. She has been living alone for quite some time, yet she still does yard work and cleans the house with a little bit of help. Her cooking and her speaking with me has made this experience so much stronger. My speaking would be non-existent without this home stay with her.
Enough with the puppies and sunshine. After having spoken with two of my four professors about the afore-mentioned issues with classes, I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem lies more with the stupid, apathetic students than with the scatter-brained professors. These bambini are monsters. Little, slutty shit-for-brains monsters. In literally every class of the last two days, I’ve fought off the urge to get up and leave the classroom because I can’t handle the crap that goes down. Today, there was a girl giving a presentation in women’s studies. Her assignment was to read part of a book about Ganymede (young Trojan boy abducted and raped by Zeus who takes the form of an eagle) and present her findings to the class using a powerpoint presentation. I kept the lecture notes because I couldn’t believe it myself. She, of course, read straight from her lecture notes without ever looking up. The lecture notes are as follows:
Ganymedge portrayed [in art] in four ways;
1) the rapture of the pure human soul or intellect in the presence of divinity
2) The uplifting power of chaste earthly love
3) Delight of homosexuality
4) Disproval of homosexuality
So I can get on board with the last two, but the first two didn’t make any sense out of context like this. So my friend asked her what she meant by the uplifting power of chaste earthly love, she said “I don’t really know [stupid laugh]. That’s what it said in the book.” So I asked what # 1 meant to which she said basically the same thing.
Now where I come from, that is unacceptable. This is grounds for flunking at least the presentation, if not the entire class. It is plagiarism and it is F-ing stupid. She probably spent 2 hours on the presentation and I spent upwards of 20-25 hours. My presentation, albeit on a less interesting topic, (depictions of birth trays and wedding chests in mid 15th century Italy), required outside research and actually came to a conclusion. I was so close to screaming at her. How can you think it is acceptable to bring something like this in front of a class? She is from University of Colorado, Boulder. Enough said? There was another girl who was supposed to present on something today, but our professor forgot and she didn’t say anything, so I’m thinking she is just never going to present. I hate her so much. She is the afore-mentioned “psychotic, racist whore.” Today, we were joking around about giving a Benvenuto Cellini autobiography to our parents for a Christmas or Chanukah present. We all laughed because that would be kind of a lousy present. As the laughter was dying down, I did my best to prolong having to learn some more, so I threw out, “Or Kwanza” implying that this present would be an equally lovely gift for Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanza. This is the following dialogue. She will be referred to as PRW.
PRW: Kwanza isn’t a holiday.
Adam: I’m sorry?
PRW: Kwanza isn’t a holiday, they made it up in the 70s.
Adam: How can you say that? Are you kidding me? Just because it was created in the 70s doesn’t make it any less of a holiday
PRW: It’s a festival not a holiday
Adam: Chanukah is also a festival, does that make it any less of a holiday.
At this point, our professor cut us off so that I wouldn’t have to leap across the room and strangle her with my belt or any other piece of strangleable material (that’s a word, don’t worry). These are just a few examples of daily school life.
I’m going to Sicily this weekend. It’s going to be awesome. When I’m with my friends and not in class, life here is actually enjoyable. It is when I can distance myself from the crap of the world of the “academic side” of SUF.
All I’ve got is four more days of classes. Thank the lord! I can see the light. Then my mommy and daddy come! E fritello.
-AJC
Monday, December 8, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
howl
I don’t know if everyone out there is familiar with Alan Ginsburg’s (sp?) Howl. It’s an amazing poem filled with clever rhetoric that he uses to comment on the atrocities of society in the 60s when he was a young Beatnik. Well, what I am about to give to you is a less poetic, less rhetorically demanding piece of “poetry” where in I comment not on the problems with society but on the problems with Syracuse University in Florence: SUF. Enjoy. Parental advisory is advised. Sensitive ears turn away.
I am fucking sick and tired of all this bullshit. It’s official, we have hit the one month remaining on the program and I regrettably find myself counting down the days because never in my life have I ever been so upset with an educational system. Before I begin, I just want to say that I didn’t come on this program to do homework with all of my spare time. No one in their right mind would want to do that with an entire semester living in a country abroad. No. But, I did expect some sort of mental stimulation. Sometime. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to go to class and be challenged. To sit down and have one of those amazing days where you are riveted because your mind is being blown and you have to sit and think out paradoxes or some other problem. But the fact that I feel that I haven’t gained any useful skills, and possessed but a small amount of extra knowledge gained is inexcusable. I have spent my last two years at Whitman College being bombarded with unbelievable amounts of stress and homework. I study for hours for exams and get Cs and Ds. I spend days on a paper, producing something I am so proud of, to find myself barely pulling through with a B. I have gotten used to finishing at the bottom of each of my classes because I am surrounded with students who WANT TO LEARN. Want to learn. Who would want to learn anything while studying abroad? That is the general attitude of the students and the classes match that attitude to the t. Students skip weeks of class on end and it doesn’t matter because they know that they don’t need the lecture material to succeed in the class. I know this too, but there is some scrap of, let’s call it self-motivation in me that prevents me from being able to skip classes and pour as much effort into a class as I can physically muster. It sucks. I wish I wasn’t that interested in my education, but I just can’t help it. I feel that since I am paying some exorbitant some of money to come learn here, I could at least be learning something. As it stands, I have lost a semester of my Whitman education by coming to Italy. On paper, it would appear that I could have some of my semester salvaged through my extra-curricular activities: basketball, soccer, the play. Well, I ended up having to stop playing basketball with the team because the play takes up too much of my time. This would be okay except the play is a godforsaken joke and the time I spend there is like having teeth pulled. And I feel terrible for saying that because our director is such a sweet man, he’s just terrible. He talks and talks and never lets us just act. He gives us line readings every two seconds and does everything they teach you in high school directing that you shouldn’t do. But he is a brilliant man (PHD from Yale!) and you can’t deny his passion for the theatre. It just needs to be re-assessed. School is terrible. This rehearsal process is gearing up to be the worst play I’ve ever been a part of (and I’ve been a part of some pretty shitty plays). The question is whether or not I have gained anything by being in Italy and living amongst Italians for two and a half months, and I think the answer is yes. Which is the only reason I’m not packing my bags and heading home. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my favorite part of this experience so far is the home stay. My host mama makes some bomb-ass food. Incidentally, tonight was pizza night again and I almost passed out with joy and contentedness. My home stay and my seven amazing friends are what keep me going. But this monologular (that’s a word, don’t worry) complaint of mine is supposed to be completely negative, so let me keep ranting (you thought I was almost done, didn’t you? Suckas!)
But back to the students of this program. I have never seen such disrespectful, idiotic and scantily clad young people in my entire life. This makes me sound like an old man, I realize, but I am an old man at heart. There’s this problem with girls in leggings. Tights. That’s all they’ll wear on their bottom halves. With Uggz (a kind of expensive, fuzzy boot that is kind of like wearing rubber-soled socks) That is not clothing! You need to wear a pair of shorts or a dress or a skirt over leggings! Stick me in a red elephant costume and call me a conservative, but last time I checked it wasn’t a competition to see whose outfit would get ruined first in rain and wind storms (which, by the way, we do have here). They sacrifice comfort for proximity of visibility of genitals. Which is weird. You can’t wear that to school! Then they get surprised when they get a cold. Case study part I. There’s a girl in a class of mine, who personifies this above-mentioned fashion statement. We’ve been in class for two months now and she still can’t count to 10 in Italian. She can’t read Italian to save her life. She rocks the leggings senza pantaloni (as we say in Italia). I don’t want to go on because it’s starting to make me sad and angry again, but the point is, how can you NOT BE ABLE TO SAY ANYTHING OR UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IN ITALIAN AFTER TAKING A CLASS FOR 2 AND A HALF MONTHS. That is unforgivable. The worst part is that there are two other students roughly at her level of Italian and they never stop to ask questions because they don’t care. They don’t care at all about learning Italian! How!? How is that possible!?! Why are you here!? Leave! You don’t deserve to be here. Stop wasting everyone else’s time. The problem is, that is roughly half the students here. Half of the 280 students. They manifest their ignorance and rudeness in other ways too, which include rudely talking back to teachers, “going to the bathroom” three times in one class and just never going to class on Thursdays, among others. Everyone here sucks. This makes my small group of friends more special and more important in maintaining my sanity.
As I said before, it sucks that because of, in my eyes, a huge failure on the part of SUF, I want to go home. Maybe academics shouldn’t be that important on a study abroad program, but they are to me and I feel cheated. That’s the bottom line. If I was on a program where all the people there wanted to do more than go to Octoberfest and ride roller coasters drunk out of their minds, I may be enjoying myself better. As it stands, school here sucks.
That’s all I have to say. Reflect on my wisdom.
-AJC
I am fucking sick and tired of all this bullshit. It’s official, we have hit the one month remaining on the program and I regrettably find myself counting down the days because never in my life have I ever been so upset with an educational system. Before I begin, I just want to say that I didn’t come on this program to do homework with all of my spare time. No one in their right mind would want to do that with an entire semester living in a country abroad. No. But, I did expect some sort of mental stimulation. Sometime. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to go to class and be challenged. To sit down and have one of those amazing days where you are riveted because your mind is being blown and you have to sit and think out paradoxes or some other problem. But the fact that I feel that I haven’t gained any useful skills, and possessed but a small amount of extra knowledge gained is inexcusable. I have spent my last two years at Whitman College being bombarded with unbelievable amounts of stress and homework. I study for hours for exams and get Cs and Ds. I spend days on a paper, producing something I am so proud of, to find myself barely pulling through with a B. I have gotten used to finishing at the bottom of each of my classes because I am surrounded with students who WANT TO LEARN. Want to learn. Who would want to learn anything while studying abroad? That is the general attitude of the students and the classes match that attitude to the t. Students skip weeks of class on end and it doesn’t matter because they know that they don’t need the lecture material to succeed in the class. I know this too, but there is some scrap of, let’s call it self-motivation in me that prevents me from being able to skip classes and pour as much effort into a class as I can physically muster. It sucks. I wish I wasn’t that interested in my education, but I just can’t help it. I feel that since I am paying some exorbitant some of money to come learn here, I could at least be learning something. As it stands, I have lost a semester of my Whitman education by coming to Italy. On paper, it would appear that I could have some of my semester salvaged through my extra-curricular activities: basketball, soccer, the play. Well, I ended up having to stop playing basketball with the team because the play takes up too much of my time. This would be okay except the play is a godforsaken joke and the time I spend there is like having teeth pulled. And I feel terrible for saying that because our director is such a sweet man, he’s just terrible. He talks and talks and never lets us just act. He gives us line readings every two seconds and does everything they teach you in high school directing that you shouldn’t do. But he is a brilliant man (PHD from Yale!) and you can’t deny his passion for the theatre. It just needs to be re-assessed. School is terrible. This rehearsal process is gearing up to be the worst play I’ve ever been a part of (and I’ve been a part of some pretty shitty plays). The question is whether or not I have gained anything by being in Italy and living amongst Italians for two and a half months, and I think the answer is yes. Which is the only reason I’m not packing my bags and heading home. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my favorite part of this experience so far is the home stay. My host mama makes some bomb-ass food. Incidentally, tonight was pizza night again and I almost passed out with joy and contentedness. My home stay and my seven amazing friends are what keep me going. But this monologular (that’s a word, don’t worry) complaint of mine is supposed to be completely negative, so let me keep ranting (you thought I was almost done, didn’t you? Suckas!)
But back to the students of this program. I have never seen such disrespectful, idiotic and scantily clad young people in my entire life. This makes me sound like an old man, I realize, but I am an old man at heart. There’s this problem with girls in leggings. Tights. That’s all they’ll wear on their bottom halves. With Uggz (a kind of expensive, fuzzy boot that is kind of like wearing rubber-soled socks) That is not clothing! You need to wear a pair of shorts or a dress or a skirt over leggings! Stick me in a red elephant costume and call me a conservative, but last time I checked it wasn’t a competition to see whose outfit would get ruined first in rain and wind storms (which, by the way, we do have here). They sacrifice comfort for proximity of visibility of genitals. Which is weird. You can’t wear that to school! Then they get surprised when they get a cold. Case study part I. There’s a girl in a class of mine, who personifies this above-mentioned fashion statement. We’ve been in class for two months now and she still can’t count to 10 in Italian. She can’t read Italian to save her life. She rocks the leggings senza pantaloni (as we say in Italia). I don’t want to go on because it’s starting to make me sad and angry again, but the point is, how can you NOT BE ABLE TO SAY ANYTHING OR UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IN ITALIAN AFTER TAKING A CLASS FOR 2 AND A HALF MONTHS. That is unforgivable. The worst part is that there are two other students roughly at her level of Italian and they never stop to ask questions because they don’t care. They don’t care at all about learning Italian! How!? How is that possible!?! Why are you here!? Leave! You don’t deserve to be here. Stop wasting everyone else’s time. The problem is, that is roughly half the students here. Half of the 280 students. They manifest their ignorance and rudeness in other ways too, which include rudely talking back to teachers, “going to the bathroom” three times in one class and just never going to class on Thursdays, among others. Everyone here sucks. This makes my small group of friends more special and more important in maintaining my sanity.
As I said before, it sucks that because of, in my eyes, a huge failure on the part of SUF, I want to go home. Maybe academics shouldn’t be that important on a study abroad program, but they are to me and I feel cheated. That’s the bottom line. If I was on a program where all the people there wanted to do more than go to Octoberfest and ride roller coasters drunk out of their minds, I may be enjoying myself better. As it stands, school here sucks.
That’s all I have to say. Reflect on my wisdom.
-AJC
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Parigi... I mean Paris - part II
The next day, Eve and Ian both had class, so I was on my own for most of the day. I headed straight to the Eiffel Tower to actually go up. After waiting in line for 30 minutes, I realized I was in the wrong line and went to go wait in another line for another 5 minutes to buy a ticket to walk up. The ascension was terrifying. I was clinging to the rail and walking very slowly the entire time. On each level, I was able to recover. I realize that I have no problem with heights as long as I can’t see down right next to me. I don’t like to be able to look straight down. I took the elevator to the top and crammed myself into the middle of all the people to get as far away from the edge as possible. The view was somewhat compromised by a low layer of fog, but it was beginning to clear up and the view was phenomenal. I can’t recall being able to see so much of a city at one time before. It was great. I was terrified, but it was great.
When I got down, I took the metro to the Maurais, the Jewish quarter and ate some of the best freaking falafel of my life. Really phenomenal. I then ate a giant Baklava and bought some challah. After wandering through various churches and parts of the city, I met up with Eve at the Louvre and we did our best to see as much as possible in four hours. Let me just say, the Louvre is the biggest freaking building I think I’ve ever seen. You could house a small country in that freaking building. Not to mention the park in front of it that we didn’t even go to. The building itself is enormous! I still can’t believe how extensive the art is there. They had everything from Egyptian Sarcophoguses to Italian Renaissance paintings to Hammurabi’s code of laws and an Easter Island head! One of the coolest parts was Napoleon III’s rooms. They re-created part of what his palace would have looked like. There were less people there, so it was sort of like a break from all the madness of the rest of the Louvre. Oh and the Mona Lisa, way more hype than it’s worth. Not that great of a painting.
After that exhausting experience, I got Kebab with Eve and had a drink with Ian before retiring for the evening. Early the next morning I left for Amsterdam. It was among the most exhausting two days I’ve ever spent in my life. But it was amazing. My French wasn’t terrible and kept getting better as the trip went on. It ruined my Italian, however, which I am still in the process of fixing. It’s cool though.
AJC
When I got down, I took the metro to the Maurais, the Jewish quarter and ate some of the best freaking falafel of my life. Really phenomenal. I then ate a giant Baklava and bought some challah. After wandering through various churches and parts of the city, I met up with Eve at the Louvre and we did our best to see as much as possible in four hours. Let me just say, the Louvre is the biggest freaking building I think I’ve ever seen. You could house a small country in that freaking building. Not to mention the park in front of it that we didn’t even go to. The building itself is enormous! I still can’t believe how extensive the art is there. They had everything from Egyptian Sarcophoguses to Italian Renaissance paintings to Hammurabi’s code of laws and an Easter Island head! One of the coolest parts was Napoleon III’s rooms. They re-created part of what his palace would have looked like. There were less people there, so it was sort of like a break from all the madness of the rest of the Louvre. Oh and the Mona Lisa, way more hype than it’s worth. Not that great of a painting.
After that exhausting experience, I got Kebab with Eve and had a drink with Ian before retiring for the evening. Early the next morning I left for Amsterdam. It was among the most exhausting two days I’ve ever spent in my life. But it was amazing. My French wasn’t terrible and kept getting better as the trip went on. It ruined my Italian, however, which I am still in the process of fixing. It’s cool though.
AJC
Parigi... I mean Paris - part I
Paris was fantastic. After all the failure with getting to the airport and getting on the plane, my internal pessimist was clawing its way out. I expected to have everything go wrong in Paris. In spite of the fact that my flight was delayed, my theatre major friend from Whitman, Ian, stuck with me and picked me up from the Metro station at around midnight. He hadn’t told me until our meeting there that he lived in a home stay, and that I’d be staying with his host family. On our program, that is strictly forbidden. But apparently it’s okay over there. I didn’t meet any of them until the next morning. I got a pullout bed from beneath Ian’s bed. It was sick.
The next morning, we woke up and got traditional French breakfast (pastry, toast, orange juice and coffee) at a little cafe and then Ian booked it to class. Meanwhile, I met up with my friend Eve whom I played with in France. We went EVERYWHERE! In the span of eight hours, we went to:
Notre Dame
The Pantheon
Sorbonne
Luxembourg Park
Champs-Elysees/ Arc de Triomphe
Eiffel tower
Les Invalides
And much much more !
They all had French names, so some haves slipped my mind. I won’t give you a break down of each individual place, but we saw some cool stuff. The line to climb Notre Dame and later, l’arc de Triomphe were too long, but I decided to go back and wait in the line for the Eiffel Tower the next day when I was by myself.
The next morning, I met Ian’s host mama. I tried to say “Thank you very much for letting me stay at your house.” What came out was pretty much a complete jumble of French and Italian that got my point across. She later told Ian she thought I was Italian! Ha! I’ll take that any day of the week. I tried to speak French with an Italian accent the rest of the trip. That first day, Eve and I saw the Pantheon (not to be confused with the Pantheon in Rome). It was full of all sorts of famous dead people, including the tombs of Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Emil Zola. There was a temporary exhibit on Emil Zola there too (in French – go figure). All the dead people were in the crypts in the bottom. On the ground floor, is an enormous, central plan structure with a gorgeous mosaic that once served as a church. Most of the walls are covered in frescoes depicting various gallantry throughout French history (Joan of Arc, and some other folks). There was also a sweet pendulum in the middle. A truly gorgeous building that should have cost me 5 euro, but Eve used her powers of guile to tell the ticket woman that we were both students of art and architecture in Paris, so we got in for free. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my travels thus far, it’s that free things are always the best things.
From there, we saw Sorbonne (which is apparently a very prestigious and famous French University) and ate baguette sandwiches in Luxembourg Park. There were flowers in bloom and birds singing and children playing with toy sail boats in the fountain. It was like a scene from a painting. So very lovely. We then made our way to the Champs Elysees where we saw a gorgeous church and then walked the entire length of the Champs Elysees, stopping only for a Crepe with Nutella (gurgly, salivating noises) and to sneak a peak at a puppet show in a park. As we walked and tried to remember all the words to the famous song, we absorbed the atmosphere and took pictures. We finally got to the Arc de Triomphe, but couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to get from the sidewalk we were on to the actual arc itself. So like any level-headed, sophisticated people would do, we decided to wait for a good moment and make a mad dash across six lanes of traffic. It was great. We didn’t even get honked at. From there, we discovered there was a seemingly secret, but in actuality, decently well-marked underground passageway to get from the arch to the other side of the street. Good to know. Probably would have been less fun anyway…
We then took metro to the Eiffel Tower, and upon seeing the line, decided to admire it from the ground. We got pictures in front of it though. That’s half the battle. We then half-walked and half-ran to Les Invalides because the skies opened up and began to pour. Les Invalides, a war veteran’s hospital/inn-turned museum, was wonderful. There were a fair amount of stained glass or something similar windows that let in a fair amount of light, but since there was this lovely rain storm, the entire enormous structure was lit mostly by the eerie glow that I later realized was coming from Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb area. His tomb is an enormous wooden sarcophagus, roughly the size of a small bus. No joke. Surrounding the tomb is a series of sculptures and reliefs depicting Napoleon as a great Roman ruler. The effect of the darkness mixed with the brightness of Napoleon’s tomb was awe-inspiring. We then went and had one of the most amazing dinners of my life.
Fondue. Not just fondue. French fondue. The way it was meant to be. Eve and I met up with Ian, and his girlfriend, Christina (also from Whitman). We paid 18 per person for:
-1 baby bottle full of wine (not exactly sure why, just roll with it) equivalent to 2 glasses
-1 glass of sweet black-current wine served with sugar on the rim of the glass and an orange slice
- 1 appetizer tray for our group of four
- 1 huge pot of fondue – enough to make us all fairly sick and still not be finished with unlimited bread
- a bowl of fruit, which we exchanged for a fancy desert at the price of just 2 more Euro
BTE. Best thing ever. We got there right as it opened. They crammed so many tables into the room that there was no space between tables and no space between the end tables and wall. Anyone sitting on the outside of the room had to step over the table. We then walked to the Moulin Rouge and the entire red light district. Very fun. From there, we parted ways and went to sleep. I was exhausted.
To be continued...
The next morning, we woke up and got traditional French breakfast (pastry, toast, orange juice and coffee) at a little cafe and then Ian booked it to class. Meanwhile, I met up with my friend Eve whom I played with in France. We went EVERYWHERE! In the span of eight hours, we went to:
Notre Dame
The Pantheon
Sorbonne
Luxembourg Park
Champs-Elysees/ Arc de Triomphe
Eiffel tower
Les Invalides
And much much more !
They all had French names, so some haves slipped my mind. I won’t give you a break down of each individual place, but we saw some cool stuff. The line to climb Notre Dame and later, l’arc de Triomphe were too long, but I decided to go back and wait in the line for the Eiffel Tower the next day when I was by myself.
The next morning, I met Ian’s host mama. I tried to say “Thank you very much for letting me stay at your house.” What came out was pretty much a complete jumble of French and Italian that got my point across. She later told Ian she thought I was Italian! Ha! I’ll take that any day of the week. I tried to speak French with an Italian accent the rest of the trip. That first day, Eve and I saw the Pantheon (not to be confused with the Pantheon in Rome). It was full of all sorts of famous dead people, including the tombs of Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Emil Zola. There was a temporary exhibit on Emil Zola there too (in French – go figure). All the dead people were in the crypts in the bottom. On the ground floor, is an enormous, central plan structure with a gorgeous mosaic that once served as a church. Most of the walls are covered in frescoes depicting various gallantry throughout French history (Joan of Arc, and some other folks). There was also a sweet pendulum in the middle. A truly gorgeous building that should have cost me 5 euro, but Eve used her powers of guile to tell the ticket woman that we were both students of art and architecture in Paris, so we got in for free. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my travels thus far, it’s that free things are always the best things.
From there, we saw Sorbonne (which is apparently a very prestigious and famous French University) and ate baguette sandwiches in Luxembourg Park. There were flowers in bloom and birds singing and children playing with toy sail boats in the fountain. It was like a scene from a painting. So very lovely. We then made our way to the Champs Elysees where we saw a gorgeous church and then walked the entire length of the Champs Elysees, stopping only for a Crepe with Nutella (gurgly, salivating noises) and to sneak a peak at a puppet show in a park. As we walked and tried to remember all the words to the famous song, we absorbed the atmosphere and took pictures. We finally got to the Arc de Triomphe, but couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to get from the sidewalk we were on to the actual arc itself. So like any level-headed, sophisticated people would do, we decided to wait for a good moment and make a mad dash across six lanes of traffic. It was great. We didn’t even get honked at. From there, we discovered there was a seemingly secret, but in actuality, decently well-marked underground passageway to get from the arch to the other side of the street. Good to know. Probably would have been less fun anyway…
We then took metro to the Eiffel Tower, and upon seeing the line, decided to admire it from the ground. We got pictures in front of it though. That’s half the battle. We then half-walked and half-ran to Les Invalides because the skies opened up and began to pour. Les Invalides, a war veteran’s hospital/inn-turned museum, was wonderful. There were a fair amount of stained glass or something similar windows that let in a fair amount of light, but since there was this lovely rain storm, the entire enormous structure was lit mostly by the eerie glow that I later realized was coming from Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb area. His tomb is an enormous wooden sarcophagus, roughly the size of a small bus. No joke. Surrounding the tomb is a series of sculptures and reliefs depicting Napoleon as a great Roman ruler. The effect of the darkness mixed with the brightness of Napoleon’s tomb was awe-inspiring. We then went and had one of the most amazing dinners of my life.
Fondue. Not just fondue. French fondue. The way it was meant to be. Eve and I met up with Ian, and his girlfriend, Christina (also from Whitman). We paid 18 per person for:
-1 baby bottle full of wine (not exactly sure why, just roll with it) equivalent to 2 glasses
-1 glass of sweet black-current wine served with sugar on the rim of the glass and an orange slice
- 1 appetizer tray for our group of four
- 1 huge pot of fondue – enough to make us all fairly sick and still not be finished with unlimited bread
- a bowl of fruit, which we exchanged for a fancy desert at the price of just 2 more Euro
BTE. Best thing ever. We got there right as it opened. They crammed so many tables into the room that there was no space between tables and no space between the end tables and wall. Anyone sitting on the outside of the room had to step over the table. We then walked to the Moulin Rouge and the entire red light district. Very fun. From there, we parted ways and went to sleep. I was exhausted.
To be continued...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
London town
Yo whaddup. Fall break part I. Commence.
My fall break began with waking up at the lovely hour of 5:15am so I could catch the second bus of the morning to the train station. I bought my train ticket to Pisa and barely caught the train. I sat next to some obnoxious, dumb, loud, still drunk, and ultimately unattractive American girls. I was able to pass out though, so life was good. After a plane ride, a bus ride and a tube ride, I finally made it to the flat I was staying at in London.
Those modes of transportation for that day were:
Bus
Train
Airplane
Bus shuttle
London Underground
I stayed with my lovely friends Sam and Alex who were both girls I met this summer while interning in Pittsfield, MA. They go to Ithaca and they graciously offered their hospitality to me way back in August even though I didn’t really know them super well. As it turned out, I even got to sleep in Sam’s bed because she was dating one of her flatmates, so they shared a bed and let me take hers. It was very sweet. Sam and Alex took me sight-seeing for a few hours that afternoon. We saw the enormous National Theatre and the Globe and we got gelato (British style – not so good, but cute anyway). Sam made dinner that first night and we went out for drinks where their other flatmates bought me drinks (Pims and Lemonade – odd yet delicious – like if a mojito and a hard iced tea had a lovechild). Then we went clubbing where I wasted a whole bunch of money on expensive, bad beer and then we all went home early. Sounds bad, but it was pretty fun. It was a wonderful night and I still can’t believe the unyielding extent to their gracious hospitality. Their 3 bedroom flat was small, but they welcomed me and I felt very much at home by the end of my three days in London. One of the flatmates is a magician (theatre major, gotta have a second profession, right?) and he kept doing all sorts of magic tricks for me, that I got endless enjoyment out of.
Day 2 began with sleeping in till around 10 and meeting my other friends, Max and Eve. I had met both of them on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Summer Seminar for High School Juniors way back in 2005. It was lovely to see them: we did some wandering and then checked out the National Gallery and played on the giant lions in Trafalgar Square. After that, I met my ex-girlfriend Kristan and we had dinner and went to see “Six Characters in Search of an Author” (we studied it in our dramatic lit class in the spring – a truly brilliant play that everyone should see if the chance arises). We had front row seats and it was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! We then met up with Max and Eve for 9 pound cocktails at a really ritzy, loud, packed bar. The cocktails were delicious, but the atmosphere was stressful.The evening ended with falling asleep at Max’s flat.
Day 3 was probably the best day of break. It became daylight savings time and after enjoying a mostly drool-free night in Max’s supermodel roomamte’s bed, (she was away on a photoshoot – no joke) we realized we still had a chance to catch the changing of the guard because of daylight savings time. We arrived slightly late, but it was raining so we were sad, wet pandas, and the royal band wasn’t playing on account of the rain. But we saw the fuzzy hat men walking. The next part was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Max is part of a “Gentlemen’s Club.” Not the traditional American meaning of the word, Gentlemen’s Club, but an actual Gentlemen’s club where you sit around and drink classy drinks and smoke and play billiards. We went for lunch and I needed to bring a suit. But I didn’t have one, so I borrowed Max’s. Now, my friend Max is about 6’3” and had just recently lost a fair amount of weight. So, rolling up my pants legs, jacket sleeves and cinching up my belt (size 37 pants – I wear 31-32), we headed out and had smoked salmon club sandwiches and Darjeeling tea in the lady’s drawing room (the only room Eve was allowed in on account of her being a woman). After that, we played in the ancient library and read about silly British sports like Cricket. Then we drank Scotch in the bar and had an amazing time. Next in the amazing day, I met up with Kristan again and she had graciously waited in line at 10 am to get more theatre tickets. This time for Tom Stoppard’s original adaptation of Chekhov’s Ivanov starring Kenneth Brannagh and Johnny Depp’s 1st mate from Pirates of the Caribbean. We had standing room tickets, and we were about a mile and a half away, but it was amazing! Horribly depressingly Chekhov, but brilliant. Kenneth Brannagh is amazing. Both plays were just 10 pounds a piece. One was from the front row and one from the back row. That evening we hung out and drank a few beers with Max’s British friends. Quite fun.
The next morning, I woke up, and had traditional British breakfast with Sam and Alex, spent the morning playing in the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs are awesome) and had lunch in a cemetery with Kristan. The events that followed were among the worst of my life. I scribbled on the back of a piece of paper on my bus shuttle to the airport because I was so caught up with emotion. It reads as follows:
Dear blog,
I am writing to you on the back of my god-forsaken EasyBus Ticket. I just spent the last 45 minutes sprinting around the Marble Arch area of London with my luggage trying to chase down various godforsaken easybuses. My GFS easybus ticket says the street name (Oxford) and the tube stop (Marble Arch). I arrive with 20 minutes until departure, only to find that there are roughly 1- stops on Oxford Street that say marble Arch and about 10 mores tops on sides treets in the surroudnig area. So I started wlaking, 10 minutes passed, I started power-walking, 5 more minutes passed, I started running. I passed the same places over and over and over again: still no GFS EasyBus! I’m running in circles, adrenaline coursing through my veins, sweat pouring down my face. I was going to miss my flight! I saw three GFS easybuses that wouldn’t stop for me. I literally almost started crying. [I tried to call the phone number they gave me on the ticket, but all I got was a recording saying various traffic reports around London.] Then finally I found a bigger bus that was stopped at one of the Marble Arch bus stops [not on Oxford Street] that said Luton Airport! Apparently they work with GFS EasyBus, so my ticket was still good. All in all, that only made me 25 minutes late to the Luton airport. I think I’ll be ok, but we’ll see. I may be in any of a number of places in any number of countries. We’ll see.
It turned out that when I got to the airport, my flight was delayed 2 hours, so all of a sudden, all that worry was for nothing. I had never felt so helpless in my life though. I had no phone number to call, no internet access, no one who knew the area and time was ticking. I asked a guy who worked at the tube, two bus drivers, and a parking ticket cop. They all pointed me in different directions, none of which is where I actually ended up catching the bus! I hate stupidity!
That’s all for London. Stay tuned for Paris. Or should I say, “On continue attendre pour la deuxieme blog“.
AJC
My fall break began with waking up at the lovely hour of 5:15am so I could catch the second bus of the morning to the train station. I bought my train ticket to Pisa and barely caught the train. I sat next to some obnoxious, dumb, loud, still drunk, and ultimately unattractive American girls. I was able to pass out though, so life was good. After a plane ride, a bus ride and a tube ride, I finally made it to the flat I was staying at in London.
Those modes of transportation for that day were:
Bus
Train
Airplane
Bus shuttle
London Underground
I stayed with my lovely friends Sam and Alex who were both girls I met this summer while interning in Pittsfield, MA. They go to Ithaca and they graciously offered their hospitality to me way back in August even though I didn’t really know them super well. As it turned out, I even got to sleep in Sam’s bed because she was dating one of her flatmates, so they shared a bed and let me take hers. It was very sweet. Sam and Alex took me sight-seeing for a few hours that afternoon. We saw the enormous National Theatre and the Globe and we got gelato (British style – not so good, but cute anyway). Sam made dinner that first night and we went out for drinks where their other flatmates bought me drinks (Pims and Lemonade – odd yet delicious – like if a mojito and a hard iced tea had a lovechild). Then we went clubbing where I wasted a whole bunch of money on expensive, bad beer and then we all went home early. Sounds bad, but it was pretty fun. It was a wonderful night and I still can’t believe the unyielding extent to their gracious hospitality. Their 3 bedroom flat was small, but they welcomed me and I felt very much at home by the end of my three days in London. One of the flatmates is a magician (theatre major, gotta have a second profession, right?) and he kept doing all sorts of magic tricks for me, that I got endless enjoyment out of.
Day 2 began with sleeping in till around 10 and meeting my other friends, Max and Eve. I had met both of them on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Summer Seminar for High School Juniors way back in 2005. It was lovely to see them: we did some wandering and then checked out the National Gallery and played on the giant lions in Trafalgar Square. After that, I met my ex-girlfriend Kristan and we had dinner and went to see “Six Characters in Search of an Author” (we studied it in our dramatic lit class in the spring – a truly brilliant play that everyone should see if the chance arises). We had front row seats and it was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! We then met up with Max and Eve for 9 pound cocktails at a really ritzy, loud, packed bar. The cocktails were delicious, but the atmosphere was stressful.The evening ended with falling asleep at Max’s flat.
Day 3 was probably the best day of break. It became daylight savings time and after enjoying a mostly drool-free night in Max’s supermodel roomamte’s bed, (she was away on a photoshoot – no joke) we realized we still had a chance to catch the changing of the guard because of daylight savings time. We arrived slightly late, but it was raining so we were sad, wet pandas, and the royal band wasn’t playing on account of the rain. But we saw the fuzzy hat men walking. The next part was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Max is part of a “Gentlemen’s Club.” Not the traditional American meaning of the word, Gentlemen’s Club, but an actual Gentlemen’s club where you sit around and drink classy drinks and smoke and play billiards. We went for lunch and I needed to bring a suit. But I didn’t have one, so I borrowed Max’s. Now, my friend Max is about 6’3” and had just recently lost a fair amount of weight. So, rolling up my pants legs, jacket sleeves and cinching up my belt (size 37 pants – I wear 31-32), we headed out and had smoked salmon club sandwiches and Darjeeling tea in the lady’s drawing room (the only room Eve was allowed in on account of her being a woman). After that, we played in the ancient library and read about silly British sports like Cricket. Then we drank Scotch in the bar and had an amazing time. Next in the amazing day, I met up with Kristan again and she had graciously waited in line at 10 am to get more theatre tickets. This time for Tom Stoppard’s original adaptation of Chekhov’s Ivanov starring Kenneth Brannagh and Johnny Depp’s 1st mate from Pirates of the Caribbean. We had standing room tickets, and we were about a mile and a half away, but it was amazing! Horribly depressingly Chekhov, but brilliant. Kenneth Brannagh is amazing. Both plays were just 10 pounds a piece. One was from the front row and one from the back row. That evening we hung out and drank a few beers with Max’s British friends. Quite fun.
The next morning, I woke up, and had traditional British breakfast with Sam and Alex, spent the morning playing in the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs are awesome) and had lunch in a cemetery with Kristan. The events that followed were among the worst of my life. I scribbled on the back of a piece of paper on my bus shuttle to the airport because I was so caught up with emotion. It reads as follows:
Dear blog,
I am writing to you on the back of my god-forsaken EasyBus Ticket. I just spent the last 45 minutes sprinting around the Marble Arch area of London with my luggage trying to chase down various godforsaken easybuses. My GFS easybus ticket says the street name (Oxford) and the tube stop (Marble Arch). I arrive with 20 minutes until departure, only to find that there are roughly 1- stops on Oxford Street that say marble Arch and about 10 mores tops on sides treets in the surroudnig area. So I started wlaking, 10 minutes passed, I started power-walking, 5 more minutes passed, I started running. I passed the same places over and over and over again: still no GFS EasyBus! I’m running in circles, adrenaline coursing through my veins, sweat pouring down my face. I was going to miss my flight! I saw three GFS easybuses that wouldn’t stop for me. I literally almost started crying. [I tried to call the phone number they gave me on the ticket, but all I got was a recording saying various traffic reports around London.] Then finally I found a bigger bus that was stopped at one of the Marble Arch bus stops [not on Oxford Street] that said Luton Airport! Apparently they work with GFS EasyBus, so my ticket was still good. All in all, that only made me 25 minutes late to the Luton airport. I think I’ll be ok, but we’ll see. I may be in any of a number of places in any number of countries. We’ll see.
It turned out that when I got to the airport, my flight was delayed 2 hours, so all of a sudden, all that worry was for nothing. I had never felt so helpless in my life though. I had no phone number to call, no internet access, no one who knew the area and time was ticking. I asked a guy who worked at the tube, two bus drivers, and a parking ticket cop. They all pointed me in different directions, none of which is where I actually ended up catching the bus! I hate stupidity!
That’s all for London. Stay tuned for Paris. Or should I say, “On continue attendre pour la deuxieme blog“.
AJC
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Fall break! Ah!
Hey all, I just got back from fall break. I'm not dead. I have a ton to blog about, but I haven't done any of it yet. Look for it some time this week. It's great to be back in Florence though!
love
Adam
love
Adam
Monday, October 20, 2008
It's been a long time since I rock and rolled now
Well my friends, it’s official. I suck at keeping up with my blog. I think it’s been a whole week and a half since I wrote you last. A lot has happened since then, but I can only keep you updated with so much.
Moral of the day: Karma (don’t be an asshole)
We went to Perusia today for Eurochocolate: a huge chocolate festival that draws people from all over Europe. All my friend were going to go to this festival today and they had booked through this company that will take care of all details for daytrips for you. They plan travel to and from, and get you access to any events you need access to. It was 38 euros for the day: this included roundtrip travel expense, (18-20 euro value) a Eurochocolate card that got us free chocolate tastings at a few stands at discounts at many more, (5 euro value) bus fare between the train station and the festival (2 euro value) and a team of guides to help us with the traveling. So when you do the math, it adds up to 25 euros, which miraculously leaves you maximum 13 euros short of the price I paid. I was reluctant to buy this because of this 13 euro gap, but with the insane amount of school work I had recently accumulated, I didn’t have time to look into train and bus tickets and all of the details. It turns out that as part of the guided traveling, they also reserve us two entire train cars (yes there were that many students going on this trip). After our day of immersion in chocolate, we were waiting at the station when we ran into some schoolmates of ours who ridiculed us mercilessly for booking through this travel company. They told us how stupid we were and what a waste of money the entire program is. This isn’t a very nice thing to say. I explained to them the cost break down and let them know that it was really only 11-13 euros that we end up paying for the labor of booking the trip and taking care of all the details so that all we had to do was show up. This seems reasonable to me. They ignored my argument and we boarded the train. They ended up sitting in our reserved train car and when we got there, our trip leaders told them they had to move. They refused. They made our trip leaders track down the paperwork saying we had the cars reserved (which we really did) and made a big fuss about it. As they were leaving disgruntled, I commented loudly to my friend, Stephanie that 38 euros sure WAS an awful lot of money. Oh well, at least I have these lovely seats to sit in. It was great. I think they just went and found other seats, but I kind of hope they had to stand for part of the journey. Karma. Gotta love it.
The chocolate festival itself was lovely. We got pudding and truffles and chocolate bars and hot chocolate and chocolate pastries and watched chocolate chess played with huge chocolate pieces. List of chocolate consumed:
+ Milk chocolate bar
+ Chocolate truffle
+hot chocolate
+chocolate pudding
+ vanilla pudding (I needed a break)
+88% dark chocolate square
+ some unknown chocolate truffle-looking thing with delicious gooeyness inside
+ Grand Marnier sample w/ chocolate square
+1/2 white chocolate-covered apple
+chocolate cookie w/ chocolate gooeyness inside
+ What looked like a sweet hotdog bun filled with chocolate and topped with whipped cream
Now I have a tummy ache
I would say it was worth the money I spent.
In other news, I did about 15 hours of research this last week for a 20-minute women’s studies presentation. I was so thorough that it ended up being closer to around 35 minutes, with interjections from the professor and discussion with the rest of the class. It went better than I could have possibly hoped for. The topic, you might ask? The changes in the styles of secular, painted wedding chests and birth trays in 16th century Europe. Riveting, I know. It was actually a lot of fun, and I would love to present my powerpoint to anyone when I see them next.
This week is midterms and I’m going to be positively swamped with work. I have three finals, another powerpoint presentation for women’s studies and a take home research/analysis essay for women’s studies. It sucks. But then, I’ll be off to London, Paris and Amsterdam for the fall break where all sorts of fun will ensue.
In brief, this is likely the last blog that will come for the next two/ two and a half weeks. Try to contain you disappointment: it’s overwhelming. I love the feedback on the blog. Thanks to all who read. Hopefully I’ll survive the next two weeks and have some wicked awesome stories. Until later, my friends.
-AJC
Moral of the day: Karma (don’t be an asshole)
We went to Perusia today for Eurochocolate: a huge chocolate festival that draws people from all over Europe. All my friend were going to go to this festival today and they had booked through this company that will take care of all details for daytrips for you. They plan travel to and from, and get you access to any events you need access to. It was 38 euros for the day: this included roundtrip travel expense, (18-20 euro value) a Eurochocolate card that got us free chocolate tastings at a few stands at discounts at many more, (5 euro value) bus fare between the train station and the festival (2 euro value) and a team of guides to help us with the traveling. So when you do the math, it adds up to 25 euros, which miraculously leaves you maximum 13 euros short of the price I paid. I was reluctant to buy this because of this 13 euro gap, but with the insane amount of school work I had recently accumulated, I didn’t have time to look into train and bus tickets and all of the details. It turns out that as part of the guided traveling, they also reserve us two entire train cars (yes there were that many students going on this trip). After our day of immersion in chocolate, we were waiting at the station when we ran into some schoolmates of ours who ridiculed us mercilessly for booking through this travel company. They told us how stupid we were and what a waste of money the entire program is. This isn’t a very nice thing to say. I explained to them the cost break down and let them know that it was really only 11-13 euros that we end up paying for the labor of booking the trip and taking care of all the details so that all we had to do was show up. This seems reasonable to me. They ignored my argument and we boarded the train. They ended up sitting in our reserved train car and when we got there, our trip leaders told them they had to move. They refused. They made our trip leaders track down the paperwork saying we had the cars reserved (which we really did) and made a big fuss about it. As they were leaving disgruntled, I commented loudly to my friend, Stephanie that 38 euros sure WAS an awful lot of money. Oh well, at least I have these lovely seats to sit in. It was great. I think they just went and found other seats, but I kind of hope they had to stand for part of the journey. Karma. Gotta love it.
The chocolate festival itself was lovely. We got pudding and truffles and chocolate bars and hot chocolate and chocolate pastries and watched chocolate chess played with huge chocolate pieces. List of chocolate consumed:
+ Milk chocolate bar
+ Chocolate truffle
+hot chocolate
+chocolate pudding
+ vanilla pudding (I needed a break)
+88% dark chocolate square
+ some unknown chocolate truffle-looking thing with delicious gooeyness inside
+ Grand Marnier sample w/ chocolate square
+1/2 white chocolate-covered apple
+chocolate cookie w/ chocolate gooeyness inside
+ What looked like a sweet hotdog bun filled with chocolate and topped with whipped cream
Now I have a tummy ache
I would say it was worth the money I spent.
In other news, I did about 15 hours of research this last week for a 20-minute women’s studies presentation. I was so thorough that it ended up being closer to around 35 minutes, with interjections from the professor and discussion with the rest of the class. It went better than I could have possibly hoped for. The topic, you might ask? The changes in the styles of secular, painted wedding chests and birth trays in 16th century Europe. Riveting, I know. It was actually a lot of fun, and I would love to present my powerpoint to anyone when I see them next.
This week is midterms and I’m going to be positively swamped with work. I have three finals, another powerpoint presentation for women’s studies and a take home research/analysis essay for women’s studies. It sucks. But then, I’ll be off to London, Paris and Amsterdam for the fall break where all sorts of fun will ensue.
In brief, this is likely the last blog that will come for the next two/ two and a half weeks. Try to contain you disappointment: it’s overwhelming. I love the feedback on the blog. Thanks to all who read. Hopefully I’ll survive the next two weeks and have some wicked awesome stories. Until later, my friends.
-AJC
Friday, October 10, 2008
Yom Kippur and more
I came to Italy to have a lot of first time experiences. Well today, I bled out of my nipple for the first time that I’ve noticed. I’ve played three soccer games and had 3 hours of basketball practice in the last four days. My nips chaffed through and I was bleeding out of my nipple. Never thought I’d be able to say that.
Also, today being Yom Kippur (Jewish holiday where we don’t eat or drink anything for 24 hours), I discovered that Italy is probably the worst place to be when you are unable to eat anything. Conversely, it’s the best place to be when you’re breaking the fast and eating again for the first time. I was walking downtown in the afternoon to check out the public library. I almost started crying when I walked by a pastry shop with the tastiest-looking pastries you’ve ever seen. The window was festively lit and people were laughing and having a great time over their pastries. It was awful. They also had delicious-looking pizza. Just thinking about that makes me hungry again, even though it’s past midnight and the fast is over. For dinner this evening, my roommate was a few minutes late, so I had to sit at the table and stare at the bowl of fresh pasta sitting in front of me. Then we had spaghetti, goat cheese spread on bread, and what I identified as spanikopita, but Giovanna says it’s Italian and it’s called something else in Italian, but it was identical to spanikopita. So tasty-good. We had a pineapple cake she made from scratch: dolce di ananas. There’s still some left too for tomorrow! I said it once and I’ll say it again, this woman knows how to make deserts. My Italian is coming along nicely. I’m the best at Italian out of the five students from our program who are on my basketball team. I talk to the guys who don’t speak English and one of the guys said today that I spoke very well! Ha! I’ve also started trying to read the newspapers and am slowly understanding more: Obama looked more impressive than McCain in the second presidential debate. They said Obama won (as if it were a game), but I’m assuming that just meant he spoke well. Don’t know.
Other news: we won the first game of the soccer playoffs. We barely beat this really good team from a school here in town. They had a player named Fabriccio, who was filthy good. Somehow I got roped into staying for the second team’s game and we have five players and lost 3-7, but I scored a goal! We played the final 5 minutes of the game with four players. It was wicked exhausting. They had a student on their team who was a semi-pro, whatever that means. Well, actually what that means is that he is unstoppable. He scored all seven of their goals. I felt less bad about the loss after I learned that.
As far as women are concerned, there is nothing and there is nothing on the horizon. I get on the bus and find women that I am in love with. It happens two or three times a day that I see the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Absurd. I don’t think I can ever leave this country. When they drive the scooters… that’s it for me. I’m sore. And tired. But not very hungry. Life is good.
-AJC
Also, today being Yom Kippur (Jewish holiday where we don’t eat or drink anything for 24 hours), I discovered that Italy is probably the worst place to be when you are unable to eat anything. Conversely, it’s the best place to be when you’re breaking the fast and eating again for the first time. I was walking downtown in the afternoon to check out the public library. I almost started crying when I walked by a pastry shop with the tastiest-looking pastries you’ve ever seen. The window was festively lit and people were laughing and having a great time over their pastries. It was awful. They also had delicious-looking pizza. Just thinking about that makes me hungry again, even though it’s past midnight and the fast is over. For dinner this evening, my roommate was a few minutes late, so I had to sit at the table and stare at the bowl of fresh pasta sitting in front of me. Then we had spaghetti, goat cheese spread on bread, and what I identified as spanikopita, but Giovanna says it’s Italian and it’s called something else in Italian, but it was identical to spanikopita. So tasty-good. We had a pineapple cake she made from scratch: dolce di ananas. There’s still some left too for tomorrow! I said it once and I’ll say it again, this woman knows how to make deserts. My Italian is coming along nicely. I’m the best at Italian out of the five students from our program who are on my basketball team. I talk to the guys who don’t speak English and one of the guys said today that I spoke very well! Ha! I’ve also started trying to read the newspapers and am slowly understanding more: Obama looked more impressive than McCain in the second presidential debate. They said Obama won (as if it were a game), but I’m assuming that just meant he spoke well. Don’t know.
Other news: we won the first game of the soccer playoffs. We barely beat this really good team from a school here in town. They had a player named Fabriccio, who was filthy good. Somehow I got roped into staying for the second team’s game and we have five players and lost 3-7, but I scored a goal! We played the final 5 minutes of the game with four players. It was wicked exhausting. They had a student on their team who was a semi-pro, whatever that means. Well, actually what that means is that he is unstoppable. He scored all seven of their goals. I felt less bad about the loss after I learned that.
As far as women are concerned, there is nothing and there is nothing on the horizon. I get on the bus and find women that I am in love with. It happens two or three times a day that I see the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Absurd. I don’t think I can ever leave this country. When they drive the scooters… that’s it for me. I’m sore. And tired. But not very hungry. Life is good.
-AJC
Monday, October 6, 2008
Aloooora
1. Introduction
2. The night of terror
3. calcetto/ big family dinner
So yesterday was a little bit absurd. The night before, Giovanna had made us amazing couscous with carrots, potatoes and fish. We also ate tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and olive oil. I’m not sure exactly what triggered the next series of events, but I was faced with the arduous task of trying not to bleed all over the white carpet (seriously, who puts a white carpet in a bathroom?) as well as trying to keep my vomit in the toilet. You see, I had skinned my knee pretty badly playing soccer earlier that day and I was going to clean it in the shower that night, but before I could, a wave of nausea hit me and I tried to go to sleep before I could vomit. That’s the “go-to” move in college. It turns out that when unrelated to drinking, that tactic doesn’t work. The last time I vomited, George Bush senior was the president, the Soviet Union was still together and the Trail blazers were vying for basketball championships. It was odd to experience that whole thing again. Not at all very fun. I would really have rather not partaken. When I was finished, I crawled into bed and decided to leave the damage report for the morning.
When I woke up, I had three hours until class, which left plenty of time to study for the quiz that I was unable to prepare for the night before. I cleaned the blood off the previously white carpet and discovered that the toilet was fine. I breakfasted, packed my bag, was headed out the door when I realized I didn’t have my keys. I went back to my room, and found nothing. I searched and searched and when I was fairly sure they weren’t in my room, I told Giovanna and she thought that maybe I had left them in the door. Since they weren’t still in the door, that could mean someone had taken them and now had the key to our apartment. If this were the case, we would need to have the apartment re-keyed as soon as possible. The keys to the doors in Florence look like the keys to medieval dungeons (Fiorentines don’t mess around with security). The long and the short of it is that I reaaally didn’t want to have to pay to have the apartment re-keyed. So after about 95 minutes of searching, I had about 30 minutes until class time and I decided to go. I grabbed my bag to check it one more time, and of course found the keys in a pouch of the bag that I didn’t know existed until this morning. I am a big genius. I was relieved and booked it to the bus to head to class. I showed up to Italian class about 10 minutes late, shared with the class that I vomited (ho vomitato ieri sera) and promptly bombed the quiz that between the vomiting, bleeding and loss of keys, I astonishingly didn’t have time to study for. I’m so upset with life at this point, that when I get to my next class where we had about 80 pages of reading that I didn’t do, I sort of shut down.
After all of that, we had our final soccer game, where I head-butted a guy going for the ball in a heart-breaking 3-4 loss. I then booked it home to try to be presentable for a dinner both of Giovanna’s sons and her oldest son’s wife and two children. They all spoke Italian and had a great time while my roommate and I sat there grinning stupidly and trying to eat whatever was put in front of us. Among the most exciting things were Chicken liver pate, fish-butter (that’s as good as it sounds), squid tentacles, spinach salad with raw fish and prosciuto on bread. I didn’t eat most of it because it wasn’t kosher, but also because my stomach was still a little upset with me from the night before and the frantic key search and the head-butting. Desert was an amazing flan served with fresh kiwi, pear, grapes, apples and tangerines. I had two servings of that and went and split a bottle of wine with a bunch of friends in front of Palazzo Pitti. It was a nice end to one of the worst days of my life!
2. The night of terror
3. calcetto/ big family dinner
So yesterday was a little bit absurd. The night before, Giovanna had made us amazing couscous with carrots, potatoes and fish. We also ate tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and olive oil. I’m not sure exactly what triggered the next series of events, but I was faced with the arduous task of trying not to bleed all over the white carpet (seriously, who puts a white carpet in a bathroom?) as well as trying to keep my vomit in the toilet. You see, I had skinned my knee pretty badly playing soccer earlier that day and I was going to clean it in the shower that night, but before I could, a wave of nausea hit me and I tried to go to sleep before I could vomit. That’s the “go-to” move in college. It turns out that when unrelated to drinking, that tactic doesn’t work. The last time I vomited, George Bush senior was the president, the Soviet Union was still together and the Trail blazers were vying for basketball championships. It was odd to experience that whole thing again. Not at all very fun. I would really have rather not partaken. When I was finished, I crawled into bed and decided to leave the damage report for the morning.
When I woke up, I had three hours until class, which left plenty of time to study for the quiz that I was unable to prepare for the night before. I cleaned the blood off the previously white carpet and discovered that the toilet was fine. I breakfasted, packed my bag, was headed out the door when I realized I didn’t have my keys. I went back to my room, and found nothing. I searched and searched and when I was fairly sure they weren’t in my room, I told Giovanna and she thought that maybe I had left them in the door. Since they weren’t still in the door, that could mean someone had taken them and now had the key to our apartment. If this were the case, we would need to have the apartment re-keyed as soon as possible. The keys to the doors in Florence look like the keys to medieval dungeons (Fiorentines don’t mess around with security). The long and the short of it is that I reaaally didn’t want to have to pay to have the apartment re-keyed. So after about 95 minutes of searching, I had about 30 minutes until class time and I decided to go. I grabbed my bag to check it one more time, and of course found the keys in a pouch of the bag that I didn’t know existed until this morning. I am a big genius. I was relieved and booked it to the bus to head to class. I showed up to Italian class about 10 minutes late, shared with the class that I vomited (ho vomitato ieri sera) and promptly bombed the quiz that between the vomiting, bleeding and loss of keys, I astonishingly didn’t have time to study for. I’m so upset with life at this point, that when I get to my next class where we had about 80 pages of reading that I didn’t do, I sort of shut down.
After all of that, we had our final soccer game, where I head-butted a guy going for the ball in a heart-breaking 3-4 loss. I then booked it home to try to be presentable for a dinner both of Giovanna’s sons and her oldest son’s wife and two children. They all spoke Italian and had a great time while my roommate and I sat there grinning stupidly and trying to eat whatever was put in front of us. Among the most exciting things were Chicken liver pate, fish-butter (that’s as good as it sounds), squid tentacles, spinach salad with raw fish and prosciuto on bread. I didn’t eat most of it because it wasn’t kosher, but also because my stomach was still a little upset with me from the night before and the frantic key search and the head-butting. Desert was an amazing flan served with fresh kiwi, pear, grapes, apples and tangerines. I had two servings of that and went and split a bottle of wine with a bunch of friends in front of Palazzo Pitti. It was a nice end to one of the worst days of my life!
Monday, September 29, 2008
My weekend in Florence
9/27/08
1. New blog format
2. All my friends left me, I’m sad
3. 5 euro sweater/ Just a taste of donkey
4. Behind the Glory: Adam Caniparoli, wine connoisseur (did I spell that right?)
5. Fortza Viola: Fiorentina soccer
1. What’s up, folks? I’ve decided to introduce a new “user-friendly” format for my blog. At the top there will be a paragraph-paragraph identification guide in case you’re in a hurry and you don’t want to read about all of my non-sensical blatherings (is that a word?). Also, I haven't written in awhile, so this is a really long blog. Maybe read it and take breaks in between sections.
2. So this weekend, all but one of my usual friends left to Venice and I was left to entertain myself. I found myself entertained with a lovely head cold for most of the weekend. But after sleeping for 30 hours over the last three nights, I’m feeling a lot better.
3. Yesterday was an outrageously exciting day. I met my friend Lauren in the early afternoon and we went to the market, Piazza Sant’Ambrogio to explore and buy stolen merchandise for prices so low, it should be ILLEGAL. It probably is illegal. I bought an awesome sweater for 5 euros and then bought some cheap fruit. It was then lunch time and we tried to eat at a number of places, but lost interest when there were too many people trying to eat there. We then wandered into a tiny little hole in the wall to try to buy some rolls that we could eat with fruit to have a sort of makeshift lunch. So using my superior Italian skills, I tried to order two rolls and the well-dressed man working behind the counter asked me (in Italian) what I wanted in it. Confused by this question, I sort of muttered and looked confused at him at which point he said a bunch of things in Italian, caught on that I spoke English and then started speaking in Italian. It turns out that what I took to be a bakery, was actually a large game shop. The options for the insides of our sandwiches were hare, wild boar, venison and my personal favorite option: donkey! We thought he was kidding when he said it was donkey meat. So I ordered venison and my friend, Lauren ordered hare, but the dude said, no no. “You must try taste of donkey.” Taste of donkey. So he gave her a donkey sandwich and he gave me a hare sandwich for some reason. In the process of all this, after we said we didn’t want anything to drink, he told us you can’t eat game without wine, so he gave us each a free glass of chianti. And the food was so good. It was in a sort of gravy and I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to would be brisket. But donkey and hare meat instead of beef. After that he brought us a bowl of grapes and then we paid, having no idea how much it was going to cost. It turns out that after the sandwiches we didn’t mean to order, the wine and the grapes, it was just 4 euros each. And then we were on our way.
4. After the market adventure, we went across the river to a big wine tasting festival to meet two of Lauren’s friends from the states. There were about 30 or 40 tents set up in three separate piazzas and each tent housed two wineries where you could taste their wine. The system is as follows: You pay 10 euros and they give you a little book on the wineries with room for notes on the different wine, a wine glass carrying pouch (it looks ridiculous, so I of course had mine on as much as possible) and a punch card good for twelve wine tastes. Wine tastes should more correctly be referred to as glasses of wine. My previous knowledge of wine tasting is you go and they give you a bout a mouthful of wine to swish around and then spit out. These people pour you whole glasses of wine! Sometimes they pour you a more reasonable amount, but usually, it was a lot closer to a full glass. And you’re supposed to be able to get through 12! Needless to say, I got through four and as we were ready to leave, I promptly dropped my wine glass on the ground in front of a church and a crowd of about 50 people. I picked up most of the glass and brought it to the place where I was issued a glass originally and got a new one. I figured it was time to go home then. On our way home we were greeted by a wine parade with men throwing flags in the air and wearing silly wine clothing. It was very cool. I went back to the wine tasting event today with my friends to try to finish off my other 10 glasses (I only got punched for two of the four glasses that I had the day before) of wine (ambitious, I know, but I love a challenge!). There were three of us, so they bought one more card and between the three of us, took down a good 15 or 16 glasses of wine. Then it was time to talk to the parents! I ate some breadsticks and drank some water, and then I was all set. It was a ton of fun and I got a wine glass out of it as well as a wealth of knowledge of Tuscan wine (This is, of course, not true. They sort of all taste the same to me.)
5. The final event of Saturday evening was the Fiorentina game. Un gioco di calico. A soccer game. Fiorentina is the Florence soccer club and apparently everyone in the entire city is a big fan. They were violet jerseys because the city flower of Florence is the violet. About 30 students from the school showed up and walked over together, led by our fearless leader, the director of the program. When we got there, we found some seats (there are assigned seats, but no one sits in them) and observed that the sea of purple was interrupted only briefly by four sections of the stadium that were all in a row. We learned that the away team (in our case, Genova) is given a police escort to and from the train station so they aren’t beaten up. They also are contained in their own two sections separated by large metal walls and two lines of security guards. As if that weren’t enough, the two sections on either side of them aren’t sold to either team to create a barrier between the two groups of fans. I couldn’t understand anything that either group of fans would cheer at each other, except for one cheer that our team did, which I managed to catch “Va fancola, Genova,” which means “Go [whoops] yourself, Genova.” I learned later, first hand, that when the Genovese wanted to buy concessions, they had to go to the metal wall separating the two sides and buy concessions through bars in the wall, like caged animals. There was literally no chance of fans from the two sides ever physically interacting. Of course at halftime, the two groups of fans would scream obscenities at each other and shake the metal wall separating them until the security guards broke them apart. It was very exciting. Very glad to be on the Fiorentina side of things. Incidentally, the game was also quite entertaining and Fiorentina won 1-0. We couldn’t really see how the goal was scored because we were on the end of the field, opposite that goal that was being scored on. I’m sure it was amazing. I bought a purple stocking cap and got my face painted by a very polite Southern architect major from Kentucky. I plan on coming to as many Fiorentina games as I have money for. They play at home every other week.
All in all, my weekend mostly alone in Florence turned out to be a ton of fun. I got much closer to another person and got to catch up on some sleep. Florence really is a wonderful city. Una bella citta.
AJC
1. New blog format
2. All my friends left me, I’m sad
3. 5 euro sweater/ Just a taste of donkey
4. Behind the Glory: Adam Caniparoli, wine connoisseur (did I spell that right?)
5. Fortza Viola: Fiorentina soccer
1. What’s up, folks? I’ve decided to introduce a new “user-friendly” format for my blog. At the top there will be a paragraph-paragraph identification guide in case you’re in a hurry and you don’t want to read about all of my non-sensical blatherings (is that a word?). Also, I haven't written in awhile, so this is a really long blog. Maybe read it and take breaks in between sections.
2. So this weekend, all but one of my usual friends left to Venice and I was left to entertain myself. I found myself entertained with a lovely head cold for most of the weekend. But after sleeping for 30 hours over the last three nights, I’m feeling a lot better.
3. Yesterday was an outrageously exciting day. I met my friend Lauren in the early afternoon and we went to the market, Piazza Sant’Ambrogio to explore and buy stolen merchandise for prices so low, it should be ILLEGAL. It probably is illegal. I bought an awesome sweater for 5 euros and then bought some cheap fruit. It was then lunch time and we tried to eat at a number of places, but lost interest when there were too many people trying to eat there. We then wandered into a tiny little hole in the wall to try to buy some rolls that we could eat with fruit to have a sort of makeshift lunch. So using my superior Italian skills, I tried to order two rolls and the well-dressed man working behind the counter asked me (in Italian) what I wanted in it. Confused by this question, I sort of muttered and looked confused at him at which point he said a bunch of things in Italian, caught on that I spoke English and then started speaking in Italian. It turns out that what I took to be a bakery, was actually a large game shop. The options for the insides of our sandwiches were hare, wild boar, venison and my personal favorite option: donkey! We thought he was kidding when he said it was donkey meat. So I ordered venison and my friend, Lauren ordered hare, but the dude said, no no. “You must try taste of donkey.” Taste of donkey. So he gave her a donkey sandwich and he gave me a hare sandwich for some reason. In the process of all this, after we said we didn’t want anything to drink, he told us you can’t eat game without wine, so he gave us each a free glass of chianti. And the food was so good. It was in a sort of gravy and I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to would be brisket. But donkey and hare meat instead of beef. After that he brought us a bowl of grapes and then we paid, having no idea how much it was going to cost. It turns out that after the sandwiches we didn’t mean to order, the wine and the grapes, it was just 4 euros each. And then we were on our way.
4. After the market adventure, we went across the river to a big wine tasting festival to meet two of Lauren’s friends from the states. There were about 30 or 40 tents set up in three separate piazzas and each tent housed two wineries where you could taste their wine. The system is as follows: You pay 10 euros and they give you a little book on the wineries with room for notes on the different wine, a wine glass carrying pouch (it looks ridiculous, so I of course had mine on as much as possible) and a punch card good for twelve wine tastes. Wine tastes should more correctly be referred to as glasses of wine. My previous knowledge of wine tasting is you go and they give you a bout a mouthful of wine to swish around and then spit out. These people pour you whole glasses of wine! Sometimes they pour you a more reasonable amount, but usually, it was a lot closer to a full glass. And you’re supposed to be able to get through 12! Needless to say, I got through four and as we were ready to leave, I promptly dropped my wine glass on the ground in front of a church and a crowd of about 50 people. I picked up most of the glass and brought it to the place where I was issued a glass originally and got a new one. I figured it was time to go home then. On our way home we were greeted by a wine parade with men throwing flags in the air and wearing silly wine clothing. It was very cool. I went back to the wine tasting event today with my friends to try to finish off my other 10 glasses (I only got punched for two of the four glasses that I had the day before) of wine (ambitious, I know, but I love a challenge!). There were three of us, so they bought one more card and between the three of us, took down a good 15 or 16 glasses of wine. Then it was time to talk to the parents! I ate some breadsticks and drank some water, and then I was all set. It was a ton of fun and I got a wine glass out of it as well as a wealth of knowledge of Tuscan wine (This is, of course, not true. They sort of all taste the same to me.)
5. The final event of Saturday evening was the Fiorentina game. Un gioco di calico. A soccer game. Fiorentina is the Florence soccer club and apparently everyone in the entire city is a big fan. They were violet jerseys because the city flower of Florence is the violet. About 30 students from the school showed up and walked over together, led by our fearless leader, the director of the program. When we got there, we found some seats (there are assigned seats, but no one sits in them) and observed that the sea of purple was interrupted only briefly by four sections of the stadium that were all in a row. We learned that the away team (in our case, Genova) is given a police escort to and from the train station so they aren’t beaten up. They also are contained in their own two sections separated by large metal walls and two lines of security guards. As if that weren’t enough, the two sections on either side of them aren’t sold to either team to create a barrier between the two groups of fans. I couldn’t understand anything that either group of fans would cheer at each other, except for one cheer that our team did, which I managed to catch “Va fancola, Genova,” which means “Go [whoops] yourself, Genova.” I learned later, first hand, that when the Genovese wanted to buy concessions, they had to go to the metal wall separating the two sides and buy concessions through bars in the wall, like caged animals. There was literally no chance of fans from the two sides ever physically interacting. Of course at halftime, the two groups of fans would scream obscenities at each other and shake the metal wall separating them until the security guards broke them apart. It was very exciting. Very glad to be on the Fiorentina side of things. Incidentally, the game was also quite entertaining and Fiorentina won 1-0. We couldn’t really see how the goal was scored because we were on the end of the field, opposite that goal that was being scored on. I’m sure it was amazing. I bought a purple stocking cap and got my face painted by a very polite Southern architect major from Kentucky. I plan on coming to as many Fiorentina games as I have money for. They play at home every other week.
All in all, my weekend mostly alone in Florence turned out to be a ton of fun. I got much closer to another person and got to catch up on some sleep. Florence really is a wonderful city. Una bella citta.
AJC
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Gioco basket
09/23/08
This will be just a brief check in because I have a ton of work to do tonight and it’s almost one am. Today was acting workshop, spazio conversazione (locals come to the school and we sit around and try to talk Italian with them, while they work on their English), and basketball practice. Result of acting workshop: there is a really cute girl in it, but she already has a boyfriend (see disgruntled blog from sometime last week). Boo. But she has the most amazing smile. I can’t ignore her. The rest of the workshop was fun too.
Basketball was awesome! There were only four of us who showed up. I had heard we would be playing with another team and I assumed it was going to be a team of college-aged students. We show up and a 40-something man who speaks great English introduces himself as Andrea. The rest of his team is probably in their forties or fifties. We observe this unexpected scene and start warming up. It turns out this team of 40-50 year old men is actually quite hardcore. And most of them are named Marco. We did warm ups and drills for about 40 minutes and then scrimmaged for 30. They are all really good and in excellent shape. We kept up with them though. One of the Syracuse students who was playing with us is about 6’5” and enjoys effortlessly dunking the basketball. I think our team is going to be pretty good. I made some good passes and made about half my shots. Learned some new words: blocco means screen and stoppata means block. Andrea (the team captain, I later learned) taught me how to say these and other words, but those are the only ones that stayed with me. My highlights of the practice include taking a big charge from a different big kid from Syracuse and diving into the legs of the seemingly oldest member of the team and having him fall on me. All in all, it was amazing. I got a great workout and had a ton of fun. I think we play games some time as well – don’t know yet though. Gioco basket! I play basketball!
Everything else is great, I’m gonna try to do some reading before I pass out.
This will be just a brief check in because I have a ton of work to do tonight and it’s almost one am. Today was acting workshop, spazio conversazione (locals come to the school and we sit around and try to talk Italian with them, while they work on their English), and basketball practice. Result of acting workshop: there is a really cute girl in it, but she already has a boyfriend (see disgruntled blog from sometime last week). Boo. But she has the most amazing smile. I can’t ignore her. The rest of the workshop was fun too.
Basketball was awesome! There were only four of us who showed up. I had heard we would be playing with another team and I assumed it was going to be a team of college-aged students. We show up and a 40-something man who speaks great English introduces himself as Andrea. The rest of his team is probably in their forties or fifties. We observe this unexpected scene and start warming up. It turns out this team of 40-50 year old men is actually quite hardcore. And most of them are named Marco. We did warm ups and drills for about 40 minutes and then scrimmaged for 30. They are all really good and in excellent shape. We kept up with them though. One of the Syracuse students who was playing with us is about 6’5” and enjoys effortlessly dunking the basketball. I think our team is going to be pretty good. I made some good passes and made about half my shots. Learned some new words: blocco means screen and stoppata means block. Andrea (the team captain, I later learned) taught me how to say these and other words, but those are the only ones that stayed with me. My highlights of the practice include taking a big charge from a different big kid from Syracuse and diving into the legs of the seemingly oldest member of the team and having him fall on me. All in all, it was amazing. I got a great workout and had a ton of fun. I think we play games some time as well – don’t know yet though. Gioco basket! I play basketball!
Everything else is great, I’m gonna try to do some reading before I pass out.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Merrily we roll along
9/22/08
Life is like a dream. Well at least parts of it are. Life is just so different than it has ever been before, I’m sort of just waiting for someone to punch me in the face to wake me up. It’s actually not a coincidence that I use the term “punch me in the face” because on Thursday (four days ago), after I left my buddy Luke’s birthday party, he was asking some people in a car for directions home and he and his buddy got punched in the face. They asked a couple in a car which way to go to get back to their house, and the guy got out of the car and punched first one and then while the first one is bleeding, he punches the other one in the face and then gets in his car and drives away. They didn’t get a license plate number. Weird. Italy is weird.
But enough about other people, let’s talk about ME! Dinner this evening was quite tasty, nothing outrageously bizarre, but when we finished with dinner, Giovanna cleared our plates and brought out bowls. Now, bowls usually means gelato that she pulls out of the freezer, but I guess you could say, there was something in the air that made me think that tonight was a different night. Something more miraculous than gelato was about to grace our presence. From the refrigerator, Giovanna whips out a cookie sheet of homemade Tiramisu. The only homemade Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten was Uncle Chip’s and while his was quite nice, I was reduced to primal grunts and occasional sighs of delight while I slowly took down the bowl of Tiramisu. I can’t describe it. It was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. Giovanna says, “You like it?” and we don’t know how to express ourselves in Italian. Buonissimo. Molto buonissimo. Molto buonissimo di tutti mondo! I don’t know. I wanted to laugh and cry and do a little jig at the same time. All over a serving of desert. I’m going to get the recipe from her.
I took a spontaneous day trip to the Cinque Terre on Sunday. This was my dentist’s recommendation for the place I absolutely needed to go while I was in Italy. We caught the 7:45 train and made it to the third of the five cities at around 11. We bought our passes and started hiking. In trying to describe what the landscape around the Cinque Terre is like, I discover that it is sort of a combination of a number of both real and non real lands that I have seen pictures of. Combine the Shire with Narnia, the Garden of Eden, rural China, an orchard and the Olympic Coast. That is the Cinque Terre. Unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the hiking trip I led for freshmen before I came to Italy on the Olympic Coast. Both places involve rigorous climbs to the tops of hills where you get breathtaking views of the sea. It was spectacular, the photos I hope to include soon can only partially express the beauty that is the Cinque Terre. While there was a large number of tourists, I didn’t feel completely closed in by them like I do around the Centro in Florence or anywhere in Venice. The climb was pretty difficult, but the train stops in each city, so we could’ve taken the train anywhere around there for around 1.5 euros. For lunch, we ate fresh 1.5 euro foccacia. It was so good. That might have been the hike talking, but that foccacia was, in the wizened words of Bryce McKay, ridonculous. Other highlights of the trip included sitting on a beach in a rainstorm, seeing an enormous grasshopper (probably about 5 inches long) and watching other students form Syracuse in Florence sprint across the last town to catch a train back home (we were on the train after that).
I met some cool new people, took some sweet pictures and ended up spending about 30 euros the whole day (this included train tickets, two meals, wine and the trail pass). I got back home and deliriously finished my Italian homework before passing out. I still need to catch up on sleep. I think I’ll do that right now. Arrivederci e buono notte.
AJC
Life is like a dream. Well at least parts of it are. Life is just so different than it has ever been before, I’m sort of just waiting for someone to punch me in the face to wake me up. It’s actually not a coincidence that I use the term “punch me in the face” because on Thursday (four days ago), after I left my buddy Luke’s birthday party, he was asking some people in a car for directions home and he and his buddy got punched in the face. They asked a couple in a car which way to go to get back to their house, and the guy got out of the car and punched first one and then while the first one is bleeding, he punches the other one in the face and then gets in his car and drives away. They didn’t get a license plate number. Weird. Italy is weird.
But enough about other people, let’s talk about ME! Dinner this evening was quite tasty, nothing outrageously bizarre, but when we finished with dinner, Giovanna cleared our plates and brought out bowls. Now, bowls usually means gelato that she pulls out of the freezer, but I guess you could say, there was something in the air that made me think that tonight was a different night. Something more miraculous than gelato was about to grace our presence. From the refrigerator, Giovanna whips out a cookie sheet of homemade Tiramisu. The only homemade Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten was Uncle Chip’s and while his was quite nice, I was reduced to primal grunts and occasional sighs of delight while I slowly took down the bowl of Tiramisu. I can’t describe it. It was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. Giovanna says, “You like it?” and we don’t know how to express ourselves in Italian. Buonissimo. Molto buonissimo. Molto buonissimo di tutti mondo! I don’t know. I wanted to laugh and cry and do a little jig at the same time. All over a serving of desert. I’m going to get the recipe from her.
I took a spontaneous day trip to the Cinque Terre on Sunday. This was my dentist’s recommendation for the place I absolutely needed to go while I was in Italy. We caught the 7:45 train and made it to the third of the five cities at around 11. We bought our passes and started hiking. In trying to describe what the landscape around the Cinque Terre is like, I discover that it is sort of a combination of a number of both real and non real lands that I have seen pictures of. Combine the Shire with Narnia, the Garden of Eden, rural China, an orchard and the Olympic Coast. That is the Cinque Terre. Unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the hiking trip I led for freshmen before I came to Italy on the Olympic Coast. Both places involve rigorous climbs to the tops of hills where you get breathtaking views of the sea. It was spectacular, the photos I hope to include soon can only partially express the beauty that is the Cinque Terre. While there was a large number of tourists, I didn’t feel completely closed in by them like I do around the Centro in Florence or anywhere in Venice. The climb was pretty difficult, but the train stops in each city, so we could’ve taken the train anywhere around there for around 1.5 euros. For lunch, we ate fresh 1.5 euro foccacia. It was so good. That might have been the hike talking, but that foccacia was, in the wizened words of Bryce McKay, ridonculous. Other highlights of the trip included sitting on a beach in a rainstorm, seeing an enormous grasshopper (probably about 5 inches long) and watching other students form Syracuse in Florence sprint across the last town to catch a train back home (we were on the train after that).
I met some cool new people, took some sweet pictures and ended up spending about 30 euros the whole day (this included train tickets, two meals, wine and the trail pass). I got back home and deliriously finished my Italian homework before passing out. I still need to catch up on sleep. I think I’ll do that right now. Arrivederci e buono notte.
AJC
Monday, September 22, 2008
Photos
So, I have a picasa profile all set up. You can check out more photos at the following URL.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli
I don't know how to use technology, so here's some more albums on picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/Upload99?authkey=mSO_t_gSoJk#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/AdamSAmazingEuropeanAdventure?authkey=4JB8K3hLXrU#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli
I don't know how to use technology, so here's some more albums on picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/Upload99?authkey=mSO_t_gSoJk#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/AdamSAmazingEuropeanAdventure?authkey=4JB8K3hLXrU#
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Italian food is tasty (this should come before the assissi posting, sorry...)
9/17/08
Some fun things happened to me today. First off, Giovanna made a ridiculously tasty dinner tonight. Some kind of long, thick pasta with a tunnel down the middle a sicilia: with hard boiled egg slices, melted gorgonzola cheese, and an eggplant, tomato and olive sauce. It was the most delicious thing ever. I’m going to try to make it when I get back to the states. For secondi (main course), we had baked mozzarella cheese with tomatoes. After salad, we had apple cake she made herself.
It was the tastiest thing ever, even better than the pasta. How does she keep making the best food I’ve ever eaten? Ridiculous.
Today in Italian class, we did presentations on the streets we live on in Italy. I did an elaborate presentation with powerpoint and spent about two hours looking up exotic words to spice up the presentation. It turns out that after two weeks of studying Italian, I don’t know sentence structure well enough for that to actually work. It just came out like jumbled word mush and my teacher spent the whole time correcting all my mistakes. Which was many. But after that, the other boy in my class (there are two of us) did a presentation pronounced very poorly and admitted to using freetranslator.com to create his presentation. It made me look a lot better, so I guess that’s cool.
I briefly fell in love with a girl yesterday only to find out today that she has a boyfriend. Damn. Everyone already has a boyfriend.
Our Comedy class took a trip to see an ancient theatre ruins just outside of town in another tiny town called Fiesole. It’s an unbelievably gorgeous little town that overlooks Florence on one side and the rolling hills of the rest of Tuscany on the other. We’re shooting for a Sunday picnic there if weather will permit it. Our teacher continues to make a buffoon of himself at every possible opportunity. He tells us we have guest performers to entertain us at the ancient theatre. He then runs behind a rock wall and comes back out with a middle-aged woman’s mask and starts doing an over-the top impression that befuddles both our class as well as the handful of elderly French-speaking tourists who stop to stare at him. He then runs off and returns with an old man mask and continues his “witty banter?” as the members of the class, myself included, try to hide our faces in shame and pretend like we don’t know him. It was an adventure.
Things are really starting to settle in here. I am content.
AJC
Some fun things happened to me today. First off, Giovanna made a ridiculously tasty dinner tonight. Some kind of long, thick pasta with a tunnel down the middle a sicilia: with hard boiled egg slices, melted gorgonzola cheese, and an eggplant, tomato and olive sauce. It was the most delicious thing ever. I’m going to try to make it when I get back to the states. For secondi (main course), we had baked mozzarella cheese with tomatoes. After salad, we had apple cake she made herself.
It was the tastiest thing ever, even better than the pasta. How does she keep making the best food I’ve ever eaten? Ridiculous.
Today in Italian class, we did presentations on the streets we live on in Italy. I did an elaborate presentation with powerpoint and spent about two hours looking up exotic words to spice up the presentation. It turns out that after two weeks of studying Italian, I don’t know sentence structure well enough for that to actually work. It just came out like jumbled word mush and my teacher spent the whole time correcting all my mistakes. Which was many. But after that, the other boy in my class (there are two of us) did a presentation pronounced very poorly and admitted to using freetranslator.com to create his presentation. It made me look a lot better, so I guess that’s cool.
I briefly fell in love with a girl yesterday only to find out today that she has a boyfriend. Damn. Everyone already has a boyfriend.
Our Comedy class took a trip to see an ancient theatre ruins just outside of town in another tiny town called Fiesole. It’s an unbelievably gorgeous little town that overlooks Florence on one side and the rolling hills of the rest of Tuscany on the other. We’re shooting for a Sunday picnic there if weather will permit it. Our teacher continues to make a buffoon of himself at every possible opportunity. He tells us we have guest performers to entertain us at the ancient theatre. He then runs behind a rock wall and comes back out with a middle-aged woman’s mask and starts doing an over-the top impression that befuddles both our class as well as the handful of elderly French-speaking tourists who stop to stare at him. He then runs off and returns with an old man mask and continues his “witty banter?” as the members of the class, myself included, try to hide our faces in shame and pretend like we don’t know him. It was an adventure.
Things are really starting to settle in here. I am content.
AJC
Adrift assissi (sorry Stephanie)
Adrift assissi (sorry Stephanie)
So, we had a site visit today to the mountain towns of Assissi and Gubbio. About two hours from
Last night we celebrated, my buddy Luke’s birthday and had to wake up at 6:30 to get an early start to Assissi. Not a good combination. I discovered a new drink that I had never seen before. They call it dessert wine. It looks like it should be sweet, but it is, in fact, much stronger than normal wine. I found free samples of it at this market near my house and after a free
We had our first soccer practice of the season yesterday. About 20 seconds into the came, I took a shot squarely into the testicles and had to sit for about five minutes to ensure that both the boys were still with me. I also hurt my wrist blocking a ball from point blank range. We play on smaller fields made from Astroturf. The whole field is maybe 30 yards. Needless to say, goalkeeper, or portiere, is a lot less fun to play when you’re getting shot on from three feet away and the goal is about half the size of a normal goal. There’s a lot less room for the ball to get by, therefore people kick the ball harder and from closer. It hurts, and I find that I am now afraid of the ball. That’s great. There were also two girls playing with us who were really good at soccer. That’s hot. Athlete girls are hot. I love a girl that can kick my ass.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Padua and more
So I still haven’t written to tell you about the end of the class trip to Vicenza,Venice and Padua. Padua was beautiful! (I had falafel!) and I made another pretty good friend. It rained almost the entire time we were there and instead of wandering the city on our own for awhile, our professor treated us all to an amazing treat. It’s called pedrocchi. They only serve it at this one coffee shop in Venice. A specialty coffee, if you will. Espresso with mint whipped cream and chocolate. The cold sugariness from the whipped cream balances perfectly with the hot bitterness of the espresso and the chocolate just finishes the job. It was delicious and really great to have after wandering around in the rain all day long. The other students whined and moaned about the rain the entire trip. Even the girl from Corvallis. I still have no idea what this course I’m taking is about. It’s called the Mediterranean City from Antiquity to Modern day (or something like that) and at present, it appears to be about architecture rituals. Architecture is really boring for those of you who don’t know anything about it. This type of column is different from this type of column because there are more ridges – is more or less the gist of architecture. We got to see an old villa on a hill side near vicenza for about 45 minutes. We weren’t allowed inside, so we walked around the outside for 5 minutes and spent the next 40 hiding from the rain storm. A scene from the Don Giovanni movie was filmed there and on the bus ride home, we watched it. Or rather I watched it and got all excited when we got to the part where the characters walk through the garden of the villa and sing. No one else was watching the movie. Whatever, I can have my own party.
On the return trip home we experienced something I’ve never seen before. A giant rest area/ restaurant. It is so large, it goes over the highway. It has two parking lots, three stories and when we were there, I estimated around 200 people were in the entire establishment. It was huge and amazing. I had gnocchi and they were tasty.
I’ve recently started worrying about whether or not I am enjoying my experience in Italy enough yet. I’ve been here for exactly two weeks. I have friends, so I suppose that’s a good thing. I’m learning the language at a decent pace, so I suppose we like that too. I’m just expecting it all to be amazing and it isn’t blowing my mind yet. I guess I like the change of pace from Walla Walla, but I also miss everything about Whitman.
For once in my life I have a few very close friends as opposed to many friends and one or two very close friends. I don’t know everyone on this program yet! 280 students. I’m disappointed in myself. I’ll give it some time.
The last two days have been really good though. A few of us have decided to have a dinner date every Sunday night in the centro. Dress up and have a big dinner together in a relatively nice restaurant. Then we’ll get gelato. We did this on Sunday and didn’t get charged for the wine we bought. Maybe this was morally corrupt, but the portions weren’t very big, so we felt we were just getting our money’s worth. I think fate got me back later because when I was eating gelato, I either found the rind of some mysterious fruit, or a fingernail clipping. I’m banking on fruit rind, but I still lie awake at night pondering it.
I’m making plans for trips for the entire semester. My big plans include but are not limited to: Paris, London, Amsterdam, Sicily and Rome. If anyone has any destination suggestions for any of these places let me know.
-AJC
On the return trip home we experienced something I’ve never seen before. A giant rest area/ restaurant. It is so large, it goes over the highway. It has two parking lots, three stories and when we were there, I estimated around 200 people were in the entire establishment. It was huge and amazing. I had gnocchi and they were tasty.
I’ve recently started worrying about whether or not I am enjoying my experience in Italy enough yet. I’ve been here for exactly two weeks. I have friends, so I suppose that’s a good thing. I’m learning the language at a decent pace, so I suppose we like that too. I’m just expecting it all to be amazing and it isn’t blowing my mind yet. I guess I like the change of pace from Walla Walla, but I also miss everything about Whitman.
For once in my life I have a few very close friends as opposed to many friends and one or two very close friends. I don’t know everyone on this program yet! 280 students. I’m disappointed in myself. I’ll give it some time.
The last two days have been really good though. A few of us have decided to have a dinner date every Sunday night in the centro. Dress up and have a big dinner together in a relatively nice restaurant. Then we’ll get gelato. We did this on Sunday and didn’t get charged for the wine we bought. Maybe this was morally corrupt, but the portions weren’t very big, so we felt we were just getting our money’s worth. I think fate got me back later because when I was eating gelato, I either found the rind of some mysterious fruit, or a fingernail clipping. I’m banking on fruit rind, but I still lie awake at night pondering it.
I’m making plans for trips for the entire semester. My big plans include but are not limited to: Paris, London, Amsterdam, Sicily and Rome. If anyone has any destination suggestions for any of these places let me know.
-AJC
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Venice! Venice!
What’s up, my peeps? It’s been awhile since I’ve last written. Not a lot happened, and then all of a sudden, a lot happened. I just returned from my art/architecture history class’s trip up north in
Since my last entry, a few friends and I had a terrific night out on the town. We bought some wine and wandered to the Ponte Vecchio and a long the river. It is absolutely breathtaking at night. I then had a thoroughly enjoyable walk back through a new part of town I hadn’t really explored, followed by a walk to my friend Jocie’s house at 12:30 and grabbed the last bus home, which got me back at around 1:30 am. It was quite a lovely evening, and we just spent it mostly wandering around the town. This town is so gorgeous, you can just wander forever.
BUT speaking of gorgeous towns!
TOURIST TIP! – If you need to use a restroom while in
3. The
2. St. Marco’s basilica -
1. St. Anthony’s Church –
Stay turned for updates on this list. Pictures aren’t allowed in the St Marco’s or
I spent the tail end of the summer having my breath taken away by landscapes untouched by the filth and decay of humanity. I could see the earth, pretty much how it looked to anyone or anything that may have come across it for hundreds of thousands of years. The beauty of the earth. Now, I find myself having my breath taken away by the unbelievable inorganic side of this world. Absorbing all the beauty hat mankind is capable of producing.
To all those curious, we did not float in a fancy boat down the Grand Canal paddled by a plump little Italian man named Luigi, while his cousin Giovanni sang to us and played on his accordion. We could’ve gotten that if we had been able to pay anywhere from 80-120 Euro (depending on the number of musicians/ where you want to go).
Thus ends the tale of
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Io Studio! :-(
So in attempting to solve the mystery of the stomach virus, I’ve narrowed it down to a few options:
- There’s some sort of parasite or bacteria in the water here and it is not sitting well in my stomach
- The change in diet from basically starving myself all day long on my hiking trip to grossly overeating each night followed by partial starvation the rest of the day is not being received well by my body
- I have giardia from my hiking trip and I need to find a doctor.
Let’s hope it’s not the third. I’m going to wait it out and see if I feel better. If I don’t feel better by Wednesday, I’m going to see the doctor. And for those of you who were curious, no, beer does not in fact make an upset stomach feel better. I’ve heard this from… a friend… who shall remain nameless. I went out last night while feeling sick and stayed out till 12:30. On a school night. Molto stupido. I was very tired today for the first round of classes. I’m in a pre-architecture/ art history class about the history of city architecture in the
I’m becoming friends with a tall, beautiful girl named Izzy. She should be a model. She must be about 6’0” and weigh about 115 pounds and she does crew. We went on an adventure to buy books for our classes (80 Euros. It’s on the credit card. Thanks mom and dad). She’s really good at Italian, so I think I’ll keep her around.
Other than that, I just sat around today and battled stomach cramps (maybe I’m pregnant? Maybe it’s just that time of the month?) Tomorrow I don’t have class until 1pm! Woot! I think I’m going to sign up to volunteer at elementary schools in the area to read Dr. Seuss books to small children in English. I also want to record books on tape for the blind. Both of these are programs supported and endorsed by
To end, I would like to further sing my praises to my pants and my mother. These skinny jeans also are pretty much pick-pocket proof (wow, say that 10 times fast). They are so tight that I can’t even get things out of my pockets when I want to get things out of my pockets. Maybe that’s why Europeans where such tight clothing…
Bacci!
-AJC
Monday, September 8, 2008
Ain't no party like my nana's tea party
Tonight’s blog will be short because it is late and we have school tomorrow morning. But allow me to share a few fun stories of the day for all you followers. First off, it’s official, I either have giardia or a stomach bug or I just can’t handle the amount of food I’m eating. My stomach hurts like a biznatch. But then at dinner tonight, I became really hungry again and ate a whole bunch. She may be calming down with the food though. Last night’s fried goodness wasn’t so bad and tonight we had risotto (I’m sorry mom, but this risotto was ridiculous) and bread with different cheeses as well as potatoes and salad. My friends in town tonight were buying food from street vendors while I’m trying not to vomit on them. It’s pretty fun. But it really is pretty fun. I may also be dehydrated because of the ridiculous heat, but we may be getting cool temperatures this week.
Story # 1. Our host mom parked and took us on a small walk (about 30 minutes) to the piazza michaelangelo that overlooks the entire valley that is
Tangent: People paddle kayaks and outrigger canoes down the
Story 2. I went downtown after dinner to play with some friends. There was a big festival celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary. Food, toys for the children, beer, cotton candy, fiery paper lanterns (you see, this is a tradition: Parents buy paper lanterns with a candle inside. They light the candle and swing the lantern around while the children shoot little clay pellets at it with what could be described as miniature blowguns. It’s over when the paper lantern catches fire and the children huddle around and blow it out. Bizarre! But kinda neat. After that when I was waiting for the bus to go home, a group of three middle-aged, Mediterranean folks asked in Italian if I was waiting for the 14 bus. I said yes I was, in Italian. They then said something else I couldn’t understand, to which I replied “no parla italiano.” They then said something about espagnol and then laughed at me. I walked away laughing and thought to myself, “Self, what an odd, exciting adventure you’ve somehow gotten yourself on. I’m proud of you. But also kind of disappointed in you because you’re dumb.” Something along those lines. Anywho, this is my story and this is me loving
At this point, I would like to thank my lovely mother who convinced me to buy a pair of skinny jeans. They really make me look European. The shirts I have, I can’t wear because it’s too warm, but the skinny jeans! Io piaccio! I look fab-u-lous! I’ll try to show you some pictures. Until later, mi amicci e familia, ciao!
AJC
The first week.
09/06/08
What an amazing two days! No blog yesterday because my roommate Ryan and I went out con trei bella regazzi (with three beautiful ladies). I’m just trying to show off my extremely limited Italian. That’s pretty much all I’ve got. We got home at around 2:15 am. During the day, however, we did more registration and I met a bunch of Southern girls. From
Today was also wonderful! We got to sleep in until 9:30 and then we breakfasted and headed to the Duomo with Giovanna. She took us to the interesting and beautiful places. The best Gelataria near the Duomo, a neat market with all sorts of gross meat (nervi? I’m pretty sure it was chicken arteries! I have pictures.) and expensive cheeses, but they had the cheapest lunches we could find (3 Euro panini!) at a wonderful establishment called Pork’s.
Tangent:
My English is already deteriorating, I can see. I speak in broken pieces of sentences because I try to speak as much italiano as possible. When talking to Giovanna, I don’t always use sentences, because she doesn’t understand them all the time. It’s getting bad, but I guess we can also burn that bridge when we come to it.
She left us at the duomo to wander around so we called some friends, met them, showed them the marketplace and wandered the duomo a little bit too. The sun was burning hotter (seriously, it was not an okay temperature today. Someone told me
We then found Gelato, and chilled in the park, while watching Italian children and dogs playing together. It was fun. We got home at 7:00 pm in time for some relaxation before dinner. Giovanna made fried zucchini, eggplant, onions, sardines and French fries (not called that here). We ate a lot of fried food. She used a little less than 1 liter of peanut oil. We then had salad and had to finish off the grape cake from last night. Then we had fruit and chocolate. Every day is becoming easier to eat the sheer volume of food she flings at us. It is all soooooooo good. Almost as good as my mother’s cooking. We finished the night off by watching a very exciting soccer game: Italia vs.
New addition to Adam’s blog:
Fun Italian word of the day: Zamzara
Def: mosquito
Fun fact about zamzari: they’re everywhere in
Thought of the day:
When complaining about all the students in the program being mindless, blonde idiots, my new friend Joci reminded me that we really haven’t been here too long yet (five days?) and I should probably give them a chance. She’s right. My new goal for the trip is to branch out and try to befriend as many people as possible. Give everyone a chance. On every coin there is a silver edge, or something like that.
Peace and love to everybody or anybody who actually reads my blog.
Ciao!
AJC
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