Shamefully Late Update

Friends, family, I know it has been a shamefully long time since I have updated. Here is a short peek at what I have been up to in the last week, copied from an email I wrote to David.

I went to the most amazing production of La Traviata last night. It was gorgeous, and the soprano was a total diva, but with good reason. The staging was simply heartbreakingly beautiful. My favorite scenes were those with just Violetta. She had an amazing stage presence and sense of her body and its relation to the set and her clothing. When she sang, every hair, every crease of her dress, were so perfectly and elegantly placed that she seemed more like a painting than a woman. Even dead, her hands and face were heartbreakingly expressive. We were in a box right next to the stage, and the four girls in my box and I were all crying by the end.

Also, Alyssa was taking a picture of the orchestra when two of the violinists, probably in their late thirties or early forties, starting posing and motioning for us to take their picture. So she did. She got a picture of them flashing really cheesy peace signs. Then, during intermission, they came up to our box! They just hung out there, asking us about where we were from, how long we would be in Rome, what we were studying. Then, during the next intermission, they were gesticulating wildly and holding up a piece of paper. After the opera, we pretty much jogged out of the opera hall, and one of the violinists was already waiting outside the hall for us, changed into his jeans. He must have sprinted! Anyway, he gave the piece of paper (a napkin, actually) to Alyssa, which turned out to have his email written on it. Anyway, she is sending him the picture. That one was actually kinda cute, if a bit on the older man side. We decided it was one of those "only in Italy" stories. While the violinists were in our booth, our teacher, who was in a box on the other side of the opera house, was freaking out and making that Italian hand gesture with the thumb and index finger together, trying to figure out what they were doingn there. It was pretty adorable.

We also went to a carnivale on Saturday night. A bunch of my friends, with a couple of drinks in them, decided to play some of the carnivale games and ended up winning goldfish in a game that resembled beer pong, so now our school office has several goldfish mascots. When we were heading back to our bus stop with the fish, guys kept yelling, "Pesce! Pesce!" and one even said, in the thickest Italian accent, "I like-a your feesh." Flannery commented, "Who knew that fish were such a guy magnet?" and this Italian guy in front of us turned around and said, also in a thick Italian accent, "What?" Hehe. Also, I was taking a picture of the girls with their fish, and this random dude with a huge, professional-looking camera walked by and took a picture of them. It's been a surreal few days . . .

London!

Here are some pictures of London, for your viewing pleasure. Tomorrow, Barcelona!






Alan and I took so many pictures of Westminster Abbey. I was shocked by how beatiful it is. This is my favorite of the pictures, I think.