A Trip to Terni

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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.