Pictures from Rome

My pictures from Rome are officially posted. They are in two 60-picture albums:

Part I

and

Part II

Enjoy!

Holy Week(end)!

I had a rather eventful and somewhat spur-of-the-moment Holy Week(end). I was fully intending to stay in Florence, and maybe take a day trip on Friday or Saturday, but on Thursday I decided I was going to go to ROME with my friend Nirali and spend Friday AND Saturday in the nation’s capital.

This was, of course, my plan all along, but everyone told me I was crazy to go to Rome during Holy Week. Oh well, I did it anyway and it was a blast!

Nirali and I lived together in both Goddard Hall and Broome Street Dorm at NYU, so we know each other fairly well. Here, though, she lives off campus and I live on campus, and so we don’t see each other often enough for either of our likings! We made a pact to spend more time together, and I think this qualifies…
We caught the train Friday morning at 9:15 (we took the slow/cheap train) and got into Rome around 1:00 where we met up with some friends who were visiting from NYU: Paris. It’s their spring break. We checked into their hostel, and I since I came to Rome with no lodging plans (I like to live adventurously…) I asked if they had an open bed, which they luckily did. It was a bit expensive, but it was a nice hostel, and since we were getting up so early and I don’t have a phone, it was nice to just be staying at the same place.

We then proceeded to conquer Rome over the course of the next 30 hours. We saw basically everything there is to see, and walked ‘till our feet fell off. Friday was spent in the southwest part of the city and Saturday we did the Vatican and the northeast part of the city.

There are too many piazzas and cathedrals in Rome to name everything we saw (it’s quite a large city) but all of my pictures will be posted SOON.

I have to say, the Vatican City is very striking. And the museum was incredible. I can’t BELIEVE all the stuff they have in there! Of course the Sistine Chapel is at the end, and that’s the ultimate goal of everyone who’s there, but I was genuinely interested in all the stuff preceding it as well.

St. Peters Basilica was also incredibly beautiful. I can’t believe how ornate everything is…and these cathedrals are just so enormous…I personally think it’s a little intimidating, but I guess the whole “fear of God” thing is taken literally in that way…We saw Pope John Paul II’s grave site. People were kneeling and mourning all around it as though he had died last week…no one really likes the new Pope, so I hear…

It was cool to be there during the most celebrated time of the Christian calendar. The city is enormous, I think that was what I was most impressed by. They have a metro system, but…it’s only two lines, and honestly isn’t that helpful…
30 hours was more than enough, though, to see all of the city, and I was looking forward to being “home” in Florence for Easter.

Which was lovely. They pull out all the stops. I dressed up and went to mass at the Duomo at 11:00 am. There’s a tradition in Florence where oxen pull a cart into the middle of the piazza, and then a fake dove is sent out from the Duomo into the cart, and then the cart explodes into a massive fireworks display (the louder, the more prosperous the coming year will be, or so they say…). It was impressive! The mass was in Italian, so…that was interesting. The Duomo was packed, as was the city in general, but after church we walked around and enjoyed the 75 degree spring weather!

Yes, spring has officially sprung and it makes me want to do…NO work. Rome was sweltering at times. I’m getting tan though.

That was helped by TODAY’s journey to Cinque Terre (Five Lands) on the northwestern coast of Italy! In Italy Easter is called “Pasqua” and the day after Easter is a national holiday called “Pasquetta” (Little Easter) so we all planned to go to the coast! It is SO lovely. Basically, there are five small towns along the coast that are connected by national park trails that you hike to get from one to the next. And boy are they intense! LOTS of heavy-duty climbing and hills. We were all very sweaty and tired, and only really hiked between two of the “Terre” but…it’s really beautiful and the weather was perfect today. I took a few pictures, which can be seen here.

Being by the ocean always makes me nostalgic and miss home…I’m getting really ready to be done here, as amazing as this experience has been for me! It will be good to be home.

An Eventful Weekend

This has been a weekend full of events and adventures!

Friday was one of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in Italy. We took the bus to the nearby town of Fiesole (which according to E.M. Forster in A Room With a View) is a must-see destination for the first glorious day of spring. The No. 7 bus takes you right up to the top of the hill to the north of Florence, where the tiny town of Fiesole rests overlooking the entire river valley in a gorgeous panorama.

We ate lunch at a little café with an open-air terrace looking over Florence. Good pizza. After that we explored the cathedral up there…there were monks and nuns wandering around…something important was happening that day, but who knows what. There’s a strong German influence in Fiesole, for some reason…lots of the signs are in German. There are also Roman ruins there on the hill, but we didn’t want to pay to go in…so we just looked through the fence.

If you follow this steep, narrow, cobble-stone hill you climb up to this park with an absolutely stunning view of what feels like must be the entirety of Tuscany. We stopped and took lots of pictures. There was a fairly large group of us…8 or so. Climbing higher, you reach the old San Francesco Monastery with a museum of lots of old religious artifacts. Very interesting. There was a place where you could climb up and see what the monk quarters were like. Basically they were tiny stone cells with a desk and a cot (if you were lucky). And a window (or rather a small square hole in the wall). Nothing like vows of poverty!

My nose got a little color that day, and I couldn’t be more happy about it. I am glad to be soaking in rays when I know friends and family at home are either having snow or rain…

Friday night I saw a magnificent concert at the beautiful Teatro della Pergola. Argentinean pianist Martha Argerich and her young protégé Lilya Zilberstein gave a concert entirely of two-piano works. For those who care to know, they played:

• Mozart: Fantasia in F minor (KV 608) AND Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (KV 448)
• Schumann: something…(I didn’t get a program because you have to pay for them…)
• Shostakovitch: Concertino in A minor, op 94
• Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, op. 56b
• Rachmaninoff: Suite No. 1, op. 5 “Fantaisie-Tableaux”

Martha Algerich is one of the fiercest, aggressive piano players I’ve ever seen. It’s incredible. And she’s 68!!! I can’t believe it. I read her wikipedia article and now I'm even more enthralled with her. Basically, we decided that she’s the Meryl Streep of the piano world, and she needs to be played in a movie by Meryl Streep someday, who I’m sure could master the German/Argentinean mix of an accent with no problem…

Italian audiences are funny. As I said, there were three encores. They wouldn’t stop clapping. Flowers were literally thrown from the box seats closest to the stage! I’ve never seen that in real life! People also stamp they’re feet during the applause. Many people around us were also conducting the concert as it went along…haha. They’re really into it. The theater itself was beautiful as well. I felt like I was in a time warp.

Saturday we took a field trip with our Italian class to the town of Pontassieve (literally “Bridge Sieve”) to see where the Italian high school students who visit US for “tandem” go to school. That was interesting. They go to a technical high school, so we saw a lot of math and science classrooms. Also their gym. And students taking a smoke break between classes.

We left the school and went up to an old castle (Castello del Trebbio) where they make some of the best wine in Tuscany. Barrels upon barrels deep under the castle and old bottles of wine that haven't been opened since the 1800s! They make olive oil as well, and we got to try some. It was delicious. At the castle there was another panoramic view of miles and miles of Tuscan countryside and vineyards surrounding the castle.

We explored briefly the town of Pontassieve which is a modest little town along the Sieve River (hence the name).

Saturday evening included an English mass at the Duomo for Palm Sunday (well, Saturday) and some homework (working on the Italian opera scenes I’m writing…)

Today I did more work, and relaxed. I got to skype with my parents for the first time in a couple of weeks. And that’s always nice, of course. A connection to the outside world, and to home…which I feel like I haven’t had enough of, lately…

I really only have 4 more of these, you know.

Weekends, that is.

I can’t decide if I’m happy or sad about that.

There’s still so much to see!

Vienna - The Musical Mecca

My procrastination and negligence with this blog has reached an alarming height. I was officially called a “slacker” by one of my readers. So…the guilt has risen to the boiling point and I have to update.

While I technically should finish my entries about Spring Break in Greece (in an effort to keep this chronological), I am instead compelled to write about last weekend’s journey to see Emily in Vienna!

Last semester when I was applying for study abroad, I learned that my good high school friend Emily Bateman (who is now studying vocal performance at BYU’s School of Music) would be studying abroad in Vienna, Austria while I was in Italy! We knew that we simply had to meet up while we were both in Europe, and I didn’t need any more excuses to go to the musical motherland of Vienna.

As a musician (and particularly a composer) I felt like visiting Vienna was a rite of passage. Virtually every great composer from the Late Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods in music history (so, late 1600s-1800s) has lived, worked, and performed in Vienna. Consequently, the musical heritage of the city is intensely rich. Everywhere you turn you see the influence of music on this city. It is truly incredible.

I couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide than Emily. She’s been living there for months, and learning tons about the history of the city. We raced around town trying to squeeze in all the most important landmarks and sights, and I think we were pretty successful. The other fun part was that Emily’s mom, aunt, and grandmother were all in Vienna as well, visiting Emily and seeing her end-of-term performance with her opera group she is studying with.

There are 10 students studying in Vienna through BYU and most of them are part of the opera performance class. I got to see them rehearse and perform while I was there, and they are all very talented! It made me want to perform again…but also reminded me of how much I just love music (especially for the voice) in general.

Getting to and from Vienna was an adventure. I took an all-night train from Florence Thursday night to get to Vienna by 8:30 Friday morning. I…didn’t really sleep, as I was in a seat in a compartment with 6 other passengers, and they check your ticket so frequently…but I was revved and ready to see the city. The way home, I did the same thing, taking an overnight train Sunday to get into Florence by about 7:00 am on Monday morning…It was a bit crazy, but worth it, since I got to maximize my time in Vienna.

Friday night I saw an opera at the Staatsoper (State Opera House). That night’s production was Arabella by Richard Strauss. Not my favorite…BUT the tickets for stehplatz (standing room) were only FOUR EUROS. So…of course I had to take advantage of that. The singers were all quite good…but my feet and legs were in pain by the end of the 3 hour opera!

Saturday we went ALL over, including the Naschmarkt (open-air market and flee market with lots of really cool Austrian trinkets) and lots and lots of churched. That night I saw Emily’s performance, and they did scenes from some of my favorite operas (mostly because they are MOZART…) Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). They also did scenes from Rossini’s Il barbiere di siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and “The Flower Duet” from Delibes’ Lakme (one of the most beautiful duets ever composed…it’s used everywhere, and I’m sure you’d know it if you heard it).

Sunday morning we went to mass where the Vienna Boys Choir performs each week! They sang Schubert’s Mass in C Major, which I wasn’t familiar with but really really enjoyed. It revived my desire to one day write a mass…it’ll happen.

Sunday evening was lovely as well, as all the students meet at their program director's apartment and eat a home cooked meal (prepared by one of the students) and have class together. They are lucky to be studying with such an intimate group of students!

Also, all this opera lately has been extremely helpful because I am currently writing two scenes of an opera for the end-of-the-semester concert here in Florence. The libretto is entirely in Italian…so that has been an interesting challenge, but it’s so interesting how my musical vocabulary changes when I’m setting Italian text instead of English…we have several vocal performance majors here and musicians who will be performing it! It’s very exciting.

I took many pictures, of course, all of which can be found HERE on facebook. The captions (thanks mostly to Emily) will tell you more about what we did and everything we saw. I ate my first wienerschnitzel! And it was really quite good!

I was struck by the culture, architecture, and obviously the language and how different everything is from Italy. It was lovely, and the Baroque architecture of the buildings is very striking. But…I’ve really grown accustomed to living in a Renaissance city. Vienna has some modern buildings and there are touches of modernization here and there. They have a fully-integrated public transportation with many underground and above-ground trains, rail trains, and busses. Florence has…none of that. And I kind of like it that way!

The greatest news is that Emily and her whole group of students will be coming down to Florence in just a few weeks, and I will be here to return her favor and show all of them around! I can’t wait.

My Big Fat Greek Spring Break

My Spring Break in Greece was fantastic! What an unbelievable trip, certainly one that I’ll never forget. We did so much and saw so much. The prospect of blogging about this entire week is extremely daunting. So, I will break it into sections and try to do the best that I can to sum it up.

First off, all of my 250 I’ve chosen to upload (out of about 350 taken…) can be seen HERE.

Getting to Greece was an adventure in itself. I woke up around 5:45 AM because I could hardly sleep from all the anticipation. I took the #25 Bus to Santa Maria Novella Train Station, where I met William and Alanna. We bought our train tickets and caught a 7:30 train to Pisa Airport. We arrived around 9:00 and got ourselves checked into our flight, which was quick because we had no baggage to check. We lived out of only our backpacks the whole week, which was fine.

We got through the incredibly lax security in a matter of minutes and were sitting at our departure gate roughly an hour before our flight was even boarding. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

This was good, though, because it gave me an opportunity to practice my newly acquired skill of SOLVING A RUBIK’S CUBE! Yes, this is what I learned on my trip to Greece. We had a lot of spare time while traveling, etc. Thanks to the help of the cube-master William, I have now mastered the art of the Rubik’s Cube (although I need to work on my speed). That’s a cool thing to be able to say you can do, though, right?

We took a plane to Rome (about a 40 minute flight…) and had a 3 hour layover. We ate lunch and hung out in the terminal. Our flight was a little delayed getting out of Rome, but even so it’s only a 2 hour flight to Athens.

From the airport, we stalked up on a few toiletries, checked our email at the free internet kiosks, and withdrew some cash. Greece uses the Euro, which is nice.

They do not, however, use the Roman Alphabet…which I hadn’t really considered in our preparations for this trip.

None of us speak Greek, but luckily most Greeks speak English. It’s just easier to find yourself completely helpless because you can’t even recognize most of the letters, let alone understand the meaning of the words. But often they put the English translation right underneath, and this is a great place to discover which letters mean what.

We took the X95 Bus right from the Airport to Syntagma Square in the heart of the city (about an hour’s ride) and from there we took the subway to our hotel. The way tickets work here in Greece and Italy is very different from the US mentality. In New York, for instance, you HAVE to swipe your metro card to get in. Payment is mandatory and essentially unavoidable. Bus and metro tickets in the places I have been work differently. You buy your ticket at a ticket window, and then you have to “validate” it in a machine that makes the ticket “good” for a certain period of time.

However, there’s no one to check your ticket other than that. So…technically you don’t HAVE to buy a ticket…or validate it. However, if you’re caught (by the rare and random ticket-checker man) the fine is usually something like 60 times the price of the ticket. So that should discourage people from not buying and validating their tickets. Personally, I think these people have too much faith in people. I have NEVER bought a bus ticket in Florence, and never been checked or fined. I figure, by the time I actually AM checked, I’ll have ridden the bus more times than even the cost of the ticket…so I’m not too worried.

We slept Saturday night at the Hostel Aphrodite, run by Australians. We ran into a lot of Ausies in Greece…but more on that later…

We were famished and ate a late dinner in the bar downstairs at the hostel. The bartender was a red-haired girl from Australia who was fascinating…something about her was very guarded and mysterious, but she was fun. We all watched the old Disney movie Mighty Joe Young in the bar that night, which I hadn’t seen or even thought about in years…

We slept for a few hours before getting a wakeup call at 5:00 AM so we could head down to Piraeus Port to buy our ferry tickets to Santorini. But I think that’s enough for one post.

In more recent news: I saw The Reader last night at the Odeon Cinemas here (which shows American movies on certain days of the week). Kate Winslet won the Oscar for Best Actress this year for it. It was very…heavy, but moving. I suppose any movie related to the Holocaust isn’t typically a “pick-me-up” but I like drama, so I enjoyed it. Check it out if you still have the chance, although I’m sure it’s gone from the American movie theaters. I am so out of touch with American pop culture, it’s ridiculous…

Midterms, Spring Break, and a Haircut

Well, I officially survived midterms!

• Monday: Music Theory
  
• Tuesday: Italian Oral exam
  
• Wednesday: (thankfully nothing but a composition lesson…)
  
• Thursday: Italian Written, Aural Skills, Music History II
  

For my Italian oral exam I had to talk to my professor about a trip I took this semester (I told her about Switzerland)

My Aural Skills midterm included singing some atonal melodies and this rhythm sheet where you “sing” the rhythm written on the page (on “tah”) and clap another rhythm (like beats 1&2 or 2&3 or 3&4). That was individual. Then we did dictation as a group (where we write music that he plays on the piano…in various forms…).

We had that Music History essay due on Thursday on “the meaning of ‘Baroque’ as it applies to the music of the late 16th and 17th centuries. But for our in-class final we had to write ANOTHER essay on one of three topics, I chose the topic of comparing and contrasting the Baroque drama and music in Italy, France, and England. Woo! Exciting stuff! 

They say that study abroad courses are supposed to be a joke, and that they’re really easy, but honestly this is perhaps the most stressed I’ve felt about midterms in my college career. Maybe it’s because this is the first time that they’ve all really fallen on the same week. They’re always “supposed” to but professors I’ve had often do their own thing.

Now that midterms are over: SPRING BREAK IS HERE.

And I’m off to GREECE.

I’ll of course blog when I get back about all of it, but here’s a brief itinerary:

• Saturday: Fly Pisa to Rome, fly Rome to Athens, sleep here.
  
• Sunday/Monday: Ferry boat to the island of Santorini, staying here.
  
• Tuesday/Wednesday: Ferry to the island of Paros, stay here.
  
• Thursday/Friday: Ferry back to Athens, stay here.
  
• Saturday: Fly home.
  

I’m travelling with my friends William Spinnato and Alanna Fox, whom I knew from choir back at NYU. Alanna’s roommate (also named Alanna, ironically…) will be joining us for our time in Athens at the end of the week. Several of my friends here are also going to Greece with touring companies (like how I went to Switzerland) and they will be in Athens at the end of the week as well. So there’s potential to hook up there.

One small anecdote before I leave for a week: today I had my first haircut in Italy! “Un taglio” (OON TAL-yo) it’s called in Italian. There’s a small barber shop at the bottom of the hill on Via Bolognese where I live. I looked up in my travel dictionary all the phrases it had about getting your haircut and I marched down there. It was a gorgeous day today (it rained all week during midterms…and now is mysteriously sunny and beautiful once they’re over…hmm…) and I managed to hold a fairly decent conversation with the barber about the weather. I told him I was a student at NYU studying here and that I was going to Greece tomorrow.

He was such a character! I suppose caricature is a more appropriate word, though. He was this old man with kind of wild, receding hair (funny that he’s a barber) and these large glasses that magnified his eyes considerably and made him look cartoonish. You could tell he LOVED cutting hair and had been doing it for years. The whole thing was a grand production it seemed…the way he glided around the chair and twirled his instruments. If anyone reading this has seen Toy Story 2 where the old man (from the Pixar short where he plays chess with himself) comes as a doll repairman…that’s what this guy reminded me of. It was well worth the € 14.50 and I’m sure I’ll be going back before I fly home in May.

Sackbutts and Hurdy Gurdys

Thursdays are usually my “long” days because I have TWO lectures in the afternoon as opposed to just one, like I do Monday-Wednesday. They are also two classes that I dread…but then usually end up enjoying every week: Aural Skills IV and Music History II: Baroque and Classical Eras.

This past Thursday, however, I got a little reprieve, because my music history lecture was meeting downtown at the Galleria dell’Accademia (where David is) to see the Historical Musical Instruments Exhibit that is permanently housed there.

I marvel at the wealth of knowledge possessed by our instructor, Kate Bolton. She’s this fantastic British woman with an infectious accent (complete with hilarious little phrases) and that iconic, dry, British sense of humor I can’t get enough of. She also knows what seems to be an infinite amount of information about the era, the composers, their music, and (as we saw on Thursday) the instruments of the time.  She could rattle on forever about these things without looking at her notes once. It was fascinating.

You always see those ridiculous pictures in university pamphlets with the small groups of students at a museum or something, all gazing intently at their professor as (s)he points out some piece of art or a historical artifact and is explaining it...well, on Thursday, I was one of those people! It actually does happen in college. I remember thinking as we were going through the exhibit (this is SO "college" right now...)

Unfortunately for us, they closed early on Thursday (unbeknownst to us) and we were cut short. So we finished the rest of the lecture in a little café in Piazza San Marco.

The exhibit is very interesting. They have several period cellos, a “tenor viola”, many violins...harpsichords, pianofortes, and all sorts of instruments you’ve never seen or heard of before (like sackbutts and the hurdy gurdy). They have a collection of period wind and percussion instruments as well. The instruments of the day (in correlation with the "baroque" style of art focusing on grandeur and splendor) were often very ornate and works of art themselves. Many of the instruments were shaped to look like animals.

They have also digitally catalogued recordings of these instruments so you can hear what they sounded like. Apparently they give concerts every now and then on the instruments in the exhibit that are still playable. Mind you, these things are a minimum of 300 years old. But many instruments, particularly stringed instruments, improve in tone quality with age. This is why the few remaining Stradivarius string instruments from the early 18^th century sell for millions of dollars. (A Russian collector recently bought a Stradivarius from 1718 for 9.5 million dollars…)

What’s been so interesting and exciting about this class is that all the music we are studying was composed HERE, or at least influenced by Italian composers of the age. Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Corelli all lived and worked here…the French composer Lully was actually born in Italy and changed his name when he moved to France…Handel, Purcell, and Bach were all heavily influenced by the Italian tradition. These composers would make a point of coming to Italy and spending time here just to learn how to do what was being created down here. And FLORENCE was THE birthplace of opera. The first operas ever performed in western history were performed right down the street. It’s incredible.

While I’m enjoying the class…I’m not enjoying the research paper we’ve been assigned that’s due on Thursday.  The prompt is to “discuss the term ‘Baroque’ focusing in particular on music.”

A bit, vague, I think.

I realize it’s been a little while since I’ve written a paper like this, and I’m out of practice. Or out of motivation. Or both. But I’ll hammer it out in the coming days. As with any history course…it’s a lot of raw facts we need to know. Our mid-term is the paper which is due, but also and IN-CLASS essay on Baroque vocal music.

I set to work on it today, Saturday, but the weather was SO GORGEOUS that I just had to take my work outside! My roommates and I set up camp on the soccer field in the middle of the olive grove on the estate, and we ate lunch and studied in the sunshine. It was in the 60s! I was in a short-sleeved shirt and more than comfortable! This is not good for studying students on the brink of midterms and Spring Break in one short week!

But that’s a topic for another day.

"If We Work in Tandem..."

Wednesday in Italian class we had what our professoressa Silvia refers to as “Tandem”

A class of high school seniors (or, the Italian equivalent) from a local high school comes to our class and we spend the hour and forty-five minutes speaking in Italian and English. The idea is that they help us with our Italian and we help them with their English.

I was dreading it. I was not in the least bit excited and prepared myself for a very awkward and embarrassing experience while these native teenagers laughed at our incapacity with their language.

But, it actually turned out to be really great! I was in a group of 4 students from my class paired with 2 girls from the Italian class. We spent the first half asking them questions we had prepared in Italian and then talking about ourselves. Half way through, we switched to English, or we were supposed to. But I was shocked at how poor their English was, so we ended up having to speak in Italian just so they could understand our questions.

They’ve apparently been taking English for 8 years…but I felt like we were almost on equal footing with them in terms of our handle on the foreign language. One of the girls HATED English and said it was a very poor school subject for her; she found it very difficult.

Understandable. I’m using my 3 years of knowledge of Spanish to help me along. And there are many cognates in Italian and Spanish and French, etc…But certainly not in English. There are very few English/Italian cognates, and if you only know Italian, I can see how English would be very difficult to learn.

Our language is completely different from other romance languages. There are certain things about English that I think just make more sense. Like not having 6 versions of every single verb depending on who is performing the action. And our lack of reflexive verbs that add little pointless words all over the place that make it unnecessarily clear as to whom you are talking about.

But then I think…well, every other western language seems to have them…so…I guess we ARE the weird ones.

Later in the semester we will be going to their class at their school to do this again. But we’re going on a Saturday.

Because they have school six days a week in Italy.

God bless the USA.

Venice for Carnevale!

(LOTS of picture links in this one...they are worth it! click them!)

This past Sunday I took a trip to Venice for Carnevale, which is a European celebration that actually originated in Venice that celebrates the 10-days before Lent begins.

Basically, it’s a 10-day Mardi Gras.

And they sure know how to party. Masks are the chief component of any guise, but most people have taken it to the next level and basically made it Halloween in February. There are festivals throughout Italy and Europe, and every town has its own way of celebrating, but Venice is by far the most grand.

Venezia is in the northeastern corner of Italy in the region of Veneto. It is by far the most beautiful city I have visited thus far. If I get the chance to go back, I just might…especially when the weather will be warmer and it will be less crowded.

There were so many people in Venice last weekend. The city was NOT built to hold that many people. The tiny little alleys and streets and footbridges crossing the hundreds of canals were so jam packed that at times we were simply at a stand-still.

But it was worth it. Venice is arguably the most romantic city on the planet. If you don’t get at least a little sentimental while you’re there, you have no heart. The waterways through the city are simply magical; there’s no place like it on Earth. And the gondolas are really everywhere, though I didn't hear any of the boatmen singing...I think you have to pay extra for that! You can see as many movies and pictures of it as you like, but there’s nothing like being there.

I went with a group called “Florence For Fun” which organizes trips around Italy and even to other countries. We paid 65 Euro to catch a bus at 7:30 (Well, we left by 8:30…) and rode for three hours to Venice. Once we were there, we took a private ferry boat down the grand canal along the outside of the city to San Marco Square. We were on our own for the rest of the day. The group of friends I was with grabbed lunch at a little place with outdoor seating. The weather was beautiful, but still a bit chilly.

One of my favorite highlights about the city is that Antonio Vivaldi was born, raised, and spent his life there! There are many buildings, shops, and restaurants devoted to his name.

Venice is also famous for its Murano glass, and it is sold EVERYWHERE. It’s a little pricey, but extremely beautiful and everyone bought souvenirs/gifts for loved ones at home.

We got home pretty late (around 11:00) and decided that would be a good time to check out the Florence Diner, and American-style diner in Florence that’s very popular with young study abroad students. Here, we heartily enjoyed a feast of cheeseburgers and French fries that we’ve all been craving for weeks. Of course, it wasn’t QUITE the same as in the states, but it’s nice to have a taste of home every now and then.

Some people stayed up to watch the Academy Awards (which started at 2:00 AM over here…) but I chose to get some sleep after a long day on my feet! Unfortunately, I came home to no power, no water, and no internet…all of which have since been successfully restored, but it made for an interesting night!

Pictures from my trip to Venice can be seen HERE

Authentic Balsamic Vinegar in Modena

A couple weeks ago on Friday, February 13^th I had the opportunity to take a day trip with the office of student life here at NYU to the town of Modena, in the region just north of Tuscany: Emilia Ramagna.

It was just a two hour bus ride to the little town famous for a few notable things: Luciano Pavarotti, Ferraris, and Authentic Balsamic Vinegar.

The main purpose of our trip was because we were invited into the home of Marisa Barbieri Giuliani, an 80 year-old woman who has been a member of the Balsamic Vinegar Consortium for many many years.

What we are used to in the USA when we think of “balsamic vinegar” is actually not even close to the real thing. Because of the specific climate in Modena, it’s just about the only place in the world that “authentic” balsamic vinegar can be made. The process is one of putting wine into a series of barrels of varying sizes and wood-type, and letting them sit for YEARS until they have matured.

The “youngest” bottle of vinegar they sell is 12 years old. Price: € 40 (about $ 50)

The most mature vinegar is 25 years old at € 70 (about $ 90)

They were, however, selling tiny vials of the stuff for € 23 (circa $ 30)

They call it “black gold”

Funny how “black gold” in the USA is petroleum, and in Italy it’s vinegar…

Making the vinegar is a family tradition. Each of Marisa’s 5 children and her many grandchildren have a special section of the attic where their very own barrels are kept and looked after. The attic reeked of vinegar, but as we would soon find out, this was unlike anything we had ever tasted. Also, Marisa’s son Stefano is the only one of her children who have the pallet for tasting the vinegar.

In order to sell your vinegar with the packaging that denotes it as “authentic” (which includes a special bottle, label, and box) you have to bring a sample to the Consortium, where five tasters (one of whom is Marisa) who are divided by blinders so they cannot see one another, must unanimously agree that this vinegar is in fact “authentic” and makes the cut. If it passes, the vinegar is bottled right there to be sold.

I don’t like vinegar. At all. Of any kind. But this stuff changed my perception of it. It’s actually very sweet when it ferments for that long. In fact, the 25 year vinegar is recommended to be put on GELATO! Imagine putting vinegar from the USA on vanilla ice cream…

Other common uses are to top vegetables, fruit, salad, and steak. You really only use a tiny tiny bit because it’s EXTREMELY potent and (as I’ve shown above) very precious/expensive. Marisa told us that all her friends and relatives only ask for vinegar on birthdays and holidays, and when important politicians or celebrities come to the area, they are always given vinegar, and it’s considered to be a very generous gesture.

After the tasting and demonstrations, we went back downstairs and her housekeeper Maria prepared us a DELICIOUS lunch of risotto, bread (made with SALT!), and of course, wine. The wine in the Modena area is a sparkling red, though, and I much prefer the Tuscan chianti.

This was definitely one of the most interesting and culturally authentic experiences I’ve had in my time here. Something about being invited into a native Italian household and seeing how they live connects you with the culture in a way that no other experience can. And especially to see a craft that has been passed down over generations, and still continues today in the attics of everyday citizens, it was remarkable. Alexa told us that people don’t produce this vinegar to make money; it’s not a lucrative craft…and you rarely even break even. People do it because they love it.

We’re quickly running out of those things in America. Everyone is out to make money. People don’t bother with spending time and money on things that don’t have some sort of material gain. It’s just another lesson from the wise, old Italian culture.

Alexa, our leader on the trip, was exactly right when she told us that “After this trip, you’ll never think about balsamic vinegar the same way again, and you’ll always have a story to tell at the dinner table for the rest of your life.”

Cheese, Banks, and Army Knives...

I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do on this blog over the next few days…

Last weekend I took a weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland. I was initially hesitant about making the trip when I heard my peers talking about it because it was € 180. But I realized that the chance to ski in the Swiss Alps was an experience I just couldn’t miss. And really…for a three-day, three-night stay at a hotel and with some meals provided, this really was worth it.

We left Florence at about 8:00 on Thursday night and made just one stop on the way. There were students on the trip from all over. Most were studying in Florence, but some had come from Rome to catch the bus. It’s funny how the people you’re with can either make or break your experience somewhere. I was lucky to be with three friends from NYU and we had a blast! But…most of the other people on the trip were incredibly annoying…but they provided some quality entertainment throughout the weekend.

We got in sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 AM at Interlaken and checked into the “Funny Farm” Hotel and Hostel. Yes, it sounds crazy, but that’s where we stayed and it was actually really really nice. Much closer to a hotel than a hostel. We slept in the first day and wandered around town exploring the town which included some ice skating at the local rink!

Interlaken is a tiny mountain town (population 5,700) that is FLOODED with tourists year-round because of its easy access to the Alps and a multitude of extreme sporting activities. It’s situated between the Brienz and Thun Lakes, which is why it’s called Interlaken.

That night we went night sledding! I’m so glad I decided to do it. Everyone who’d been says that it’s “the thing” to do while you’re there, and it really was! We had a cheese fondue dinner (Swiss specialty!) before taking a bus and then a train/tram up the mountain to the sledding place. We sledded down a narrow winding path on these cheap little plastic sleds, but it was so fun. And exhausting! But we went down the track four times and got our money’s worth.

The next morning we got up early to rent our ski gear for our day at the mountain! Jungfrau (literally “maiden/virgin”) is the 4,158 meter mountain in the Bernese Alps nearest Interlaken, and it’s nicknamed “The Top of Europe”. Skiing in the Alps is much different from my only other skiing location of “White Pass” in Washington! The runs are sooooo loooong…it’s amazing. The only downer part of the day is that it was snowing all day…so it made visibility on the slopes really difficult! But we made the most of it, and spent about 5 hours up on the mountain skiing.

We had our favorite restaurant that we ate at, downstairs at the nearby Hotel Tell (as in William Tell). The national dish of Switzerland is rösti or…hash browns. This was just fine with me! And luckily they come served with every combination of toppings (usually meat) you can think of. We also had cheeseburgers and ate at a Thai food restaurant that was randomly in the town.

Sunday we explored the “downtown” area and did a little shopping because we had to get back to the bus by 3:00. Little did we know that because of the weather, we would get STUCK trying to get out of the valley, and have to turn around and stay and extra night (for free, thankfully) in the hotel! We didn’t leave until Monday morning, and I missed all my Monday classes, because it took us 12 hours to get home thanks to tunnel closures through the mountains that forced us to go around. But, it was an experience.

One of the things I learned last weekend is that when I’m on these trips, I have to stop caring so much about spending money. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I have to take advantage of it and enjoy myself. Of course it doesn’t mean I’m going to lavishly spend my money irresponsibly, but I also don’t need to starve myself because dinner is too expensive or deprive myself of activities that all my friends are doing.

Also, when there’s a blizzard and you can’t get out of the Alps…it’s okay. Originally I was really stressed and upset about it, but…things happen, and it’s all part of traveling. You might as well make the most of it and enjoy yourself, which is what we did that night. I’ll certainly have a story to tell!

My personal pictures from the weekend are limited, but they are HERE.

The Leaning Tower Of...

Saturday we took a day trip to Pisa!

The train station is the final stop on the bus that stops outside our campus, so it couldn't be more convenient. At the station we bought our tickets from the automated kiosk. The train was leaving in about 10 minutes from when we bought our tickets, so we jetted over to the platform, hopped on the train, and we were off.

There's something nice about taking the train. It always seems special to me. I think it's because it's so much less common at home in Washington. But I always feel like I'm someone else when I ride the train...

Since we were traveling on a regional train, we made some stops along the way, but it still only took us an hour to get to Pisa. It's quite close. Pisa is essentially on the east coast of Italy in Tuscany.

The city was very quaint. It felt more homey than Florence. Florence is striking and urban, but Pisa had more of a village feel to it.

It couldn't have been a better day for exploring the city. It was chilly (we keep forgetting that it's January...) but there wasn't a cloud in the bright blue sky. The combination of the white buildings, the blue sky, and the green grass was incredibly beautiful.

We bought tickets to go up the Tower for 15 euro, and then we took the obligatory "holding up the building" picture like everyone else on the huge field in front of the tower. It was funny.

There's also a gorgeous Cathedral on the grounds that is free to go in and explore, so we did.

We had lunch at a little Pizzeria near the tower, and that was lovely. Although, it was weird to eat lunch. I don't eat lunch here...and I haven't decided if that's bad or not. I eat a huge breakfast and a huge dinner about 12 hours apart from each other. And my body has really adapted to that, I think. I felt sick yesterday like I had grossly over-eaten, just because I ate lunch!

I took a TON of pictures, which you can see HERE.

I have a lot of work to do this weekend...so today I've been trying to be productive. We're going to our friend's apartment in the city tonight for dinner because it's her birthday!

Also, they're airing the Super Bowl live tonight...but it starts at midnight...so...I don't know how much (if any) I'll be watching of it!

Markets and Marble

Today was a fantastic day.

I awoke much earlier than my body had hoped after a late night on Thursday, but the sun was shining brightly and after a shower and a quick breakfast I was headed off to the Mercato Centrale with a group of NYU students and our Office of Student Life coordinator Alexa. The OSL had planned this trip since before we even arrived on campus, and I signed up last week because I heard it was “not to be missed”.

We took the bus down into town and stopped in a little café before heading to the market. I, of course, don’t really drink coffee, but Alexa recommended I try a “Latte Macchiato” which is a drink that Italians give to their young children to help them start getting used to coffee! It’s basically steamed milk with a drop of coffee in it, but that was plenty enough for my taste buds.

The  Market was incredible. It’s not like I’d never seen raw meat and fresh vegetables before, but there was such a cultural authenticity about this place, it’s hard to describe. I posted some pictures here. It also helped that Alexa is INCREDIBLY knowledgeable about everything…I learned more about Italian history and culture in this ONE visit to the Mercato than everything I’ve previously learned since arriving here two and a half weeks ago.

I’ll highlight a couple of things that I learned: Italians take tremendous pride in their country and their food. Any item raised within the country is MORE expensive and considered higher quality than anything imported. The label on national food even translates to “ours”. Italians are also obsessed with digestion and diet. I guess that’s why there seem to be no overweight people. You don’t drink certain drinks or even take a SHOWER after eating because it disrupts the digestive cycle.

Italians are excessively resourceful. No part of the animal goes to waste; everything is edible. You’ll see from my pictures that people often by the entire animal (especially poultry) because you can use everything. Under the glass you see brains, heart, lungs, tripe, testicles, and every other body part you can imagine. Use your imagination: it’s there.

People complain about Tuscan bread because…it has no salt. Gross, right? Well…yes, it’s very bland, and it’s certainly not a taste that we are used to. I thought it was this way in all of Italy, but it’s specific to Tuscany. The story goes that WAY back when Pisa and Florence were at war, Pisa (being on the coast and the mouth of the Arno river) halted all transport of salt to Florence—just to be bratty. So (Italians are stubborn) the Tuscans said, “Fine. We don’t need salt.” And they’ve made bread with no salt ever since. They’re STILL too stubborn to say, “You’re right…it tastes better with salt.” And now they’ve acquired the taste. It might take ME a little longer than 4 months to get used to it, though…

After I left the market, I went by myself to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see David. You know…the David. It’s funny…everyone talks about how it’s “so incredible” and I’ve always just sort of thought, “Alright, I appreciate art and all of that, but really…it’s just a sculpture.” But as I rounded the corner and looked down the hall lined with Michelangelo’s abandoned sculpture projects to witness the colossal form of the Old Testament hero, posed with his sling draped behind his back in the moment before he strikes down the giant Goliath…it truly is breathtaking. On the plaque in front of the sculpture there’s a quote from an art historian who says something to the effect of, “Once you’ve seen David¸ you really needn’t bother looking at any other piece of art within the genre. This is the epitome of the art form.”

I can’t even fathom how someone took an enormous slab of white marble that people were throwing out because it was “defective” and created one of the most masterful works of art ever created in the history of the world. He is the ideal masculine form…he looks like an anatomy model. Except, however, that his head is disproportionally large because he was meant to be placed high high up on top of a building, so Michelangelo had to compensate and trick the eye of the beholder. But in the picture books in the museum gift shop there are certain photos of the statue taken in certain light that you honestly have to study really hard to realize that you’re not looking at a human being. There are even veins visibly protruding from the tops of his hands! It’s truly exquisite.

I know that I’ll be going back to look at it again. I found myself always coming back to it in the museum.

Which I shouldn’t discredit. There was a room full of literally HUNDREDS of plaster busts, many paintings throughout the halls of the museum of course, and another very very striking sculpture called Ratto delle Sabine that was extremely beautiful and moving as well. I managed to snap a photo of it before I realized that the taking of photographs was expressly forbidden in the museum. They’re not joking…they’re like hawks surrounding David just waiting to descend upon someone who even THINKS about whipping out a camera.

I’m glad I went by myself though…it made it very personal and special and I liked that about it.

There is an exhibit of historical musical instruments at the museum as well, which I chose to leave for another day! I am so grateful for this Museum pass card they gave us!

I spent the rest of the day relaxing at home, and tonight we watched Disney’s Enchanted for what was my first time! Hard to believe, I know…but I enjoyed the movie nonetheless. Although it did make me miss New York…a lot…

I've Been Workin' On The Railroad...

While I would love to say that I’m settling into a routine, my days remain somewhat irregular and filled with unexpected surprises. My Italian teacher was sick last week and canceled class. Today, she had to go to Sienna to see a doctor about a problem with her eye. So, we had a substitute.

It seems so “high school” to me to have a substitute for a college class. But then again, so does having the same class every single day. However, Valentina was quite enjoyable and I may even prefer her teaching style to that of Silvia’s. But, I also realize I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the material and the language, so class is becoming less frustrating than the initial shock of full immersion.

By the way, as a project at the end of the semester, Silvia wants us to perform the American classic "I've Been Working On The Railroad" for a school of Kindergarteners in Florence as well as some traditional Italian songs. Something tells me "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah" is better left unexplained to the 5 year olds...

Anyway, being one of the 10 musicisti in the class, I have been appointed as musical director of what I'm certainly will prove to be a groundbreaking performance. I'll keep you posted.

My Music History IV Professor is (ironically) in New York this week, so we had no class this afternoon, which allowed me to simultaneously do my laundry and work out. Today was a good work-out. I feel like this study abroad trip is rehab or something. In any case, I’ve never been this motivated to work out in my life, but I’m not complaining. I’m establishing habits here that I hope will carry me through the summer. I’m going to have to join a gym this summer, that’s for certain. I should go back to the YMCA so I can swim…

But I digress.

“Allora” is currently my favorite Italian word. It means many things, which I think is why I like it so much. I hear it ALL THE TIME when I listen to native speakers talking to each other so I finally asked what it meant. Here’s a post from and Italy forum on tripadvisor.com that explains it pretty comprehensively:

Allora is something like you could use a word like “well”.

Allora, andiamo a casa.

Well, let's go home.

Mia macchina ha una panna, allora prendo un taxi.

My car is broken, in that case I'll take a cab.

Allora tutto bene.

You see, everything is fine.

Allora...prendo un risotto milanese.

Let's see... I'll have risotto.

It’s Often used in situations where it means very little, a toss away word.

It also can mean “now” like “Now, what was I saying…?” or “okay” like “Okay…let’s get started”.

In other news:

I have a job! Yes, thanks to Federal Work Study, I am paid by the government to:

·         Work the reception desk at Villa Ulivi (the academic villa where all our classes are). Here I help people who want to check out movies, need to see a copy of their syllabus, make copies, sell copy cards, give people their course packs they ordered downtown, etc etc

And

·         Set up the Art Studio at the end of the day for the next morning’s art class. I work with one other person to re-arrange the room according to the respective professor’s preference as to how the room should be set up for his/her class.

It’s 6 hours a week, at $8.50 and hour. Not amazing, but it’s $102 every two weeks, and I’m here for 14, so I’ll be making roughly $700 when all is said and done. If anything it’s a nice cushion for expenditures over here…

Speaking of which, there’s a ski trip to the Swiss Alps that I’m seriously contemplating. It’s € 180 for the trip, and I think another € 80 for rentals at the mountain…but otherwise pretty much everything is covered.

I don’t know…a bunch of my friends here are planning to go…it would totally be a blast. I’m so torn between wanting to explore Europe, and wanting to be frugal. Just having the opportunity to study here is amazing…and lots of people who return actually say they wish they had traveled LESS because they wanted to get to know the city more intimately. That certainly won’t be my problem…but I’m still trying to find the right balance.

A Trip to Terni

(Click on the Links for PICTURES!)

Friday’s highlight was the showing of The Dark Knight in the “Blue Room” of Natalia. They projected it on the big screen in that room and we sat in the darkness munching on popcorn.

This weekend, we were offered the chance to attend a jazz performance by Greg Burk (our Aural Skills teacher) and his trio in Terni, which is in the region of Umbria in Italy. It’s about 2.5 hours south of Florence by bus. NYU paid for our bus and hotel, and we just had to pay for dinner Saturday night.

WHICH, while we’re on the subject, was INCREDIBLE. It was my first “authentic” Italian meal. Not that the food I’ve been eating hasn’t been legitimate Italian food, but this was a multi-course, pull-out-all-the-stops dinner. We started with bread and wine, followed by plates of appetizers which we thought we would share, but there was one for each person! That was followed by the first pasta dish, and then the SECOND pasta dish (always with more wine…haha) and finally, we had to go to the concert so they rushed straight to dessert. We’re PRETTY sure that if we’d had the time to stay, we would have had a meat dish after the pasta and then salad after that all BEFORE the dessert.

Some of the appetizers were…interesting. Definitely “cultural” but I tried most everything because I wanted to get a sense of what authentic Italian cuisine was like.

Titillating Terni Trivia: It’s the birthplace of St. Valentine!

The jazz concert was great, if you like jazz. Most of the NYU students passed out, and while I did struggle a little bit, I managed to maintain consciousness throughout most of it!

Our teacher is incredibly talented.

At the sound-check before the show, we had a short presentation by a man who tunes pianos. But not just anyone’s pianos…

ELTON JOHN’S pianos, to name just ONE of his clients. This man talked about tuning a piano in a way I had never thought about it before: it’s an art, it’s a science, and what he can accomplish with just a few tweaks of a wrench is pure magic. It just goes to show that there are so many intricacies to every trade, and if you’re not truly immersed in something like that, you have no idea what goes into it.

After the concert we went to a little restaurant/café/club where there was MORE jazz…(it’s a popular art form in this country…) But we were all tired and went back to the hotel to sleep.

The Hotel Michelangelo was nice, but certainly not the American equivalent of the “Four Stars” it boasted.

I’ve always enjoyed bus rides. Whenever I’ve gone on school trips in big charter busses, I always find they are the best time to reflect and recharge yourself. The Italian countryside in Umbria is gorgeous, although I wouldn’t say it was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. In many ways, the hills and trees and rolling pastures reminded me of home in the more rural parts of Washington or on your way up to the Mountains.

I find it difficult to listen to contemporary music when I’m here. Traveling through this country that looks and feels so much older than anything I’ve ever seen, it seems like I would taint it, and even OFFEND it by listening to Jay-Z or Lady Ga Ga…it doesn’t fit here. Only instrumental music or sacred music feels appropriate in this place.

Something calm, whatever it is. Even in its most excitable moments, there is a calmness and serenity that is so pervasive here. Maybe it’s the antiquity of the place; even though there is always new life being born into it, this land is ancient, and it’s seen so much. The spirit of this country is one of an old, wise, sage…one that has lived a long and fruitful life. It struggled through adolescence, flourished in its adult years, and has stayed strong throughout its years and years of life…but has now retired and resigned…letting the younger ones lead, and staying out of their youthful quarrels.

I will also say that while old can be beautiful, it can also be ugly. There’s a point at which ancient becomes tattered and shabby if it’s not kept up. While I’m fascinated by the Italian graffiti, I’m also saddened by it. It takes away so much from the beauty and the history of these places. The city of Terni was a nice change of scenery, but even Antonio told us, “It’s now a very ugly city…”

Fascism left its mark on Italy. Even in Florence there are signs of the bombings that took place during WWII. America is so young, we just knock everything down and start over when something like that happens. But here, these buildings are so much older and bigger than anything we know or can imagine. You can’t just knock them down. Attempts at “modernization” are monumentally more difficult. The streets I walk through in town look much the way they did when Michelangelo and Galileo walked them. That is so incredible to me.

But nothing lasts forever, and just as the paintings hanging in the Uffizi museum have slowly faded over time from their brightly colored originals, so too do the buildings and streets and memories of everything that has happened here.

And Then There Were Four / It's a Small World After All

It's 12:10 A.M. and I'm forcing myself to post an entry against my will because I already feel guilty for not posting yesterday. Which, by the way, was a complete accident. In any case, I apologize in advance if this entry proves to be a cursory recount of the last 48 hours.

Up until Tuesday, my schedule for Wednesdays was completely open after Italian in the morning, but I received an email from Antonio telling me my private composition lesson had been scheduled for Wednesday afternoons at 2:30, though he didn’t say who it would be with.

Before my lesson I went down into the city by myself to find Paperback Exchange, an American bookstore near the Duomo that is selling our textbooks. I GoogleMap-ed it before I left, but I clearly didn’t study it carefully enough. The network of roads and alleys just south of the Duomo is a labyrinth of narrow passages and unmarked streets. I wandered around in circles for a while, and even asked someone “Come si va a via della ocche?” (How do you get to Via Delle Ocche) but just as I was losing hope, I found it.

My Italian book was € 48,50 and I’m hoping I can sell it back at the end of the semester…

On my way home I ran into several people I know, which is weird. I think it’s just a testament to how many study abroad (and particularly NYU study abroad) students are in the city.

My composition teacher is Ricardo Ricardi.

That’s actually his name. How brilliant is that?

He’s a composer of opera  and “musical theater” although the art form as WE know it in the US literally doesn’t exist in this country, and no one knows what it is. This semester, I’ll be working with Ricardo on orchestration, setting text, and he even gave me a 12-tone serialism assignment. We’ll see how that goes…

Wednesday night I went to dinner with some people at an off-campus residence. It was very nice.

When I arrived home Wednesday night, I got an email from my Italian professoressa saying she was very ill and class had been canceled for the next day, which meant I got to sleep in!

Thursday:

I DID get up for breakfast, but then went back to bed until about noon. It felt good to sleep in.

My first class at 1:30 was Aural Skills (or “Ear Training”) IV. It’s going to be a challenge. Since the Theory and Aural courses are generally correlated with the History courses (I-IV) we have now moved on to 20^th Century music, so in Aural Skills we’ll be learning to sight-sing atonal melodies, which is extremely difficult. We’re also expected to do dictation of atonal chords…the teacher is originally from Michigan, and comes to Rome via Boston where he taught Ear Training at Berkeley School of Music…so I guess he knows his stuff!

During our break I came up to my room to grab something and check my email and Frank Garcia walked in the door (our fourth roommate)! He was at the inauguration, so he had to come late to Italy (poor baby). It’s nice that all four of us are finally here and we have a complete room.

After Aural Skills was Music History II: The Baroque and Classical Eras. This class is probably the class I’m most excited about because it is my favorite musical period (not including contemporary music). Our instructor was British, slightly neurotic, though quite funny, and certainly entertaining to listen to at any rate.

So here’s a random story (and testament to the genius of Facebook): a couple of days ago, Kora Kilpatrick, graduate of Curtis High School the year before me, posted on my wall to say she saw my profile picture (of me rubbing the nose of the pig statue in the market) and so she knew I was in Florence. She is here in Florence as well, and has been since September with Gonzaga University in western Washington State.

So! Tonight she and her friend met me and some of my friends for dinner at one of their favorite Florentine restaurants called Il Gatto E La Volpe (The Cat and the Wolf) based on characters from Pinocchio. We had a lovely dinner with some of the best homemade bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar I’ve ever tasted. The house red wine was also incredible, and the food was fantastic.

Florentine Fun Fact: Alfredo sauce doesn’t exist. It’s an American invention.

We went BACK to Grom for more gelato (because, of course, we had to take Frank on his first night here!)

You can never have too much gelato. And when it’s only € 2 for a piccolo (small), it’s pretty hard to resist!

Italian Inauguration

Today I had Italian again in the morning, and then ran downtown with Molly and Vanessa to buy our “course pack” that’s being printed in an Italian “copisteria” (copy store). We ordered it and it will be delivered to campus tomorrow.

I love going into town. The city is so beautiful. Sometime this week, I’m hoping to get down into the city by myself and go exploring on my own.

On the way home we stopped at a little shop and bought laundry detergent, since our previous attempt to buy it was a failure (we didn’t know what we were buying, and the people running the store only spoke Italian).

We also stopped for gelato and pizza on the way back up Via Bolognese to campus.

My afternoon class on Tuesdays is Music History IV: 20^th Century. I am already really excited about this course. They professor is great and the subject matter will be really interesting. I’m not saying I’ll come out of it ENJOYING atonal music, but…I’ll have a great appreciation for musicology and the recent development of music. We’re also spending time on more “tonal” composers of the 20^th Century, so that makes me excited.

Then tonight was the inauguration. Starting at 4:00 pm (when CNN started coverage) there was an event at Villa Sassetti with snacks and refreshments, and multiple viewing rooms for the ceremony. This event was also open to the entire city Florence, I found out, and they were selling pins (probably left over from the campaign) that read “Americans in Italy for Obama”. People were wearing t-shirts, too.

It was a really special event for all of us who were there, who sat in silence as we listened to that incredible address by the most historic president ever elected. I’m glad we got the chance to celebrate, even from 4,000 miles away.

Monday Monday

Today was the first day of classes. I failed to get up in time to work out, but I at least showered before breakfast. Monday-Thursday I have Italian class from 10:30—11:45. It will be a nice way to start off my school day.

Silvia Chegia (KAY-jah) is my Italian teacher. She spoke basically no English for the entire class, but while the man we had last week for our “crash course” was good about making it simple for us to understand him despite the language barrier, this woman spoke to us as though we were fluent: very rapidly and without any hand motions to help us understand. Perhaps we will learn it by immersion. We shall see…at this point, most of us just look back at her and smile and nod, or with blank stares.

She did say, however, that learning Italian would be easy for the musicians in the class, because “Italian is a very musical language.” I thought that was interesting. It’s true, those of us who are auditory learners have an advantage, and we’re able to easily mimic the sounds that she’s making. Repetition is a snap. The Italian language has a lot of stereotypes associated with it and the culture in general. But the thing is, they’re all mostly true. The language is very sing-songy.

In the afternoon I had Music Theory IV, taught by Richard Trythall. He moved to Rome in the 1960s after winning some composition award. He fell in love with the country and hasn’t left. He’s pretty elderly. I’m not sure how old, but he’s up there. However, he’s EXTREMELY likeable and everyone else seemed to enjoy him as well. He is/was a concert pianist…so he played us some music of his performances and compositions on the piano. I will definitely enjoy this theory class, even though it’s 2.5 hours long. It turns out there’s a half-hour break in the middle! And since the class is held in Villa Natalia where I live, that will be very convenient.

I interviewed today for a work study position on campus as part of the “Villa Ulivi Team” of assistants. Hopefully I will get that. They pay $8.50 (yes, in US dollars) an hour and you can work a maximum of 10 hours a week. I feel like I’m going to have a lot more free time here than I do when I’m in New York, so I might as well make the most of it and earn some money.

It was raining today, pretty hard at one point. It’s still beautiful when it’s raining, but I definitely prefer the sunshine.

Random Italian fact today: in the bathrooms there are two buttons in the wall that you push to flush the toilet. One button is bigger than the other. Bigger button = bigger loads. This is because, according to my introductory materials, Italy’s plumbing system dates back to the Renaissance, so…it can’t handle a lot. We are reminded to be very conservative when it comes to toilet paper…

I’ll write more about my room (and show some pictures) in the coming days.

Also, L’Alfabeto Italiano: A B C D E F G H I L M N O P Q R S T U V Z

Notice anything missing? That’s right, 21 letters. J, K, W, X, and Y do not exist!

(notice the two buttons! and tiny shower...)

Weekend Update

Saturday, January 17:

Saturday breakfast is from 9:00-11:00, so everyone enjoys sleeping in. Of course, I still got up early and went down to work out in the gym.

After breakfast, we had a “Gelato Neighborhood Tour” where our PAs (Peer Advisors, like RAs, basically…) lead us down through the eastern part of Florence to a good gelato place.

Which was closed.

So we went back toward home and found another place, and I had my first taste of Italian gelato. It was quite good, of course.

After that we all just kind of bummed around until dinnertime. I slept, did some reading…

Dinner gets more and more chaotic every night. Why?

The freshmen have arrived.

And boy, have they EVER. My hall is now constantly filled with loud running footsteps and screaming adolescents who should NEVER have been sent to Italy for their first year at NYU, but somehow have done just that because their parents are rich. Students admitted to the LSP (Liberal Studies Program) have the option of spending their entire first year abroad here in Florence. So essentially, they are rewarded for their mediocrity. And we reap the benefits here in the second semester and endure their over-zealous reunions.

The other arrival we had was roommate 3 of 4: Carmen! He was taking a Winter Session course at NYU so he arrived late. We thought he wasn’t coming! He’s from Jersey, and he’s an Economics major with an English minor. I think. He’s very nice.

Saturday night was a blast. My British friend Rishma said she knew a couple of Italian guys through a friend of hers, and they would take us around Florence and show us the cool places to go at night. On the way to meet them, we stopped at one of the “off-campus” housing sites in downtown Florence. I won’t lie, it was REALLY nice. But you still can’t beat the beauty and convenience of living at La Pietra.

We met the guys on the steps of the Duomo. They took us to a small, CHEAP little bar that had a nice atmosphere. Then we went to this club called “Astor” which was just…insane and loud and filled with Americans, so we left. We wandered around before ending up at this place called “21” which is also popular among Americans and study abroad students, but it’s huge and they play music and there’s dancing.

European clubs and dancing are VASTLY different from American ones. I became keenly aware of how sex-oriented our music and dance is in America. I mean, I knew that, of course, but it’s just so evident in Italy because no one on the dance floor is getting “freaky” and the music doesn’t condone it. We all found it sort of difficult to dance to, to be honest. They’re very into techno music here. Heavy beat, not a lot of variety, certainly no vocals.

On our way home (at 2:30 AM or so) we tried to find food, which was QUITE difficult. EVERYTHING closes in Italy at about 10:00. So…the only places open are these Turkish places (that are common) that sell Kabobs. We, however, got chicken nuggets and French fries. It was a late night, but a lot of fun!

Sunday January 18:

I woke up at quarter to 10:00. It felt good to sleep in. Today was the day for the Red Bus city tour of Florence! After taking the city bus for the first time down to the Santa Maria Novella train station, (and making a coffee stop at the gourmet McDonalds) we got on our red double-decker bus and took off around the city! It was nice to see Florence from that view. I took lots of pictures, the best of which can be seen on my facebook (even if you don't have one!) by clicking here.

It’s raining today, but it was nice when we went out on the bus.

After the tour, we found a restaurant and I had delicious authentic Italian lasagna for only € 5,80!

Then we went shopping. I’ve been on the hunt for a journal and a nice leather wallet. I managed to get both, today! We first looked on this street market that reminded me of Canal Street in atmosphere and quality of the items…so we moved on.

We went past the Duomo and the Piazza della Repubblica to Mercato Nuovo, a covered market where vendors were selling lots of leather products. I successfully purchased a nice wallet for € 17,00 and a journal for € 20,00.

It started to rain on our way home, but otherwise our day was dry, though cold and overcast with sun-breaks.

Classes start tomorrow! AH!

Pictures at an Exhibition

My sleep cycle is improving. I woke up at the somewhat decent hour of 8:00 AM and managed to go to the gym again. I’m really going to go every day. At least that’s what I tell myself. It’s too convenient to not take advantage of it.

Breakfast on Fridays is graciously offset by one hour, from 9:00 – 10:30. I had arranged to meet Molly at 10:00 so we could eat before our first session at 10:30. Breakfast in Natalia is great. I really just like coming down and knowing I’m going to see people I know, because there are only so many of us on campus (roughly 100, I think). So it’s inevitable that when I head down for a meal, there will be familiar faces.

The Director of the program here said in his welcome speech that what they strive to accomplish is achieving the “small college” atmosphere that most of us would otherwise never have experienced while at NYU. I can already tell that will be the case. I know so many people already, and classes haven’t even started yet. Once we start falling into a regular routine, I know I’ll be seeing many more people.

We kicked off the day with a meeting about the work study options available to us on campus. There are only about 20 jobs available for hire…so…our odds aren’t too great. But I’m still really hoping I get something. Interviews are next week.

Then I sat through (reluctantly at first) sessions on Travel Tips and Shopping Tips in Florence, but they were actually extremely informative. I’m a little bit scared to travel in Europe because apparently there are transportation strikes all the time.

Interesting note about shopping: at the supermarket, you have to flow through in one direction and you can’t back-track. So if you forget something, you either just do without it or you go back through again. Also, you have to respect little old ladies and they “will probably tap you on the shoulder if you’re tall and ask you to get something down from the top shelf”. You CANNOT touch any of the produce, but rather you have to wear plastic gloves. Also, you have to “rent” your shopping cart for one Euro, which you get back when you leave. You have to pay for your grocery bags, so most people bring their own.

There are lots of little quirks like that about everything here. More than you would expect.

Lunch was finally edible: pasta. I had two.

After lunch we met with Antonio Vanni, the director of the music program here in Florence. He works three days a week at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, “one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world…housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi” (according to Wikipedia). So, he took us there for a chance to experience the museum “from a musical perspective”…which…was only moderately successful. But it was a good first trip to the museum of what I’m sure will be many more.

They encourage us to go to the museums at least once a week because there is SO much there. They accomplish this by giving us museum passes that let us in free to all the museums in the city and even allow us to skip the lines to get in.

I was under the false impression that David was at the Uffizi...but he's someplace else...but I can't wait to see him.

But trust me, I saw enough male genitalia in one visit to the Uffizi to last me a lifetime...

Coolest thing I saw: Birth of Venus

We came back for dinner and spent another quiet night at home, which was just fine by me. My roommate Ryan also stayed in, which made me feel like less of a loser. We all plan to go out this weekend, though.

I started composing the choir anthem I’ve been commissioned to write for my church’s 50^th Anniversary. I’m excited about it…

I'm beginning it with the celebratory text from Psalm 118:24, "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Appropriate.

I decided I need a journal. For private thoughts. And some alone time.

I'll work on that in the coming days.

Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death...

Thursday, January 15:

I’m still not sleeping well.

I wake up every hour.

My body thinks I’m taking a nap.

As I lay in bed wide awake at 6:30 AM I decide to make the most of it and go to the gym. My roommate is also awake and gets up too.

I worked out in the small gym in the basement of Villa Natalia where I live. It felt good to exercise, and of course the place was deserted at 7:00 AM.

I took my time getting ready for the day after working out, and met Molly for breakfast at 9:00.

We had Academic Orientation at Villa Ulivi, across the “Valley of Death” that runs between either side of the campus. There’s a path from my building to Villa Ulivi (where most of the classes are held) that’s shaped like a steep “V”. We have to go down and back up again every time we go to class. It will be good for us.

We had another unsatisfying lunch and then went across campus to Villa Sassetti for and information fair, where local businesses came and handed out paraphernalia. I left with about 20 pamphlets, but luckily, St. Mark’s Episcopal/Anglican (explain THAT one…) Church gave us a bag to carry everything else in.

We had a short break before it was time to officially immigrate into Italy. We had to show our passport to an Italian Consul who checked us off and confirmed that we were officially temporary residents of Italy. Kinda cool.

I came back to my room and took a nap for a few hours before dinner. Molly and I played a little piano last night after dinner. It was nice to get our hands on an instrument!

Some people went out last night, but I simply couldn’t. I was WAY too wiped out. I had a nice night at home, and forced myself to stay up, talking with friends via AIM or Skype.

Interesting things I’m noticing in Italy:

They use commas instead of periods for the decimal place. So something in the USA that is $3.75 would be € 3,75 in Italy. It’s not that big of a deal, but when you look at a whole receipt full of prices like that… you get really thrown off. It’s incredibly disorienting at first, and I’m still not totally used to it.

I have a strong desire to speak in Spanish when I’m here, simply because it’s ANY language other than English. When I hear a foreign language being spoken all around me, my default response it to think in the foreign language that I know, even though it’s worthless here.

One of the coolest things I’ve seen is Italian graffiti. I don’t know why it intrigued me so much, but when I saw Italian phrases spray-painted on the wall that runs along Via Bolognese, it just struck me that graffiti is, of course, everywhere.

The other thing that sounds completely cheesy but is really true is the international language of emotion. Since I’ve been traveling and hearing so many languages, you start looking at what is in common once you take away the language, and what stands out is emotional expression. Smiles. Laughter. It’s all universal, and I think that’s why they call music the “universal language” because it’s just that – emotional expression. And every culture and language can relate to that.