Love!

One year ago today, my sweet boyfriend Curtis came to pick me up and take me to a coffee shop for our very first date. Technically, it wasn't a date, but a Greek lesson. Geeky, but true. This past year it has been such a blessing to get to to know him and to be his girlfriend. I am so sorry that we can't be together for our anniversary, but we will be together again very soon: one month and nine days! I love you, Curtis!

Perugia

This is last week's journal entry, from October 19th:


After boldly proclaiming my love of tacos and bemoaning the lack of food variety in Italy in my last travel journal entry, I am happy to say that this week my taco craving was satisfied. Meredith H. spotted a taco kit in the grocery store, and, as you might guess, in practically no time we were on our way home with 24 taco shells, a large jar of salsa, nachos, tomatoes, olives, and 2,000 grams of ground beef. That night, all of us made a delicious Mexican feast. It was heavenly. Unfortunately we could not find any cheese remotely resembling cheddar, so we had to do without or substitute with parmesan. Despite a few minor setbacks, however, it was well worth it. I thought I ought to include this information as a conclusion to last week’s journal.


Continuing the food theme, this weekend we took a group excursion to EuroChocolate, an international chocolate festival. It goes on every year around this time and takes place in Perugia, the capital of our neighboring region, Umbria. Perugia is a beautiful historic city and, even though the weather was overcast and foggy, still had very pretty views from its hilltop location. Up and down the wide streets were chocolate vendors from all over the world, mainly from Europe. Lindt and Toblerone are the only names Americans might recognize, but there were vast amounts of others, too. I was feeling a little disappointed this week because at home the State Fair is going on, and I knew while all my friends would be going I would be missing it. However, EuroChocolate more than made up for it in crowds and calories, and I even got to ride on the Milka ferris wheel.


There were also exhibits about South America and the origins of chocolate. On one of the tables there were pamphlets, both in Italian and Spanish, and I picked up a Spanish one. The man at the table thought I was Italian and told me I could read the Italian pamphlet, if I’d like. I purposefully chose the Spanish pamphlet because I have taken much more of that language. However, since I have been learning Italian, I’ve been getting my languages slightly confused. When I tried to say to the man that I knew Spanish better, it came out as, “Mi espanol è mejor di italiano,” a jumbled mess that doesn’t really make sense in either language. Nevertheless, from the pamphlet I was able to learn a little about chocolate and the history of the cocoa bean. It seems that the best cocoa comes from Chuao, Venezuela. This part of Venezuela has a very particular altitude, temperature, humidity and climate that make its cocoa beans considered the best in the world because of their aroma and special taste. Since early colonization, this Venezuelan product has been in great demand in Europe, American and Asian markets. Before the high demand for oil, cocoa was the principal export of the country and a vital part of its economy. The cocoa bean has also always been a central part of the culture, sometimes having important religious and spiritual values, as well. At the exhibit, I even tasted some primitive Venezuelan cocoa concoctions. Frankly, they were disappointing: far from the smooth, magical deliciousness that is today’s chocolate.


EuroChocolate was a fun way to spend a Saturday, even though there were seas of people swarming the streets. One thing we have discovered about Italians is that they do not like to wait in lines, and you can imagine how difficult it is to make your way through a mass of people who do not like to wait their turn nor consider it rude to cut in front of you. We had to resort to forming a train by holding on to the person in front of us, like a group of elementary school students, to avoid being separated. This became quite tiring after a few hours, but we did come home with several chocolate novelties, including chocolate pasta and a chocolate map of Perugia.

Another exciting aspect of our trip to Perugia was that to get there, we had to ride on a different train. Usually when we travel we have to take an hour long bus ride from Sansepolcro to the larger city of Arezzo, and from there we can take a train to wherever we want to go. However, in Sansepolcro there is a small train that runs to Perugia, and so on Saturday I was able to experience that for the first time. I love trains—it is very peaceful to sit quietly and ride through the countryside, taking in the scenery. Something that surprised me is that whenever you go through tunnels on a train, your ears pop. My science major friend Meredith H. tells me this is because of a theory in physics that has to do with objects in motion creating different amounts of pressure. It is a strange phenomenon, because ear-popping is something you generally expect only on a plane. In any case, I am truly enjoying learning so many different means of traveling that I have never used before.

Until next time, ciao!
Emily

Tacos and Tests

I am sorry I've gotten a little behind with my blog. I've been writing every week, but just haven't had a chance to post online. Anyway, this is my entry from October 12th:

Strange though it may seem, I am craving tacos. Not just tacos, however, but any kind of food that is not pizza or that does not have pasta as the main ingredient. In comparison with the United States, Italy is sorely lacking in diversity in food and other areas, as well. How many times have we referred to ourselves as “the melting pot,” a mix of immigrants from all over the globe, somehow blending together to form the American culture? This lack of diversity is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you are used to being able to choose from Italian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Indian, endless fast food options or countless other types of cuisine on any given night, it takes some adjusting to the less varied Italian dining experience.

Especially in a small town such as Sansepolcro, there are few restaurant selections. Off the top of my head, I can think of about ten pizzerias inside the walls of the town, and six gelaterias in close proximity to the palazzo. To shake things up a bit, there is also a Chinese restaurant and a Kebab shop. The Kebab shops are small, usually run by immigrants from the Middle East, and seem to be quite popular. We have spotted them in Florence, Venice, Urbino, Assisi, Verona, Bologna, and every other town we have visited. They make very good sandwiches of some sort of mysterious shaved and spiced meat and served with lettuce, tomato and yoghurt sauce. Clearly, America has a great deal of variety because it is represented by people that come from many different countries. Italy, on the other hand, has a very long history and is much more engrained with tradition.

Although we did not travel anywhere, this week was very busy. For our full-semester classes we had midterms, and for Italian I and Art History, which were condensed into half of a semester, we had finals. Every day this week we had either a test, exam, oral presentation, or paper due and some days we had multiple things. After endless studying, sleep deprivation, and much anxiety and stress, it was heavenly to take a nap this afternoon.

Despite the difficulties this week has dished out, I am very thankful I have the opportunity to study here, and I have learned much more in this semester than I did in any of my classes last year. On Friday during my final oral exam in Italian, I was amazed to realize that, after only six weeks here, I am able to hold a (simple) conversation in a language that I had never been exposed to previously. Mi chiamo Emily e ho ventiannove anni. Sono di Wake Forest ma abito a Sansepolcro. (My name is Emily and I am nineteen. I am from Wake Forest but I live in Sansepolcro.) I can understand basic directions, order food, describe people, and also discuss a few other general topics.

I’ve also been learning quite a bit about art, as you probably noticed in my previous journal entries. It is a very special experience to discuss a painting in class, and then go see the painting in person. Not only does it allow you to see and study the painting better, but it also cements the knowledge in your head, because you remember the painting more distinctly when it is associated with a particular museum or other aspects of the experience. In addition to the art history class, I am taking color theory, which has been very interesting, too. So far, I have been introduced to the harder-than-it-looks world of mixing paints and basics aspects of color theory, such as how color coming from a computer screen is different from color we see in physical pigments, and how colors are relative and their proximity to each other effects the way we perceive them.

After doing nothing all week except for sitting in my bedroom and studying, Saturday brought a welcome change when we celebrated the one year anniversary of Meredith College in Sansepolcro. In the morning, we had the opportunity to meet the mayor of Sansepolcro. He welcomed us kindly and warmly said we were an important asset to the town and he is happy to have us. Later in the evening, after much tidying up, sweeping and wall-scrubbing, we opened the palazzo to the entire community for an open house. It was a pleasure to celebrate with the many friends and acquaintances we and Dr. Webb and John Rose have been accumulating here.

A Titanic Experience

This weekend marked the beginning of my independent travel adventures. My roommate Meredith and I went to beautiful Venice, which was, of course, very exciting. However, another exciting aspect of our trip was that, apart from some helpful advice from Dr. Webb, we planned the trip ourselves. It was the first time I had ever found a hotel on my own, and the very first time I had ever been on an overnight trip without an “adult.” From Friday to Sunday, we managed successfully to catch four buses, five trains, and countless vaporetti (the aquatic bus system of Venice). That is an accomplishment considering, that until a month ago, we had never used public transportation.

Not surprisingly, our weekend excursion was not without a few glitches, but these served only to give us better experience and a few stories to look back on and laugh at. When we arrived in Venice, we had a hotel reservation for Friday night, but not for Saturday night. We contacted several places ahead of time but all were full, so we headed to Venice in hopes that our Friday hotel would have a cancellation for the next night. When this plan failed, we picked up a hotel book from the tourist office and spent an hour in Piazza San Marco on Saturday morning making phone calls. By the 40th call, Meredith and I felt as if we were rehearsing a script:

Hotel Person: Buon Giorno! [Italian words I didn’t understand]
Me: Ciao! Parla inglese?
Hotel Person: Si, a little.
Me: I am looking for a double room for tonight. Do you have any available?
Hotel Person: No, I’m sorry madam, we are all full.


Thankfully, we eventually found a hotel on the Lido, a long island about a 30 minute vaporetto ride from the main island of Venice. We were not sure what we would find when we arrived, since we chose the hotel without having any information about it except the name. However, it turned out to be beautiful and even nicer than our hotel on Friday, which was the same price but somewhat dirty, smelly, and left much to be desired. Our slightly stressful ordeal of finding a last-minute hotel turned into an evening spent in a lovely, immaculate room eating the most delicious pizza and pastries and watching Shrek 3 in Italian before bed.

Once all our travel plans were settled, Meredith and I were able to enjoy exploring Venice. First we visited the island of Murano, which is famous for its glass. The glass makers’ kilns started many fires, and so in 1292 the glass artisans were forced to leave the main island of Venice and relocate to Murano. At the Museo Vetrario there were many glass exhibits, some from as far back as the first century A.D. The large collection from that time period contained very practical objects, such as cups or vases, and, although of a more simple design and cloudier glass, they were incredibly delicate and well formed. It is astounding to think that civilizations so ancient had the ability to create objects so beautiful and refined, and it is even more astounding that the fragile glass relics have survived for thousands of years. The museum exhibits are displayed chronologically, and as we walked into later centuries, eventually arriving at the 20th, it was very interesting to see the progression of using glass making as an artistic medium, rather than solely as a means of forming practical objects. Some of the pieces were like three-dimensional brightly colored paintings, and truly mind-boggling to look at. Actually, many of the pieces were glass interpretations of works by other artists, such as Picasso. In fact, there was even a glass version of Michelangelo’s Pietà.

Later, we stumbled upon a free glass-making demonstration. The demonstrator made creating a delicate piece of art look easier than breathing. He pulled a red hot blob out of the fire on a long metal rod and with another metal tool poked it here, pulled it there, twirled it around and in about a minute, held up a nearly cooled rearing horse. After that, Meredith and I wandered down little streets until we ended up in a truly Italian area of Murano, without any tourists in view. We sat down at a café where we lunched on mortadella sandwiches (a type of meat that comes from Bologna) with the locals. Before we left the island, we browsed in more glass stores than I could count until we found some good buys and a few Christmas presents. My favorite purchase is a pair of earrings made of pink Murano glass with sparkling gold swirls.

We spent the rest of the day in Venice proper. It truly is a gorgeous city, far more so than I anticipated. The effortlessly arched bridges, elegant statues and architecture, and rosy pink houses against the sea green water form a superfluously romantic setting. Aside from pushing, shoving tourists, Venice is very quiet and serene, I think because of the absence of cars and other noisy disturbances. Meredith and I thought about taking the iconic gondola ride, but decided against it. For one thing, it is expensive; for another, I don’t think sitting in a romantic gondola looking into Meredith’s eyes would be quite the same as looking into my boyfriend Curtis’. One evening we sat in Piazza San Marco, a large square surrounded by the Doge’s Palace, the Basilica of San Marco, and other beautiful buildings that are lit up at night. It is lined with cafés, which have musicians playing swooning melodies. The Piazza is also filled with couples who sit and stare into each other’s eyes as the music swirls around them, or dance together, or simply walk slowly and hold hands. The entire scene is so picturesque it is dripping with melodrama. It was almost reminiscent of the scene in the movie Titanic when the boat is sinking, teary farewells are being made, and in the midst of it all the string quartet is playing touching songs to the last.


I think part of the reason Venice is so romanticized is because it is mainly a tourist town—a show put on—but not so much lived in by “real” people. Venice has a long history with lots of ups and downs—literally. Venice is sinking, and floods many times a year. In fact, while I was walking around I saw what appeared to be stacked benches or tables, but what were actually the “sidewalks” Venetians use when there is too much flooding to walk on the ground. In 1966 there was a particularly bad flood, and since that year Venice’s population has shrunk from 150,000 to around 65,000. The flooding along with the fact that everything on an island is more expensive makes living in the famous city very difficult.

Venice truly is a one-of-a-kind city. It first became populated after the fall of the Roman Empire, when the Lombards invaded, forcing some people in Northern Italy onto Venice. Eventually, the Venetians governed themselves by electing a doge, or duke. Because the island of Venice is isolated and easy to defend, this is where the doge built his palace. Over time, other nobles wanted to build their palaces near the doge’s, and so Venice became populated with the wealthy. Its strategic location made it the dominant trade center, and in the Renaissance it was one of the biggest and most important city-states in Italy. Unlike other regions of Italy with land-based feudal systems, Venice’s unique situation created a merchant-based nobility. Even before the 12th century, bridges and canals appeared as a means of connecting the nobles living on the many different islands of Venice. Eventually Venice began to lose its political, military and trade power, but still remained popular through the 18th and 19th centuries as a tourist destination for the wealthy.

Going to Venice was a unique experience for me, one that probably will not be matched since it is completely unlike any other city. Sitting on the back of a vaporetto at night while gliding through the quiet water past ancient candle-lit buildings and pulling up to the steps of cathedrals was a beautiful and ethereal experience. I can’t wait to go back.