Piano piano!

Piano piano!

It's been really hard for me to find the energy to write a blog update the past couple of weeks. Time is flying like the new born mosquitos - faster, actually, I just wanted to get the tidbit in about the changing seasons. Tempo del marzo is temperamental - the sun shines for two days, then it rains for two days, then it's cloudy, windy, and finally sunny again. Kind of like my trip, come to think of it ...

Since the last time I wrote, a lot of living has happened, but nothing huge. I've mostly been working on my sculpture, collecting pezzi di pietra in my hair, painting pictures of naked people and shriveled beets, drinking sangria with friends at an Argentinean restaurant across the street from my from door, and experimenting with cooking vegetables in balsamic vinegar (very tasty indeed!).

I've also been busy arranging my schedule for next year and looking for jobs for when I return. I received an email this week notifying me that the interior design internship I've had for four years has come to an end due to economic reasons. I'm a little sad to be leaving a job that I've enjoyed and also some coworkers who have become lovely friends. But when I return, it will be many kinds of spring, and after a trip like this, I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to start anew.

For now, I need to turn my focus to Firenze. I'm sure that I won't have time to do everything I thought I would before I leave here, but that's life - I have grand dreams, but then I get caught up in the details. Some people are more ambitious, but me? I need time to soak everything in. I could leave now and be pretty happy - I've been enjoying the living - except some things are inexcusable - I have yet to see the David! I haven't been inside the Uffizi! I have only seen the Ponte Vecchio at night! Alas, there are a few precious Saturdays and Sundays remaining.

I still believe that somehow these dreams will happen. It's just that .... the problem with studying abroad is that you have to study! I have always been a good student, and for the last several semesters I've somehow managed to get the magic quattro-zero, for whatever it's worth. So this semester, if I come back with less than perfect grades, I think it's going to be ok.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to finish all the etching editions that are due - there are six due by the end of the semester, and I have two plates finished. I think I'll aim for 5, and if I only end up with 4 that will have to be good enough. The reality is, I'm not meant to be a printmaker. My prints come out nice, but I'm just not interested in the process. Once I get the drawing done, I want to move on to something else. I like to dig into my work, smear it around, change it up. I don't want to make 6 of the same image! I'd rather make 6 different images. I can see what some people might find so beautiful about printmaking and appreciate it - the biting of acid, the experiments and the multiplicity - but maybe I just don't get it.

I have more interesting things to think about. The Boy comes in 21 days, and I am more than ready to see him. I'm grateful for Skype and even the 16 million people using it who keep me from have a perfect connection, but I'll be glad when I can see any of love ones without pixels. Today we were talking and his face was pixelated in a way that made it look like he was crying. I was surprised for sure, and when I asked him if he was alright, he didn't know what I was talking about!

Ah, technology.

So it goes.


After resisting for three months, I finally got my hair cut yesterday. My stylist didn't speak English, but I was ready with the italian words for long, short, and curly, so through lots of gesturing and pointing we achieved a fresh cut that I'm pleased with. I always want the shampooing and conditioning head massage to go on for an hour, and somehow it was better this time because it was in Italy. She used a buzzer to cut my hair, and the whole thing went very fast; we were giggling the whole time as she asked me my opinions of Italy and Italian men and shared hers. I'm not sure exactly what she said, but she was saying something about how Italian men can sometimes be ugly and accompanying her explanation with her impersonation of someone using one of the squat toilets ... I guess she thinks they can be merde sometimes.

Well, they can. So can most guys, if they want to be. To be fair, it's true of women in a different way. But I prefer not to dwell on gender. Most of the people I've met here have been lovely to me, and when they haven't, I just keep going. I'm curious to see how my experience changes when there are two of us; it's very easy to meet people as a woman traveling alone, but I know I'll enjoy having someone to share my experiences with, and I won't miss the incessant self-chatter that keeps me company when I travel alone.

A blooming world

A blooming world

I think I'm allergic to Italy. The top of my head feels like it's going to explode. Yesterday I walked around feeling like I was in a haze, and I had a lot of sensitivity to sound. My right eye was looking a little irritated. I went home from school around 8, ate dinner, and went to bed with the start of a migraine around 10 (I took a Zomig and then fell asleep). I woke up with a very sticky and pink right eye. I read that pink eye can occur as a response to allergies but that it usually impacts both eyes. This is the same eye that was pink a month ago! I've been taking care of myself in terms of my contacts, and now I've got my glasses on. But this pink eye is different from other times that I've had it. My eyeball hurts behind my skull - like the muscle or something. My eyelids are tender and my eyeball is itchy.

I spent the weekend in the south of Italy visiting Pompei, Herculaneum, and Naples, and didn't have any problems with the pollen there. It's just Florence! Dirty, blooming Florence.

In one sense, everything is starting to fall apart. All my clothes are dirty, and my shirts especially are filthy beyond salvation. Last week, my jacket pocket ripped towards the zipper about 3 inches when it caught on some rough Italian wall, and the zipper of my boots broke on the left shoe (now the zip mechanism is only on one side). I have worn those boots nearly every day since I got here! They are so comfortable and so perfect for my lifestyle. Alas, I found a pair of simple black sneakers in Pompei Saturday night, and they will have to tide me over.

I'm happy though, really - or should I say, I'm really happy. This is one of the happiest periods of my life. I love my roommate Marisa, and I don't jive at all with my roommate Kerry, but none of it matters. The second part of this experience is so much more enjoyable than the first.

As far as photos go, I've got so many and such a terrible internet connection that it's really slow going getting them uploaded. I filled up my entire memory card the first day of the Pompei trip - that's 400 photos! So it's going to be a slow process. I'll get there.

I've been busy making travel plans with Justin and catching up on homework. He arrives one month from tomorrow - 18 aprile - and so far we've got a great itinerary going, with lots of room to adjust if we want. I'm excited. There's a part of me that is ready to move on from Firenze, and a part of me that realizes I'm only just getting started here. No part of me wants to go back to the US at this point, though I could be saying something different after three weeks of travel. My only regret is that I won't be able to plant things in my garden until May, and that could set me back on my vegetable crop for this summer ...

So it goes!

I've been on two field trips in the past week. On Wednesday, our sculpture class took a bus to Pietrasanta and Carrara, near Cinque Terre. Then on Friday, I went to Pompei with 24 students from SACI.

For the sculpture field trip, we visited a sculpture lab in Pietrasanta and hiked to see the marble quarries in Carrara. The quarries have been in use since Roman times. We saw where the marble is supposed to have come from for Michelangelo's David. It's incredible to think of how much marble is moved out of those mountains on a daily basis. We are literally eating away at the mountain range.

Pompei was incredible in a different way - a city paralyzed and preserved in an instant ...

Destino: Berlino

Destino: Berlino

This has been an amazing weekend, not because I saw so much of Berlin, which I didn't, being on foot, alone, and extremely tired after spending the night in the Milan train station, then the next night at Watergate.

It was amazing because I gained perspective on both Florence and Indianapolis. I have new ideas. I have a new image of myself as an American and as a world citizen. And I have new earrings that suit me perfectly. Since I've just been traveling by myself so far, there is no one to take photos of me, and I think that I ought to have photos of myself from this trip. So I set up a little photo shoot on the train back from Milan; Liguria was blessed with sunshine and warm weather, and I soaked it up from inside the train, along with the view of the Italian countryside.


After I took this photo, the train from Milan to Florence got interesting - long story short, I ended up playing the part of tour guide and dinner companion in Florence for two Malasian sales reps for Guess eye wear who were on the same train as me from Milan when it broke down in Bologna ... mama mia, what MADNESS ensued in the Bologna train station! There couldn't have been a more perfect comparison of Italian and German societies within one day.

I have new goals after this weekend. The first is to live in Berlin. The second is to master two languages apart from my mother tongue. I'm halfway to Italian, and I've got a little German translation book to start. Saturday night, I ate dinner in a bar and flipped through magazines trying to pick up some words. It's similar to English, and it's similar to having a wad of gum in your mouth (at least it feels that way when I say the words to myself).

I've had a crush on Germany from afar for some time now; it's only been fostered by everything I've read and everyone I've talked to who has been. Berlin in particular was my dream dress in a shop window. I've admired the funky cut, but only this weekend did I try it on for the first time. It fit like a dream. It's a bit dreary in Berlin in March, but the graffiti and people and love for music stirred me in a way that Firenze has not. I can't imagine that many people my age go to Berlin and have a bad time. It seems to have responded to its dark past by radicalizing. It's spread out, full of funky people. It's the mecca for minimal techno. And I'll be going back in May with the Boy for a week, so I'll have time to explore its wonderful museums, history, and vastness.

The main differences I noticed:

• more casual clothing style, but people were still just as stylish.
  
• the bars were approachable by at least two sides, and they were a place for socializing and interacting with bartenders, as opposed to bars in Italy, which are generally against the wall and not a place to hang out (though I'm sure there are exceptions?)
  
• women and men are friends in Germany - hallelujah!
  
• the men were still forward in their advances, but they weren't aggressive or overly sexual like many Italian men I've encountered - it was more about playful eye contact than spouting ciao bellas left and right. No one grabbed my butt or my hips in the club.
  
• people have tiny dogs with sweaters in Italy; in Germany, they have real dogs that are born with enough fur
• everything makes sense - the architecture and space planning, the train schedules, the social interactions ...
  

... there are more things to write, but I've got to get to bed for painting class in 5.5 hours. I'm sorry my posts are less complete than usual; things are getting busier here since my eyes have been opened to just how short the semester is.

I promise photos this week!

Sorprese della Settimana

Sorprese della Settimana

I'm writing you this week from Berlin's Odyssee Hostel. As usual, the getting here was complicated and interesting, and did not go as planned. That's not to say it's been bad - unexpected has been the theme for my spring break, and this semester in general. Heck, let's just expand that statement to life ...

There's a lot to write, so this is just a sketch of my week. I have LOTS of pictures to put up!

Thursday night, I ran out to the grocery store just before it closed for frozen yogurt, cookies, and cheese. As I approached my apartment carrying my impulse snacks, a big black man on a scooter outside my apartment said hello to me. He greeted me with a tinge of France in his voice and had the same open face Thierry, the security guard from Tenax, and so for a moment I thought it might be him.

"Hello ... do I know you? Is your name Thierry?"

"No, no, I am Desi! I know, all black people look the same ..."

"No! Give me some credit. I have a friend who looks so much like you, with the same accent, and the last time I saw him, he was on a scooter outside of my apartment ..." And so began the conversation.

Desi is a culinary instructor at a school in Florence. I told him I was an amateur cook, always making experiments. He suggested we meet up for a coffee, and we exchanged numbers. Then I went upstairs, ate my cookies, and went to bed. We met up the following night; I had a vodka tonic and he had banana juice, since he doesn't drink.

Desi is from the Ivory Coast, speaks French, Italian, English, and German, and loves New York. He wants to move there and open a restaurant. As we spoke, I made my best efforts, but he spoke to me in Italian and English when I was having trouble understanding. I noticed as we talked that my Italian has improved greatly. Sentences come together so naturally for me sometimes, and I even find myself thinking in Italian.

After our drinks, we walked around my side of Florence and Desi showed me an old farmer's market just minutes from my apartment that I had never seen because I simply had not ventured in that direction. Then he showed me Ganzo, the restaurant where he and his students cook. I loved seeing the kitchen when it was completely empty. He invited me for lunch sometime, and I told him I'd try to come in the next week.

My night ended early, yet I slept in on Saturday. When I finally woke up, I walked around the area Desi had showed me the night before, wandering through a little antique market and beyond; parts that weren't very touristy at all. Then Saturday night, I hung out with a new friend, Massimo, and his friends. He made us dinner. We ate in his apartment, and he thought he lived close to Tenax - first right, left, right, he said, then I'd be at the bus stop.

So I followed his directions and ended up at a park, but I saw nothing that looked like a bus stop. I saw a young man walking and asked him, "Scusa. Dove può aspetto autobus?"

He asked me where I lived in a thick italian accent. I told him I needed to go to Tenax discoteca but that I lived in centro and he said the fermata was qua and he would walk me there.

We began walking in a direction I was pretty sure was opposite of where I needed to go, and so I asked several times if we were going to the bus stop. He said yes every time, pointing while saying, "La fermata è qua," and I started to get a little worried. But when I asked him once more if we were going to a bus that could get me to Tenax, he said, "Ah! Tenax!" I guess he thought I needed to get home. We went in the other direction, asked a bus driver if the bus went to Tenax, and found out we were on the wrong side of town. So we walked, and walked, and walked, almost for an hour and a half. As we walked, he asked me questions, I asked him about Italy and Italian women and Italian school; we talked about our preferences. His name is Adrian; 25, from Calabria (which explains the thick accent). He doesn't speak English. He studies biology in Firenze.

We realized at some point that Tenax was going to be an hour's walk or more from where we ended up, so he called a taxi for me and we said goodbye after we agreed to meet up for a beer Sunday night as payment for his transport service.

Tenax was fun, as usual; I talked to Troy Pierce after about being from Indiana, gave him Seth's card for the record store, realized that even though his music is beautiful to my ears, he's kind of a bimbo. No matter. I got another ride home from Thierry. We left in his car this time; it was a very nice car, comfortable and warm; conversation was much easier without the wind blasting us. I invited him up for a tea and he accepted. We had two cups of white tea each while we talked.

Sunday, I met with Adrian; I cooked (an experiment that tasted good at the time, but then Adrian called me Monday to tell me the experiment hadn't gone well for him). I'm pleased with how my Italian is progressing, and I enjoyed being able to joke around with him - at least, he joked with me and I understood the humor. We even had some intellectual conversations ...

On Monday, Anne and I didn't go to Chianti. It was too muddy. The rainy season ceased for a couple of weeks but picked up again Sunday morning. So I went to school, painted a bit, and then hung out with Anne and her husband Will at their loft apartment in the evening, where we drank Anne's homemade sangria.

On Tuesday, I got up early to talk on Skype at school with Justin. He bought a roundtrip plane ticket to join me travelling after the semester ends. We were both psyched because not only does this set our travel plans in stone, he got the ticket for under $450, which I like to think is destino. After skyping, I painted, talked to my mom and dad on Skype, and wrote letters.

Tuesday evening, I met Adrian at Duomo, went to coffee, saw Cupido on the way, explained to Adrian that I had just seen un uomo non bravo (he laughed). Proof that Firenze is a small city. After coffee, I went home and experimented with food in my kitchen - chicken marinated in the juice I have for breakfast (orange-lemon-carrot juice, not too bad!). Desi came over later for a few minutes after he finished work and brought me white chocolate raisin cookies. I asked him about Berlusconi, homosexuality in Italy, corruption and let him do the talking, since I was tired. Then he left and I went to bed.

Wednesday, I found myself sleeping in again. I went to lunch at Ganzo, where I ate octopus for the first time and got ideas from paintings in the restaurant. My lunch was gourmet, freshly prepared, and free. It pays to have friends in the restaurant business.

I never made it to school; I went home instead, wrote some letters, talked to my sister Emily on Skype, researched the spring trip, talked to Justin and Stephen, joined CouchSurfers, got excited, showered, and went to bed super late.

Yesterday, I slept in again, went to school around 1 pm, printed out my travel information, bought a travel backback, packed for Berlin. Instead of going to Vinicio Caposello, I had dinner with Anne and Will at Il Gatto e La Volpe (where their balsamic vinegar is unlike any other, because it is thick and fruity and sweet and tangy). Then I headed to the train station and towards Milan. I planned on taking a bus from there to Bergamo airport, an hour away, and staying in the Bergamo Airport Hotel. But I missed the last bus to Bergamo by minutes, so I wandered back into the train station and asked the policeman what I should do. He suggested that the safest place was in their office, so I stayed up for four hours in the police station talking to Marco, a policeman from Calabria.

It was a funny twist, being on the good side of the inside, observing the train station from the back seat of the police cart. It was the cushiest seat. Marco brought me a lemon tea from the office. I took the first bus of the day to Bergamo, then slept on the floor of the Bergamo Orio al Serio Airport until someone told me I had to sleep on una sedia.

more to come ... I'm loving Berlin style.