Gay Paris!

Wait, did I really go to Paris?
Yes, yes I did. I hung out with/ran into no fewer than a dozen different Middkids plus some other friends of friends, and generally had a blast. The hostel was kinda dirty, but also friendly. The food was good, except for that wok place that made me sick (you don't want to know the details). Traveling was hell. We walked EVERYWHERE, and got to have fun on the metro systtem, but I feel like the vast part of my time was spent just enjoying the company of the people around me. The sights of Paris were almost secondary.
Okay, the Eiffel Tower was pretty sweet. We were there for four hours, it was damn cold, I didn't have a jacket and we did not get to have dinner until ten and it was awesome. It lights up! Sparkly! And you can totally stick your head out of the grating.
Also the Louvre was great, although I am disappointed that the tags on all the pieces are only in French. I mean, it's a huge cultural center of Europe (the world?) and I really would have appreciated being able to have those little tidbits of information. Nonetheless, some of it was decypherable, based on all the Romance languages being actually the same thing. Anyway, I got to wander it alone for a few hours (with the map written in Italian!) and ended the trip with the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda). Seeing that painting, and seeing that crowd... it just felt good. I smiled a little smile a lot. Che gioca giochi, Gioconda?

Mensa society

Thursday, February 8, 2007

I have been in Italy for a month. One month. Thirty-one days. Shit… I only have five more of these.

University classes begin on Monday. I need to figure out what exactly I want to take, which might be a little bit confusing. For the Italian major, I’m supposed to take a literature class, of which there is currently only one, which conflicts with the Etnomusicologia course that looked like it could be awfully interesting. There are two theatre courses that I might be able to take: Drammaturgia, and Comunicazione teatrale. The former conflicts with Storia della lingua italiana, which I’ve heard great things about.

Interruption of thoughts

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Back again on my computer. This time in the mensa – it’s basically a cafeteria for university students. I’m eating what appeared to possibly be but isn’t baked beans, and a plate of penne. Yesterday I went to General linguistics, and then Glottologia. General linguistics is an intro course with maybe fifty or so students in it. It was interesting, although I feel like I might already know a lot of the things that the course covers, the professor was great, and overall looks like a do-able class. Glottologia, on the other hand, was terrifying. There were four Italian girls and me and a slightly scary old professoressa. I didn’t always understand her, and I don’t think I totally understand what the course was all about. I also feel that it probably would be a big help to have a more solid relationship with Italian and Ferrarese, the local dialect, because it seems like they are what the material will be related to in class. So, I’m not taking that class.

Today, I went to Dramaturgy, which was also kinda scary. There were eight students in this class (me, six Italian girls, and a German girl) and it lasted three hours. Also, we were supposed to have seen a show that was performed last week. I hadn’t seen it since I had thought that it was this week. The professoressa spoke very quietly and had a cold, so I frequently couldn’t understand her, either because of what she was saying or how she was saying it. I might take this course.

After lunch, I’ll go to Filologia, which is required for the major, and seems to be a field I could be very interested in. It’s like historical linguistics, I think: looking at the development of a text through its various editions, publications, etc. Then that should be it for today. I’ve still got History of the Italian Language, and Theatrical Communication to look at tomorrow.

I’m starting to think that the Italian system isn’t as disorganized as they tell us it is. The Italian students certainly understand what’s going on and manage to stay well-informed. I will be blaming most to all of my confusion on the director of our program, Rosa Cuda, who seems to be actually causing most of the complications, whether in her error-filled hand-outs, her incapacity to explain things clearly or succinctly, and her unwillingness to put any effort into her job. Yeah, we don’t really like her.

You know who I do like? Italians! Especially the ones that Ellen is friends with. For the month of January, she lived with some Italians, one of whom is Manuel, who has stayed in contact with her after she moved to the apartment she’ll be staying in for the rest of the time. He, Luca and Marcello came to our apartment the other night with Ellen, Jen and Taber, and we had fun playing slightly violent card games. Spoons, anyone? Except we didn’t have enough clean spoons, so we used plastic forks and knives. So much bad idea. The Americans began to gorge ourselves on gelato and Nutella, but the Italians were kinda hesitant to join in, so we calmed ourselves a bit until they left. Then we brought out the sweets again and had at it. Adam bought a 3 kilogram jar of Nutella Friday, February 2. As of Sunday, it is empty. We’re beasts. Okay, yes, we’ve had large groups of company three times, but still. 3 kilos in nine days? My dentist would not be proud.

Anywho, Adam, Ellen and I also went with Manuel and another friend of his (whose name could be something like Gianpiero… or something… I didn’t really catch it, and couldn’t find an opportune moment to ask Manuel) to go ice skating! Wow, it’s been a long freaking time since I’ve done that. But it ended up being fun, and I only fell once, though I regrettably did not take the bambino who caused the accident down with me. I hope that I get to see more of those Italians, because they seem really nice, and might also actually like me! Score! I also might be able to befriend some of the girls in the Dramaturgy class, since they kept on looking at me. Kindly. Not in the ^wtf?^ way. We’ll see.

I think that’s it for major interesting updates. Classes do have me kinda flustered, but I’m sure I’ll be able to settle down into a schedule. I also need to see more of them, since I’ve only seen three so far, and was only really comfortable in the first. Hopefully some of the others will be different.

I’ll be going to Paris on Thursday, so hopefully I can talk about that in the next post!

Peace,

I've got to admit, it's getting better

Hi again, faithful readers!
So, I'm clearly in a much better mood than I was last time. I'm settling in more and things are less scary, which is always a good thing. Adam and I are on the verge of having a place to live - after searching for a very long two weeks, we finally found someone who says she'll give us an apartment. It's not exactly central, but it's certainly not too far away from everything. It's very beautiful, and fully equipped. All we need to do, basically, is buy linens and it's completely liveable. The reason that we're not there right now is that there is no electricity at the moment. The landlady has called someone who's responsible for that, and this someone will turn on the electricity by next Wednesday. And then we can sign the contract and move in! I don't want to jinx it though, since there's something in the back of my mind that's nagging me, telling me that there are no guarantees until there's a signed contract, so I'm still kinda holding my breath. We'll see.
Adam and I did a bit more traveling yesterday - he had an appointment with an instrument-maker in Padua early in the morning (he reaaaally wants a cello... I hope he finds one soon, because that would make a very, very happy Feb), so I took a later train and met up with him in the early afternoon. Yeah, we did get a little bit lost trying to find each other, but it was fine. We say two big churches, which were pretty, and in one of the churches were the relics of St. Anthony, which were gross (I saw St. Anthony's tongue. And jaw. Enclosed in separate golden chalices. WTF?). After that, we didn't really know what to do/see in Padua (although apparently we missed some AMAZING art in another church... we'll have to go back again), and so Adam said, "hey, we're really close to Venice. Wanna go have dinner there?" So, we got on a train to Venice, arrived during a very murky sunset, and wandered through the streets of Venice, getting pretty damn lost along the way. We were clearly not along the touristy path. Eventually we found a restaurant (can we note how I needed to look up the spelling of that word? I had forgotten how to spell it in English. Whee! Go Italian!) and had a nice little meal. Adam’s dad gave him a call on his cellphone and gave us enough of a clue to finally find the main drag of Venice, which was pretty spectacular. We walked for a while, looking for a good place to get desert, and then when the road ended, we walked back, finding a little gelateria that we hadn’t seen before which had mint chocolate flavored gelato (the first I’ve seen here so far) and it was a done deal. Then we headed back to the train station, ran into Noah and Selene (a Middkid who was in Ferrara last year, and his Italian girlfriend, who’s also a friend of Anna, and sorta the landlady of the house that two of the kids on the Midd program are living in), chatted with them for a while, and then got onto the Train of Awkward Seating Arrangements, and a whop-bam-boom, two and a half hours later we were back in the hotel. I went to bed nearly instantly, had some weird dreams that woke me up at quarter of nine, and then fell asleep again until nearly eleven, when I decided it’d be best to hustle out of the hotel so I could let the scary lady clean my room. Saving the shower for later, I packed up my laptop, and walked over to the University, on the steps outside of which I am currently sitting with my back up against a closed door (because everything is closed on Sundays) writing this entry for y’all. Since I can’t give you any more up-to-date updates, I think it’s best I publish this and scoot before my battery spontaneously dies.

Rockstar.

Peace,

Hi, world

Okay, so, some people, many of whom are Colin Penley, have bugged me to update my blog. Essential facts: I have been living in a hotel since I got here and I do not yet have an apartment. Rooms are generally not available until the beginning of February, and all the places that Adam and I have been looking at are either kinda sketchy, really far away, or are no longer available when one of us calls to say we'd take it. (clarification: we're looking for seperate rooms/apartments, but are doing the research together. Which really confuses most of the people we see.) On Monday I got my suitcase and yesterday I got my backpack. Italian airports are not very helpful. Long story, maybe to be told later. University classes start the middle of February, and right now the nine kids in the Ferrara program are taking a class at a language learning agency, which isn't too bad, but nothing too terribly exciting. I'm still pushing for the "come to class one day dressed as pirates" idea, but we'll see. When I get a chance to gather my thoughts, I will try to do so in the hotel, so that y'all get a nice, coherent, composed post that I can write at my leisure without having to think about how much it's costing me to use the computer at this internet point.
So basically, I'm well, a little bit confused, and miss you all, but it's all good.
Peace and Love

Evening Red and Morning Gray Sends the Traveler on his Way

I'm really doing this, it seems. I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow. I'll be flying from Boston to Newark, then Newark to Milan, and then Milan to Bologna. I'll take a train from Bologna to Ferrara, find a hotel, check in and sleep the rest of the day. Well, that is if everything goes according to plan. But we'll have to wait and see.
The past week has been interesting, and on the whole pleasant. I saw a chicken cross the road one morning. It really had no reason as far as I could tell, since staying on its own side of the road really would have been the much safer option, but fortunately my dad is a good driver, and doesn't want our neighbor getting angry if she were to lose a chicken. (Any of you who have seen my neighborhood, you are correct: it is no place for chickens. Or cows. But, Shirley seems to think otherwise. I digress.) I got to see some friends, spent New Year's at Shannon's house, and sat in on part of a rehearsal at my high school's fantastic new black box theatre. I just finished the last dinner that I will share with my family for quite some time. It was an excellent dinner, with delightful conversation - everyone was in a good mood, if a bit tired, for my brother moved into his new apartment today and so he, his girlfriend and my dad spent the day moving furniture. I won't be able to see it until I return from Europe, but I am told that it is in a lovely Jewish neighborhood, so I am sure he will be just fine. As soon as he buys some plates, glasses, pots and pans and learns how to cook.
As for me, I think I will be just fine, too. I was freaking out for a while, since it's all so big and unknown, but I finally realized (thanks to a phone call with Laura between the hours of 1:30 and 3:00am this morning) that this big and scary thing is made up of small and manageable components. I don't need to do everything all at once. Italy as a country is rather chill, I hear. No one seems to be in too much of a rush. I have everything I need and everything is backed up. My bags are packed, except for my computer and my toothbrush, and tomorrow afternoon my parents will drive me to Logan Airport and I will fly away.
It's good. It really is.
(I watched some home videos of my great-grandmother's nintieth birthday party. She told story after story of her life - her childhood, her family, and the trip from Italy to the United States when she was a newlywed girl of fourteen. I'm going back, Nonnie. Thank you for the stories, and the history, the good lies and the memories, and all the reasons for my return.)

To take the Journey

Into the world
without regret,
the choice is made,
the task is set.
Into the world
but not forget-
-ting why I'm on the
journey.

In one month, I will be in an aeroplane flying over the Atlantic. Odds are, I will not know anyone on the plane. Will I befriend the man or woman seated beside me? What language will I use? I'll get off the plane in Milan, take a train to Ferrara, and then, well, I don't know what happens then. I suppose I'll be starting a great adventure.

In bocca al lupo... crepi!