A Trip!

So I apologise for not posting about Bologna. I am taking of for London on Saturday, so I shall try to post a couple of times from the trail. I will be in London for three days, then Barcelona for five and Rome for two, all in the company of Alan, who is flying in from the states and meeting me in London. I feel so cosmopolitan being able to say, oh-so-casually, "Why, yes, Alan is flying in Saturday, and we are meeting up in London." There will be many pictures and, I am sure, good stories.

Cinqueterre

So I went for three days to Cinqueterre with BDan (a friend from the States) and Andrea, from our program. It was a lovely, sunny few days before the recent cold weather set in. Cinqueterre, literally meaning "five lands," is a group of five little, Italian fishing villages scattered along a protected strip of coastland. During the high season, the villages are over-run and not quite so quaint, but this time, only Vernazza, the swankiest of them, was unduly crowded. We stayed in the smallest, Rio Maggiore, which was all but empty at certain times of day. It's the one with the most youth hostels, so we stayed in a suite with a few other college students. I think the pictures of Cinqueterre pretty well speak for themselves, so here they are:



We hiked up into the hills, which were all terraced and lovely.

Cinqueterre is famous for its cats. They are everywhere and the friendliest semi-stray cats you will ever meet. Not to mention the sleekest. These cats, we met along a trail, but there was a pile of fish-heads a little behind the wall that seemed to suggest someone had hiked out to feed them.

I took a lot of pictures of rocks and water.

Rocks and water. This is the view from a promontory in Rio Maggiore.

Rio Maggiore itself.

Andrea and I being thrilled to be in the sun and near the sea.

Rocks and water.

Florence with David

Another trip in pictures! Though I realized that I only got one picture with David actually in it, and he looked kind of bothered because a gypsy was trying to sell him something he didn't want.



This is the view from the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge on the Arno that is famous for selling gorgeous jewelry (that is waaay out of my price range).

The Ponte Vecchio by night. I love how all the shops closed up look like treasure chests.


The duomo of Florence. I believe Rick Steves said something along the lines of, "It looks like a duomo in pyjamas" (because it's so ornately decorated and colorful). It's a little loud for my tastes, but also very impressive.

All in all, Dave and I had a wonderful visit. He even consented to go to museums with me! We saw an amazing exhibit called "Cezanne in Tuscany," which was one of the biggest exhibits of his paintings ever. It also had paintings and sculpture by his admirers and the people he influenced, including artists as diverse as John Singer Sargent and Vincent van Gogh.

We also made it to the Galleria Academia to see the original David (plus a really neat musical instrument museum and some lovely paintings), which was as amazing as I remember it being. Nothing prepares you for seeing the actual thing, not the little plaster models they sell all over the city or even the copy that's still outside. The sheer . . . vitality of it astounds. Also, a few other ladies in the program and I have agreed that David (the stone one by Michelangelo) may be the most beautiful man alive. I must admit that David (the Turkish one not by Michelangelo) is definitely also in the running. I miss him already.

Beating Up Little Old Ladies on the Bus

I have lovely stories about visiting Florence with David (still glowing from seeing him) and visiting Cinqueterre with BDan and Andrea, but I don't want to crush them all together. Today, I shall post Florence, so you guys will have to wait for later in the week to see pictures of waves and rocks.

But, first, a serious topic . . .

My bus has gotten out of control. I made the mistake of taking it at 6:30 the other evening, and it was so crowded I was pushed against the door the entire time. Then, the bus driver took off from one stop without closing the doors! I was clinging to my handrail, my heavy laptop case pulling me back, while we shouted "Chuide la porta!" and "Dietro!" Finally he closed it. A similarly harrowing experience happened when I made the mistake of taking the last bus home on a weekend. As I walked calmly towards the bus, an entire wave of high schoolers surged towards it. Flannery and I shamelessly outran them and jumped into free seats. The bus was so full that, even though I was in the seat right next to the door, it took me so long to get out that the bus driver started closing the door. I yelled "Aspetta!" and the (loud and strangely well-groomed) Italian boys yelled "Aprire!" and I was able to get out of the bus.

However, the greatest danger in taking the bus is not the crowdedness. It's not even the speed with which drivers takes the curvy, hilly, narrow streets or the fact that they are often engaged in distracting activities such as talking to people or (I'm not even kidding) listening to an iPod. No, the most dangerous factor is . . .

Women over 65.

I don't want to be at all ageist, but I swear, these ladies are vicious. They come onto the bus, and shoulder their way past everyone with ease. In the hands of these women, a purse is a weapon, and their purses are big enough to make one wonder what on earth they are carrying. Flannery had gotten hit on the backs of the knees with one of these bags. This morning, one hit my arm and said "permesso!" with the biggest glare after I made the horrible mistake of not realizing she was behind me. Fortunately, the same people take my bus every day, so we are starting recognize some of the more vicious ladies.

For those of you who suspect exaggeration on my part, one girl brought up the subject of older Italian ladies after getting pushed in the market, and a couple of my program directors (one of them Italian) said that Italian women get vicious. It's as if, once they can take the title of matriarch, they claim it and make it theirs. They figure that society owes them one.

Anyway, I generally attempt to avoid stereotyping, so I will say that the majority of Italians of any age or sex that I have met have been delightful, but some of these ladies . . .

Another Italian Mixup

My host parents asked the other night, when David was over, which religion it was that didn't eat pig. After having established that Jews are the group in question, I went on to attempt to say that David was Jewish, but he still ate pork. However, I miss-spoke. I tried to say "David e ebreo, e lui mangia maiale." However, I instead said " . . . e lui mangia maialone." Technically, I said that he is Jewish but still eats big pigs. However, in Italian slang, "big pig" means "pimp." My host parents laughed so hard they practically cried. They will probably tell stories about my Turkish, pimp-eating boyfriend.

Oh, Those Italian Men

Apparently Italian men start being flirts early in life. This morning, one of my five-year-olds leaned out of the door of the classroom, grinned, and said, "Ciao, pupa." Now, I had heard the word pupa used on a talk show to describe this leggy, ex-model type, so I didn't know whether it had connotations of rather loose morals. I asked my Italian teacher, and she said that "pupo" means marionette. In Sicily, marionette shows are very popular and act out the songs of troubadours and scenes from Medieval courts. The word pupo, or its female equivalent, pupa, has come to be slang, however, for an especially cute person. Lorenzo is going to be quite the ladies' man when he grows up, I think.

Italian Mix-Ups

For anyone who's planning on going to Italy, here are a couple of Italian errors made by yours truly:

The other night, I was eating a kiwi after dinner. When attempting to say "Passami un cucchiaino," which means, "Pass me a small spoon," I accidentally said, "Passami un cocaina," which means, "Pass me some cocaine." My host brother was most amused. He kept making snorting motions, and his wife said, "No, he finished it all this morning for breakfast."

So, when one looks up the word, "excited," in an English to Italian dictionary, one of the first words one finds is "eccitato." However, as I have found out, "eccitato" refers to a slightly different type of excitement, if you catch my drift.

Ah, well, they make for good stories, eh?

Tales from the Homefront

Greetings!

I have promised an account of Lucca. We went during Carnivale, and there was a celebration in the main piazza. Small children dressed as superheroes, princesses, and animals ran around, throwing handfulls of confetti on each other's heads and spraying silly string and some mysterious substance that appeared to be styrofoam bits in an aerosol can. On the stage, a poor magician performed his heart out, calling for audience participation, while the children ran around or stared into space. There were a few parents with their toddlers strapped into front carriers on those wonderfully ancient bicycles that everyone rides around Lucca in lieu of cars (I think, perhaps, the most picturesquely Italian sight I've seen so far was a nun in dress and wimple riding an old-fashioned bicycle down between the medieval stone buildings in Lucca). Scattered about the town was an antique market with everything from books to furniture.

Later that evening, we returned to the piazza on our way from a night of opera (Puccini, sine Lucca was his home) to a wonderful dinner (I had ravioli and tiramisu), and we heard noises coming up behind us. Preceded by a cop car was a procession of people in medieval garb playing drums and carrying flags. They marched in a rather haphazard fashion around the piazza, causing us to keep dodging out of their way. The Italians just joined the procession. Then, they stopped, and young men came out to demonstrate their flag-throwing prowess. One man had five enormous flags at one time. One or two were always aloft, and one was always clutched in the crook of his leg. In the middle of the performance, a high school marching band complete with majorettes came up behind us and starting playing, drowning out the sound of the medieval drumming. Then, onstage, a woman dressed as catwoman started testing the microphone and talking about what was going on. It was utter chaos and utterly Italian.

This is a picture of the antiques market in Lucca.


I snuck a picture of some of the revelers. Note the baby in the bicycle basket.


A confetti-strewn piazza in Lucca.

The other morning, I woke up to the sounds of, I kid you not, a swim team match. Groggily, I opened the shutters and light spilled into my bedroom. The pool behind my apartment was filled, at 8:30 am, with people in swimsuits, sunbathing. I spent the entire day in the daisy-filled lawn behind my apartment, studying in the sun in my short sleeves and skirt.

My host mother is cooking dinner for David when he comes to Siena next week, and she has been stressing about the menu for a week. She is making him lamb, because he is Turkish, and Turks eat lamb. Also, she is making beef ragu, because Turks eat lots and lots of meat. Dinner will also include an antipasti, dessert, fruit, cheese, wine, and a vegetable course. I don't think I'll be able to adjust to living in the states again. The care given to food here is really incredible. Everything I eat is organic, local (all of the veggies are grown by my host father) and cooked in the very best olive oil. Until last year, Giulio and Giuliana even picked the olives to make their olive oil themselves to ensure they had only the best. I drink chianti (actually from Chianti) every night. At any rate, they are quite excited about meeting David. Giulio says he will be the judge of "quello turcho" (that Turk, his name for David).

I am very busy but well-pleased.