Lettere del Cuore Verde

Some rice with your lasagna?

2008-04-22T12:17:00.002+02:00

Last night we threw together a piccola festa at the house before Ashley, Hannah, and I leave. What a feast! Korean eggplant and spicy/curry pork, sushi rice from Aiane's stash of stuff from home, my spinach lasagna, and fruit salad. Nothing really went together, but no one seemed to mind. A kind of cross-cultural celebration. Aiane gave us a paper crane lesson and we finally got Aurora to sing for us. (Opera in Korean and Italian, just sitting at the kitchen table. She's really good despite her claims).

Aiane and her napkin crane

Group shot: Me, Elona, Aurora, Ashely, Aiane, Hannah

Feast!

Origami lessons

And a family of cranes.

2008-04-17T15:26:00.003+02:00

It's hard to believe that I leave Perugia in exactly one week. It's scary, but I am ready it. I finished my Italian course this morning and the rest of my exams are next week. I have one weekend to tie up all the loose ends, see friends, eat at those last few restaurants, and do all my laundry. It's gone by so quickly, but at the same time, the timing is just right.

In the mean time, I met my friend and old roommate Kate in Rome this weekend. It was exactly what I needed, a good friend from home, a weekend of travel, and lots of ancient Roman stuff. I am so glad that she thought to go to Pompeii, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I found a similar sense that I experiences last summer in the ruins of Chaco Canyon. But at the same time, it's completely different. I couldn't help but sense the tragedy of the place, such a sudden end, and the expression of the figures that were preserved, really very powerful. We walked for a good four hours and probably only saw half of what there was. Between that and the fact that my camera batteries died after the first hour, I am very glad that I am going back in a month with Kerry and Alex.

The thing is, it's an entire city, and I didn't really register what that meant before we got there. We walked through villas, shops, baths, theaters, temples, streets. The floor mosaics as well as tons of wall paintings were all amazingly preserved. We know from Pliny that the ancients did amazing and extensive wall paintings, but until the discovery and excavation of Pompeii, we didn't have extant examples. Imagine what it would have been like to be the one to unearth those frescoes...

PS: This is my last week with free, regular internet, as well as the last week I will have my laptop. I will do what I can to update about my nomadic summer, we'll see how it goes!

I know that it is way too early for this, but....

2008-04-04T17:01:00.006+02:00

We had a conversation the other day about what we wanted waiting for us at the airport when we get back. I know that I am only halfway through my trip, it started me thinking. I guess that I think with my stomach because when I started thinking about what I will appreciate having when I get back, more than half are food-related.

For example, I haven't eaten peanut butter in three and a half months. It's here, just expensive and so I don't buy it. I also haven't eaten turkey since I got here, a little bit of chicken, but all the sandwich-like meats are pork (salame or prosciutto).

Here's what I have so far in terms of "things" (this list bars people and more intangible stuff)

peanut butter
tortillas
teflon frying pans that are flat and don't stick!
sharp knives
toaster (I don't miss the microwave, actually)
bagels
being able to call people when I want to
a bed that is wider than three feet
soy! (tofu, edamame, soymilk...)
enchiladas
cheddar cheese
reliable hot water
pureh (spelling?) tea
really good hugs on a regular basis
a down comforter
my bicycle (I am missing riding this week)
sushi
a yoga mat (I do yoga straight on my tile floor. It's cold and my feet tend to slide.)
maple syrup (Is 7 euro for a small bottle! We eat pancakes/french toast with jam or honey)
salsa

At this point though, I don't crave peanut butter, I don't miss turkey sandwiches. With the exception of hugs, they are things that I can do without. In terms of creature comforts and scarce items though, I will be excited to have them back again. But you learn, how to deal. My eggs alway stick, but I make toast in a pan and I move on. It works.

It goes the other way around too, what I will miss from here when I go home.

.70 euro caffe
gelato
my balcony
speaking Italian
buying sausage from the market
the sausage itself
cheap wine that is excellent
great public transportation
pecorino that I can afford
Rita who sells me fruit
Wheel of Fortune in Italian

Well, I am running out of steam on that one, best to wait and see how that goes.

Yesterday Elona moved in from Albania. We spent a long time talking this morning over breakfast, also a mix of English and Italian. She is an Italian teacher, here getting some courses in grammar. She hasn't spoken English a lot and loves the practice. So now days there is always someone home, it feels completely different from the past three months and I love it!

I am enjoying a relaxing weekend in Perugia, preparing a few presentations and enjoying the stability of having a home. Soon enough I will be on the road and these days of continuity will be a thing of the past. I basically have two more weeks of class then half a week of finals. After that I am hitting the road, going to Bologna, Venice, and the Dolomites (11 day tour of the northeast!) until I meet Mom and Dad in Milan. After some travel with them and Kerry and Alex, I am leaving Italy! My friend Cassiope and I booked flights to Barcelona for two weeks. Spain wasn't originally part of my plans, but now that we have decided to go, I am psyched. Aside from that, I want to get down to Sicily for a few weeks, then probably head back to the farm for the rest of the summer. I have a feeling that by the end of June I will be ready to stay in one place for a while. That's the rough plan anyway, after Spain, always subject to change. It's funny how when you look at summer from early March it seems an eternal amount of time that is terribly far away. Now that it is approaching and I am mapping things out, well, it is long, but not that long. There is never enough time to do everything, but it will be enough.

Until then, classes and a quick trip to Rome/Naples/Pompeii with Kate (CU friend studying in Ireland) next weekend!

I got a hold of a couple of pictures Melanie took on our adventures from last weekend. There's me and Bella Luna, then on top of the Rocca in Orvieto.

Primavera!

2008-04-01T11:03:00.002+02:00

It's spring, finally, in Umbria. It's amazing what the simple factor of the sun can do. I spend two hours yesterday afternoon reading/sleeping out on my balcony, soaking up the warmth. The lack of school work this week has been reminding me to live slow...to take advantage of the sunshine and relax! I can hear the accordion player even now, wafting through the library windows. I am trying not to be too antsy; I reminded myself yesterday that soon enough I will be wishing for the peace of a city I know and an apartment to call home.

Speaking of apartments, Chen Li, my Chinese roommate moved out and we have two new members. Hannah from Korea (who also sings!) and Aliane from Japan. It feels much more lively and crowded, mostly I think because they are spending time at home and so we see a lot of each other. They are very friendly and our fridge is about explode (it's tiny!). Rumor has it that there might be a sixth moving in, but we are not sure yet. Should be interesting.

Orvieto was wonderful, the mosaics on the facade of the duomo were beautiful. Not often you see that much color on the outside of a building. We had some local white wine with lunch (I tried wild boar...tastes like meat, mostly) and wandered the underground caves.

Sunday was definitely one of my favorite days in Italy. We rode horses to a ruined castle/watchtower in the nearby hills. The woman who took us packed a hearty homemade picnic lunch and we sat amongst the ruins while the horses grazed on their favorite herbs. I made friends with Bella Luna, who didn't particularly like going uphill, and again, soaked up some spring rays. It was, as my friend Allan observed, all very romantic and idyllic.

We have to embrace those idyllic moments though, and make space for them in our lives. It's part of living slowly, and of appreciating the small things. There was a girl in the computer lab yesterday ranting about how Umbra requires us to do things that we need the internet for, yet it doesn't work half the time...and they should give it to us in our apartments...etc etc etc. Yes, I love the internet, and I use it a lot. I realize being here though, how dependent we are on it and I wish this were not so. It's part of the demand for constant stimulation, and perhaps we should wean ourselves away. Which is why I am going to finish here soon and go OUTSIDE to listen to my accordion player, and get some more wonderful vitamin D!

PS: My apologies to those of you who had trouble commenting. I forgot that I put the whole blog in Italian, I will try to change it!

M

It's all smooth sailing from here

2008-03-28T13:40:00.002+01:00

Finally! All my papers are done and turned in. I am finished with field trips and most of all of my lecture classes. The rest of the semester includes two weeks of paper presentations, one week of special events, and one of finals. My sense of time is relatively distorted still so I can't really say whether I feel like time has flown or dragged. I have noticed this week that I have been feeling complacent about being here. A sign that it is getting to be time to finish this phase of my trip and start the next. I don't have enough time here to let myself feel complacent for too long. I am taking advantage of the general lack of homework the next few weekends to do some traveling. Tomorrow we are going for a day trip to Orvieto (famous for white wine) and Sunday will be a morning horseback ride through Umbria! I have been looking forward to this in particular all semester.

Last weekend was my class trip to Milan where I decided that 24 hours was enough time for me there. I won't go on about all the art that I saw, since I seem to be doing a lot of that here. The highlights were The Last Supper by da Vinci, the original preparatory cartoon for Raphael's School of Athens (see the Rome post), and a special exhibition of prints and drawings by Albrecht Durer. The last was completely unrelated to class. I studied him last semester and so made a point of slipping away from class for a few to take a look.

The weather has been pretty indecisive lately, snowing one day and bright and sunny the next. I am awaiting true spring expectantly. Of course, in the midst of the Easter weekend cold snap our heat went out. I was elected to make the call to Signor Goretti and was actually quite proud of my ability to explain the problem over the phone. Speaking another language face to face is infinitely easier than over the phone when you can't use hand signals. He and his wife are so nice and they came over right away. We were very happy to have hot showers again.

Ironically, it was hot in Milan while it was snowing in Perugia:

Spring Flowers! Cloister of the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie (while waiting our turn to see the Last Supper)

Duomo in Milan. The French helped, obviously. There is no building anything like it anywhere else in Italy.

Brunelleschi's interior of Santa Maria delle Grazie. It's cool because the nave of the church is the old Gothic building (tall, dark, pointed arches), but the apse, transept, and dome are Brunelleschi's open, lighted, Renaissance space.

PS: I would love to know how many people are reading this (and who!). If you feel like it, please leave me a comment, satisfy my curiosity!

Grazie mille,

M

Firenze, Finalmente

2008-03-18T10:33:00.007+01:00

Si, finalmente sono andata a Firenze. Yes, I finally went to Florence. I had been saving it all semester knowing that I would go this past weekend and the next on field trips (thought I would save the money on the ticket). I won't go into to too many details, but it is enough to say that Florence is nothing like Perugia. There are people everywhere and it feels not like an Italian city, but an international city. It's an overstimulating place and I wouldn't want to live there, but it was a great visit. We did a whirlwind tour of important Renaissance pieces (all the way from Cimabue to Parmiggianino, yes, finally saw the alien baby painting in life. It's my least favorite in the history of art.) Spent a night with Cassiope and had a great time wandering the Boboli gardens (best ten euro I have spent this trip, the gardens are amazing!) But, since Florence is all about the visual, I will let the pictures tell the rest.

My favorite statue in the Boboli Gardens

Interior of Sta. Croce

Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel at Sta. Croce

Brunelleschi's facade of Sta. Maria Novella

Cassiope's favorite statues in all of Florence

Campanile of the fabulous Florence Duomo

View of the Arno

Tina and Metra, my lovely neighbors

Ghirlandaio's Last Supper at Ognisanti

Spring Break!

2008-03-11T13:44:00.003+01:00

I spent this past week (spring break) as a volunteer on a family farm in the shadow of the Abruzzi Mountains south of Rome. It's a sort of experiment in alternative, sustainable tourism. They have several rooms they rent like a hotel as well as volunteers who exchange work for room and board. The idea is to promote visitors to the area and share with them the life on the farm as well as the surrounding natural areas. Sadly, it rained most of the week and I didn't get to do the hikes that I wanted to. But I did get my share of farm life including the hearty cooking and shoveling of lots of nasty things.

I really didn't mind that though. It was a welcome break from my school and city life. I brought nothing responsible with me, so when I was done with my work in the morning, I got to honestly ask myself, “what do you WANT to do today?”. I did lots of walking on the nicer days, to town and to the other farm that they own up in the hills. We spent most of the second half of the week piled onto the old sofa bed in front a the ever-roaring fire. (Italians don't heat their houses very well, so it was either that or crawl under the covers.)

I don't want to write a treatise on farm life, so I will try to just highlight the more interesting parts. The first morning I was there we paid a visit to the cheese-making shepherd who still heats his goats' milk over a fire and uses real rennet for the culture process. We tasted at all stages including a cup of warm whey with ricotta floating in it. I think this part grossed most of the people out, but I kind of liked it.

Maria cooked us a full lunch and dinner every day, including fresh or frozen veggies from the garden, pastas, beans and lentils, lots of bread, and plenty of their homemade wine. It doesn't take much to get used to drinking a glass of wine two meals a day. It was refreshing to sit down with no less than five people at every meal. I get so used to eating alone in my student life, but it something I generally regret. Living together that close, the four of us volunteers became friends fast. They were all great and little bit crazy. But that made it all the more interesting.

I also did what I could to make friends with Concetta, the donkey with the attitude of a fourteen year old. It was a sort of love-hate relationship depending upon her mood of the moment.

But my favorite part was working and talking with Giuseppe, an old Sicilian with no English and a lovely life philosophy. He got really excited when I asked him that first morning “posso provare?” (can I try?) in reference to the fresh goat's milk he handed me to take up to the house. For the rest of the week we spoke Italian, mostly me listening to his romantic memories of Sicily, which he misses very much. “Calmo, calmo, tutto con calmo” says Giuseppe, “il tempo non vale niente” (time doesn't really mean anything). He got mad at us if we dug our holes or shoveled chicken poop too vigorously. He was our daily reminder that everything comes in its time, and everything takes that time. No reason to rush. And when Antonello and Maria were in town and we weren't sure what to do, he told us to just relax, smile, and laugh instead of doing any work. So there I was on Friday morning, sitting in the heart of and Italian farmhouse, warm and smiling, with Giuseppe giving me a list for a tour of Sicily.

And yes, there were all the nasty parts, but we were all nasty and so no one cared. We all smelled bad and hadn't washed our clothes. Our hair was all a mess or under hats all the time. It really ceased to matter and that felt really good. As I walked through the streets of Perugia yesterday, I suddenly felt very self-conscious of my grungy jeans and tousled hair, of the fact that I hadn't showered that day, or maybe even the day before. I could already feel the city taking me back in and when I went out again later that day in my clogs and green blazer, I hardly recognized myself. It was a week of another of those space/time warps. I feel like I was there much longer, but at the same time, like I never left here.

Early AM at the shed of the cheese-making shepherd

View from the volunteer dorm

Jesse and Leslie

Olive grove in the hills

Abruzzi Mountains, almost felt like home!

On famous stuff (ie. ART!)

2008-02-25T13:31:00.005+01:00

School of Athens, Raphael, fresco, Vatican Collections

One cannot forever avoid the beaten path, especially those of us who specialize in the history of art. I know that I cannot say that I lived in Italy for half a year and didn't see certain members of the cannon.

As a result of this fact, I found myself this weekend pushing through crowds on the Rome metro, standing in line for over an hour alongside the walls of Vatican City, and staring at the frescoed Sistine Chapel listening to security guards try to quiet the crowd and still all cameras (a task fit for Sisyphus).

As a result I have now in my collection the two following ridiculous photographs:

Portrait with a copy of the Doryphoros, courtesy of Hannah K, Rome, 2008

Portrait Feigning Astonishment at the Feet of the Apollo Belvedere, Courtesy of Hannah K., Rome, 2008

No, seriously, I had to do some thinking about the experience of wading through the throngs of visitors snapping photos of this and that famous art work. In the first place, I was very surprised that photos were allowed in the Vatican Museums (with the exception of the Sistine Chapel). I took very few as I felt very uncomfortable doing so. And besides, I have far superior reproductions in several books at home.

Out of respect for the less famous works, I did what I could to turn around and examine the fresco on the wall opposite the School of Athens, but it's hard. There is so much to see, you can't process it all. I love looking at art, and I reached a point where I needed to get out of there. So what do you spend your time looking at?

More importantly, what makes up that experience of looking? Hannah said that she was overcome to a certain extent by the experience of the Sistine Chapel. I felt like I should have been, it's the Sistine Chapel, for goodness sakes! But I wasn't, and I wondered why. Granted, I studied the ceiling, searching for those elements I had read so much about. Proximity, the space between the two fingers, Don't forget the frescoes on the sides, Did you know Boticelli, Perugino and others were also involved? I looked for something other than the figures, examined the colors and thought about how Michelangelo's use of color highlights for the creation of volume related to my term paper. But I was not awed. I felt like I could say I had seen it, something I had to do, and so I could move on.

The Apollo Belvedere, Laocoon, those were different. It still wasn't the feeling I remember having standing with a particularly unknown marble statue somewhere in Scotland, but I did have a hint of that grandeur.

So, why? More specifically, why not? Dr. Kwakelstein has talked about certain works within the idea that we are raised seeing reproductions. The Mona Lisa, the David, Pieta....the list goes on. I would hate to think that this has been what has numbed me to the the true experience of seeing a work of art. In the age of mass media there is a much smaller margin for surprise. I won't say it is gone, but you have certain expectations already for what you are going to be seeing.

I am not going to lie, the waves of people everywhere kind of ruined things for me. But that is a double-edged sword. As a student of art, I want to be able to sit silently with the work, preferably in its original context. I would re-create that original experience. On the other hand, I love that all these people are here! That they come from all over the world, that it is something that will not be forgotten. (The Vatican Museum is sneaky about this, they make you go through one half or the other of the museum before you ever get to the Sistine Chapel....they make you look at things some people would never consider, for example a hall of 16th century frescoed maps of the papal territories, very cool.)

I don't feel too guilty though. I could have sat in front of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne or Caravaggio's St. Jerome (both in the Galleria Borghese) all afternoon if they would have let me. It probably doesn't help that I have been slowly developing an academic and aesthetic aversion for a lot of Renaissance art. (I don't feel guilty about this either.)

At the end of the weekend, the beaten path is exhausting and sometimes frustrating, but rewarding. Best thing is to make sure you travel it with the right person and you keep everything in perspective. In St. Peter's Square, Hannah almost started crying; she said to me, "Monica, we're in Rome, I mean, we're really in ROME!"

Self-Portrait with St. Peter's Basilica (Or how I learned to stop worrying and be a tourist), Monica Butler, Rome, Spring (weather), 2008

Un viaggio da sola

2008-02-16T15:01:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I decided to go it alone and hopped on the bus to Gubbio. Over an hour of windy roads later (bleh!) and I was on my way up the funivia (see silhouette below) to the top of the mountain. In the church of the Franciscan monastery at the top was the preserved (pickled) body of San Ubaldo in his vestments. I planned the ride so that I would be at the top for the funivia's pausa hour so I had plenty of time to wander around. A hike further up led to the ruins of an old medieval tower from which I took the 360 degree panorama photo of doom (email me if you want to see it. I don't think it will show here).

There is something very liberating about standing alone like that, with full visual command of the lands below. I sat at the backside for a very long time and I wished for my journal to record all that was running through my head. I have been wondering about the non-cultivated areas of the Italian countryside, and I saw a few yesterday. The pictures do not really show the contrasts of greens and browns. It's beautiful.

The rest of my day took me through medieval streets and a variety of churches, past bell towers and friendly local kitties. I stopped for a caffe macchiato in a local bar and realized as I was ordering that I picked THE bar in Gubbio where all the old me go to wile away their afternoons. I felt very out of place standing there, but I was also caught by another one of those "I'm in Italy moments".

These moments have a variety of forms.
1. "I'm in Italy! It's so beautiful and I feel like everything I see is a postcard photo."
2. "I'm in Italy! I can't believe it."
3. "I'm in Italy, wow, I am living in Italy. I know what I am doing here."
(Yesterday was of the third variety, particularly after on two separate occasions I was asked directions to places in the city by Italian tourists. I kindly responded, "Mi dispiace, no lo so. Non sono di qui.")

Like the sense of freedom of standing on the mountain, traveling alone was exhilarating. It is not something that I would want to do long term, it has the potential to be very lonely. But it was such a strong sense of self-confidence.

As the sun was setting, I realized that I had time before the return bus to step outside the city walls to the ruined Roman ampitheater. I don't know how many pictures I took, but I couldn't get enough of the site. Moss covered seats and the contrast of the two-toned stone construction. With the setting sun, it was perfect.

A Photoessay of Sorts

2008-02-12T10:52:00.000+01:00

Making pecorino and ricotta

A spread of central Italian basics

View from the agriturismo (field trip for Food and Cultures)

Perugia's Vittore Emmanuele II (along with Garibaldi, every city has one)

My favorite statue in Piazza Italia

Traditional products of Norica (cured meats and a variety of cheeses) at the Saturday Market

Saturday Market bustle (that's my friend Stacie)

Old friends! Hannah (left is studying here with me and Cassiope came to visit from Florence this weekend)

To be or not to be a tourist?

2008-02-03T17:19:00.000+01:00

I would like to apologize for my lack of photos. I haven't been carrying my camera with me and though all the visual memories are in my head, they are not something I can share here. A little dated, here are some pictures of Pisa last weekend. I think Pisa is kind of a silly place, it is as if they built the campo a put it there just for world tourists to come to. I was particularly amused by the sea of people taking the famous 'holding up the leaning tower' photo. I think they looked like they were all doing some form of tai-chi. It was my first experience with a famous tourist site and I am not going to lie, I was not impressed. So yes, I have seen the leaning tower, but I didn't pay the 15 euro to climb up and I didn't buy a leaning shot glass from one of the dozens of vendors along the sidelines.

View of the Arno, Pisa

Yes, it is still leaning, yes it is still standing.

My non-tourist weekend, though much less sunny, was far more interesting. Friday I wandered down Corso Cavour and the Scale di San Ercolano all the way to the Medieval Garden with stops at all the historical churches along the way. The walk all the way back uphill was worth the treasure of the gardens (one of those moments I wish I had my camera). Saturday I rode the newly opened minimetro to the Saturday market where I bought a great cheese and some dried fruit. However, I could have purchased anything from pots and pans to shoes to a roast pork sandwich, discount shampoo, or a live chicken. I need to go back another time when it isn't raining. This noon we went to the monthly organic market where we sampled (and bought) some wonderful goods. The vendors were all there and eager to talk about their products. The man I bought some wonderfully creamy, strong cheese from had a picture of him with his herd of goats displayed proudly next to his cheese wheels. We were there around lunch time and they were all huddled together around steaming bowls of legume soup and hearty bread, a kind of rural idyll in the middle of cosmopolitan Perugia. Ashley bought some great red pepper relish from a group of nuns and we all spent a long time smelling one woman's array of handmade olive oil soaps.

This is my kind of Italian experience, leave the leaning tower to the world-landmark baggers, they can have it.

On the other hand, there are certain things that I know I need to see, so in my plans I am trying to strike a balance between the two. My art history trips to Florence and Milan will take care of a great deal and I have weekend in Rome to plan that involves the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Collections, and the Villa Borghese. But I am more looking forward to the pizza workshop tomorrow night and the wine tasting in a couple of weeks. Maybe I should be seeing Italy, but I would rather be living it.

In which: I successfully do my laundry

2008-01-30T16:50:00.000+01:00

I would have it be known that this week I have again provided evidence for the old adage, 'third time's a charm'. I have finally figured out how to wash and dry my clothing without disaster and I am proud to announce that happiness is clean laundry, among many other things.

A quick, update, with room to breathe.

1. I made an amazing (simple and delicious) mushroom sausage pasta dish last night. I am inspired here to actually do the cooking that I always said I would do before. Perhaps it is because I don't really have a choice, but I think it is more that all the ingredients are so fresh and delicious. The red peppers in particular, I could eat them like candy.

2. I think that I finally have ideas for all three of my term papers. I know it is early in the semester, but the semester is short and I need to to some leg work before writing proposals. I am interested in all three, though sometimes the reading gets overwhelming. I am going to (with professor approval) be writing on the painting of the Lady with the Ermine for my da Vinci class, Mannerism with a historiography approach using Pontormo's Entombment as an example, and grocery shopping in the US and Italy for my food cultures class.

Lady with the Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci

Entombment, Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo

3. I met with the museum today that I am going to be doing a small internship for. The project is doable, but a little daunting. I will be writing a report providing background information for certain items in their collection. It involves working the in the museum library as well as looking for materials in the library of the Universita di Perugia and the Galleria Nazionale d'Umbria. Sounds fancy and that part scares me a little, but it is going to be a wonderful learning experience. I get to do some real art history.

4. At home the other night, Aurora (my Korean roommate), Hai (my Chinese roommate's friend), Ashley, and I had a great time trying to speak Italian. It was somewhat of a three-ringed circus including Chinese/Italian dictionaries, Korean/Italian dictionaries, hand gestures, drawings, and lots of laughing. It was great.

5. I experienced my first Italian train strike, apparently they happen a lot. Long story, not that interesting, but definitely an adventure in travel. Lesson learned: pad your travel time and beware when the lady at the counter says the word 'sciopero'.

2008-01-24T10:13:00.000+01:00

It's a new kind of awareness, not only of space and time, but also of self and potential. Because it isn't just some kind of warp of distance and the passage of time that creates it. Every day is new, everyday is something different and not just the pizza, or the pasta, or making my own macchiato this morning. Those are the concrete things, the things that they use to sell a country, to try to convey experience. But when I sit here, thinking about this place, that isn't it. Those things are symbols for something else. I wanted to live in a different paradigm, that is what I said. And it's happening, so strange, but so true. The insecurities that I thought would bind me, that I couldn't escape from during my first week start falling away. Because we are all in the same boat, but also because there is no tomorrow and I think that we are all subtly aware of that. How we all get excited to go to the un-signed fruit lady after her extra-long pausa this afternoon like it is something that we have always done. It's so hard to describe and you won't believe the pages I have filled with words since I got here. It's like I can't stop. I am not sitting at my kitchen table every night writing about the things I have seen. I try to throw some of that in to track what I am doing, but it takes so little space. No, it is as if the analytical part of my brain is on some kind of steroids that makes it unable to shut up. I also didn't used to have a place (person) to unload it all, but even as I am making friends and we are getting beyond the mundane, I am this wealth of thoughts that I don't have room to carry around every day. Because I keep finding new ideas, and like I said, new potentials. Because suddenly, potentiality has lost the theoretical aspect and become reality. And I can't say when exactly that line started disappearing, but I can barely see it anymore. For example, my roommate was talking about going to Egypt for spring break, I told some friends about it and we couldn't stop talking about it for a few days. Granted, after some more research and some more serious consideration, we all agreed that this is not the time for that. But it was like, yes, yes, I could get on a plane and go to Egypt and ride a camel if I wanted to. There is nothing to stop me. Nothing to stop me aside from some kind of interior belief that I could not do it.

And so sometimes, I don't know what to say. I still email my mom to ask her what she thinks about things like dropping classes, finding internships, my inability to do laundry....but what I really want to say, is, well, I feel different. And I don't know how to properly convey that without becoming obtusely cliche or abstract.

I also read a Cohelo book last week, and that does crazy things to my head. But I had a realization of one of the reasons that I like his books so much. He writes the way that I think. The kind of broad brush strokes that characterize people and become more abstract generalizations. The words, the contemplative tone, it is like the way I think about the world. And that kind of thought pattern has become exaggerated since I got here. Every thing I do, everything that happens today seems to throw in some kind of new perspective onto my reality and I have to digest it right then and there. Hence me approaching 1/6th of the way through my journal already. It is kind of ridiculous.

So you ask me and I will tell you about my Saturday afternoon laundry debacle, my new ability to make (and love) espresso, ordering salami in Italian, talking about Angelia Jolie with one of the staff at a movie shown in a several hundred-year-old opera house. I will write you postcards about the hills and the ridiculous fog, about pasta and unsalted bread. Because that is my life right now and I am settling in after the initial shock of it. It scares me, because I fear that spacetime, fear what it will do.

I can't even articulate how excited I am, excited just isn't the right word. I have started dreaming again and sleeping lighter the past few days. I don't like the restlessness, but welcome the ability to see so many simultaneous possibilities.

But somewhere in there I have to cook dinner, meet Italians, learn my vocab for my quiz on Thursday and steel myself against 28 pages worth of term papers. Gahhhhh. I can't think much more than a few days at a time, though I want to be able to plan my entire life from here on out. I can't even fathom April, yet I can somehow see themes emerging that I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life. And somewhere in all of that, I am still me and I am feeling the freedom to be just that.

It isn't that I was constrained before, rather, restrained. Perhaps it is because I feel like I fit into this kind of rhythm. I don' t know what I am trying to say, really. Mostly that today I am not crying uncontrollably and I love Italy. They say that this is a natural psychological cycle, and I try to keep that in mind when I find myself up there in that position of looking down at myself.

Oh, by the way, I have a new roommate. She is from Korea and she and her friend are here to study Italian because they are training to be opera singers back in Korea. It's neat until I step away and think "I share a kitchen with a Korean opera singer..." It's crazy, that's what it is.

La pace francescana

2008-01-20T12:44:00.001+01:00

It is strange, and I have said this to a few people I have been talking to, that I am experiencing a kind of time/space warp in which physical distance translates itself into a different perception of time. I have been living here for only two weeks now, but it feels today like two months. It isn't simply a kind of warp in space-time, but it also has to with how suddenly on my walk home, my feet recognize the feel of the cobblestones. What was once something completely new and boggling, starts to feel familiar. This is not to say that I feel at home here yet. I am still figuring a great deal out by trial and lots of error. Yesterday was a great laundry debacle, let's just say I walked across half of Perugia (including climbing about 200 stairs) with wet laundry. I won't go into the details, but it was definitely a matter of operator error and ignorance at the Italian laundromat. So now my clothes are all clean, but I am not because I can't take a shower until my towel finally dries out. So it goes, and we move on.

It was our friend Amanda's birthday this weekend and Thursday we took her out to a wonderful little restaurant. The school guidebook lists it without a location, but recommends it as one of the best places in town. Renee wheedled the location out of one of the staff and we spent three hours at one of the best meals I have had since I came. I took the opportunity to try the local delicacy, truffles. None of us could decide exactly what it tasted like, definitely something entirely its own.

I have been doing some reading, prompted by my experiences here and the titles of the books on the Food Cultures reserve shelf, about Slow Food. Thursday would be a perfect example. Slow Food is actually a movement begun here in Italy, now an international organization, that promotes, of course, a slower approach to food consumption and food experience. It is so interesting though because they incorporate all levels of eating experience, including promoting local products and traditions, nutrition issues and whole foods, as well changing our perceptions of the meal and how we experience eating. I could write a lot more here, but there is a lot of information online if any of you are interested. I am going to try to write my paper for my food cultures class about culture differences in grocery shopping. It sounds strange to simplify it like that, but basically I want to make a comparison between supermarkets and the kind of shopping people do here (open markets, alimentari, etc) because it is a very interesting way of looking at cultural perceptions and traditions about food.

I started classes this week, and though I thought it would be manageable, this weekend I am starting to reconsider. I don't want to bite off too much because I want to be able to spend time relaxing and not living in the library. So I have to figure out in the next few days if I am going to drop one of my classes. One way or the other I have 28 pages worth of term papers to write and the semester is very short. Besides, I am working with one of the staff to try to set up a 3-4 hour a week internship and I think that this experience would be more beneficially than that fifth class. I feel bad about it because the professor is a great guy, but I don't think I want to be taking seventeen credits here when I never take that many at home.

But now, sorry this is very long, the highlight of the past week was our trip to Assisi on Friday. It is only about a 30 minute train ride away plus a little bus up the hill so we had a relaxing morning a made a nice little day trip out of it. We spent the whole time gushing about how much we loved it and taking tons of pictures. What struck me the most was how two cities (Perugia and Assisi) could have such completely different moods about them. Granted, Assisi is a much smaller city and the tradition of St. Francis is inseparable from its heartbeat. It could have been the weather (sunny and beautiful, just for our pilgrimage) or the light colored stone that composes all the architecture in the old city, but there way just something about it that made me feel like I was walking through a kind of fantasy. All this made possible also by the fact that we were there in January. In the travel/vacation season here, I would never go there because of the crowds and junk shops I know will just explode. The famous Basilica of St. Francis was a church like I have never seen one before, frescoes covering the walls and vaults of both the upper and lower levels to the extent that I know I could return again and again and see something different every time. Were I alone, I would have sat there for a longer time, just to try to digest the juxtaposition of the visual sensory overload and the sense of complete peace. I could talk about it for another page, however, I will let the pictures finish the story.

My travel buddies.

St. Francis, patron saint of animals. Apparently you can have your pets blessed on his saint's day.

Finally, proof that I am actually there!

Corinthian columns on at the ancient Tempio di Minerva, now the facade for a Catholic church.

The Basilica of St. Francis.

Views of and from the Rocca Maggiore, castle on top of the city.

Il gennaio, piove molto

2008-01-14T11:38:00.001+01:00

It is still raining. I am learning quickly that winter in this part of Italy means rain and fog. The weather is serious about it's fog here, not just a mist over the far hills, but sometimes it is so thick that I can't see my apartment building until I am within 100 feet of it. The warmth of making a cup of tea forms condensation that covers at least half of my kitchen window, though this morning the panorama from my balcony is a little less covered in cloud.

It is hard to get motivated in such weather, especially when custom and safety dictate that we close the shutters at night, thus barring the entry of any possible natural light in the morning. Yesterday, however, we rose to the occasion and got on the 9.01 train to Todi, a little Umbrian town about 45 minutes from here. Yes, it did rain off and on all day, but we were dry enough to enjoy walking around and slipping in and out of shops and cathedrals.

It had a much quieter sensibility than Perugia, of course, and I enjoyed really enjoyed this. Perugia really is a cosmopolitan place, a different kind of city, but a city nonetheless. Todi is definitely your Umbrian country town and has the quaint atmosphere to go with it. Like Perugia, however, it sits on the top of a hill and the cardinal rule of walking continued to apply. Any going down will always result in a climb back uphill.

The highlights included the Duomo (main cathedral at the central Piazza), San Fortunato, and Il Tempio Maria della Consolazione. Though it might bore some, I think I could look at old churches all day. They each have their own character and breath that you can feel as soon as you step through the doors and lower your umbrella. The Duomo, for example, had a heavy sense of responsibility and majesty overseen by a giant fresco of The Last Judgement over the entrance. In contrast, the white ceiling and high vaults of San Fortunato spoke of the Gothic appeal for height and luminosity. It is still driving me crazy that I can't remember the names of the different kinds of vaults, it has been too long since I did any work with cathedral architecture. My favorite part of San Fortunato were the frescoes in the side chapels. Like a procession of little installations, each presented a different subject in a different state of repair. I apologize in advance for the photo quality, there was no flash allowed so they are a little fuzzy. I had a great time deciphering the images from a combination of my own knowledge and what I could understand of the few signs posted in Italian. In the crypt of San Fortunato is the massive tomb of Jacopone, an ascetic saint of the 13^th century. He was so extreme that even the Franciscans wouldn't have him for a long time. The eventually did admit him to their order and Todi is very proud of him to this day. Also, I saw my first reliquary (I know it is nowhere near my last).

We spent the first part of the pausa getting warm and eating lunch including l'antipasto misto della casa (house appetizer sampler) and polenta with local sausage and mushrooms. A perfect lunch to stick to my insides on a cold rainy day.

So, I am trying to accept the rainy weather and not let it keep me from exploring and going out. I'll just try to blend in with the Italians and carry my umbrella everywhere with me, ready to go at the slightest potential of a drop.

Tempio Maria della Consolazione (based upon plans for New St. Peter's in Rome)

Picturesque hills, I would recommend Todi on a clear day, though.

Santas all climb ladders, no chimneys in these old places

Interior of San Fortunato

Tomb of Jacopone, Crazy martyr saint

Ruined San Fortunato Fresco

Unfinished Frescoes, San Fortunato

Duomo

Sunday

2008-01-11T12:54:00.000+01:00

In the face of rain and a valley full of mist, they bussed us on Sunday out to Lago Trasimeno for a day on a local agritourismo. They fed us a traditional breakfast of bruschetta (in this case, il panino commune and olive oil only) a a drop of red wine. We got a tour of the oil pressing process, some more orientation information, and a demonstration by several local nonne of how to make fresh pasta from the farm eggs and semolina flour. The watching them roll out the pasta dough reminded me of pounding out tortillas on my counter at home; it takes a similar kind of pressure, though I think the dough is a little more responsive. Il pranzo (lunch) lasted over two hours and everything served came directly from the farm or wild from the land around it. We started with the pasta they had earlier showed us followed by a delicious bean dish, a local specialty. I wish I could remember any of the names of what we had, but they washed right over me all day. Apparently though, the beans grow wild and are very difficult to process; they have to be separated and processed entirely by hand. They come in a range of about fifty different colors, each color with its own slightly unique flavor. The soup was very simple with a crusty piece of bread to soak up the salty broth. I tried to figure out what the seasoning was. At first I thought it was something like fennel, but then my dinner mates pointed out that it could have been something unique to the beans themselves. It was truly a full-experience food because I definitely found that I started at one flavor and ended up somewhere completely different by the time I swallowed. For il secondo (second course, usually some kind of meat or fish) they served a homemade sausage in the same beef sauce served with the pasta. I don't think I have ever liked sausage as much as I did then. It was so delicious and fell apart with the touch of a fork. The people I was sitting with were very concerned with thinking about the pig that made the sausage. Instead, I found myself satisfied that I knew exactly where that pig had come from and how it had been raised. It really bothered me less than thinking about what is in some of the bratwurst and pepperoni I have eaten before. All this was of course accompanied by homemade red wine (excellent). For dessert we ate a traditional kind of rum cake with a very special dessert wine (again, I wish I could remember the names). The wine was a very sweet and strong red reserved usually for Easter only, but they opened it special for us. After dinner drinks, even wine are always served in small shot-glass sized cups. And a tiny amount of this wine was certainly all I could have managed. When we studied the food chapter in my Italian class last semester I wondered how they could possibly go through the whole series: l'antipasto, il primo, il secondo, e il dolce. But if you draw the whole thing out over that many hours with wine, conversation, and rest in between, it is perfect (body warm, heart warm). I think we Americans need to observe and learn to adapt our Thanksgiving accordingly.

I think though, that my greatest impression was one of earthly simplicity. Ours hosts were very warm and kind people who took their holiday (Feast of the Epiphany, the last day of the Christmas celebrations in Italy) to put on a wonderful day for us. I loved feeling the rich heartiness of the food and the work that I know went behind its trip from the field beyond to the plate in front of me. And I am learning that even the Italians in the city maintain that sensibility about their palate. They go the to the grocery store every few days and only buy small amounts (COSTCO would not do well here, I am sure). You only buy about 3 etti of prosciutto at a time (about enough for three hearty or four normal panini) because they eat it fresh and won't leave it sitting in the refrigerator more than a day or two. The way the stores are open, it is very simple to walk past your local grocer on your way home in the evening to buy what you need for dinner that night. This would be easier if I weren't cooking only for one, but it is something I am trying to adapt to.

After writing this, I realize that I need to branch out in terms of what I have been cooking. So far it has been a variety of combinations of tomatoes (not good this time of year, note to self), garlic, onions, olive oil, mozarella, and bread or pasta. I want to try to get together with people to cook meals as I know some other houses are doing. I don't think it is necessarily going to work with my roommates, but I hope that I can pitch in and work with some other people as I meet them. I visited the covered market today, the place for fresh food. I hit the end and only a few fruit and veggie vendors were still open. When my schedule is more fixed I am going to try to work in my shopping there. They are open only in the morning and I think the earlier you go, the better it is. I will check that out more this weekend or next week when I don't have three hours of Italian class starting at nine.

On that note, I recommend fresh bruschetta with garlic and tomatoes, bake with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and don't kiss your significant other afterward. (I feel like I ate nothing but garlic today).

Homemade pasta

Jugs of olive oil, best I have ever tasted.

Rolling out pasta

Via della Cupa, 86

2008-01-07T16:17:00.000+01:00

Un appartmento italiano

Requesting a challenge, I signed up to live with international students rather than other Umbra participants. I have yet to see fully how this works out. My roommate is a full year student, she has so far very patiently answered my multitude of questions. I hope she doesn't think that I am crazy when I can't open the door for the third time or I run in at eight o'clock to tell her how I managed to successfully light the stove without burning myself. Our other flatmate so far is from China. Her name is Li and through our mutually broken Italian I learned that she is 19 and studying at the Universita per Stranieri. We and miscommunicate more than we get through to each other, but a lot of smiles and the addition of some very useful hand signals gets the main ideas through.

Our apartment is not as homey as some of the others I have seen, but the view makes up for it. Off our balcony (which I look out on from my desk) you can see Perugia as it cascades down the hill. On clear day, which we haven't had since Saturday morning when I took this picture, I can see beyond to the surrounding hills. When I am more adept with the stove and it is a little warmer out it will be a great place for sipping my morning tea.

As a Means of Introduction

2008-01-07T16:01:00.000+01:00

I made it here, I am actually in Italy. Though some I have talked to are still in disbelief about that fact, I am sitting here trying to figure out what to do with this simple, yet so very overwhelming fact. What I have realized so far, in my very short three day experience so far, is that every day is going to be so full. I don't know why I wasn't really expecting this kind of mack-truck overload, but it is very real and I am navigating it one day at a time. The idea is that my mind is overflowing, but I don't want this to be the place where I distill that, it can't be, you won't want to read it. The truth is that this blog is meant for people to read, not for me to write. It is a new kind of writing for me, so bear with me. I don't want to bore you with too much detail that isn't relevant, but I do want to keep you updated and give a taste, at least an impression, of my experiences here. That being said, I will try to avoid the kitchy, sometimes overly-effusive kind of travel narrative in favor of a few details, pictures, and whatever else I think this blog will lend itself too. So in that way, I expect that it will also evolve as learning process for me, a series of public writing exercises. I hope you enjoy!

Grazie a tutti,

Monica

I can't believe I leave tomorrow!

2008-01-03T04:52:00.001+01:00

So, are you allowed to post on your travel blog before the actual departure date?