Home, finally

Yes, that's right. I'm finally home. It's been a long, often lonely, hard semester, and I think I can say with honesty and accuracy that it was both one of the best and worst of my life. Italy was incredible, and studying in Florence was obviously a once in a lifetime chance that I am continually glad I took, despite the craziness and hardships that ensued. But even so, it's relaxing and glorious to be writing this from the comfort of my own couch.

I keep saying I'll try to recount my adventures, but at this point I think it's just a lost cause. That said, I have been keeping up in chronological order in my Flickr photos, with pretty extensive descriptions, so if you haven't checked that out and want to, it's right there waiting.

And with that, I think I'll take my leave of the blog. It's been fun, back in the beginning when I did update, but now it's over, and since this was a study-away blog, it seems silly to continue. So goodbye!

Trying to stop a dam from bursting with one finger, or: Amsterdam and first impressions of Cordoba

Or, in this case, trying to update a blog that has been basically inactive for two months with a slew of posts all at once. I don't know where the time goes -- I guess it just slips my mind. In any case, what I'm going to do is this: write a post for my most recent activities, and then do a series of backwards entries relating the many, many things I've done that did not get recorded. I don't know how long it will take, but I'm set on doing it, and therefore I'll try really, really hard.

To begin: I'm done with school now. Yes, it's been that long. I had finals last weekend up until the middle of last week, and then on the 30th, I left Italy for the last time. It was very strange to just pack up my bags and leave somewhere like that, somewhere I now consider my home, at least a little bit. I was able to fit all my stuff in one suitcase, which was both unexpected and fantastic, even if the suitcase was 6 kilos overweight. I made it to the Pisa airport on time and took off to the first place of my post-school mini-tour: Amsterdam. The plan was to meet Sarah and one of her friend, Abby, who is also from the Oberlin program in Spain.

Arriving was horrendous. I'm not going to lie. The day we chose to arrive is one of two major holidays for the Dutch, Queen's Day, which is the birthday of the Queen Mother, I think. In any case, the best way to describe it is as Dutch St. Patrick's Day. Everyone was milling through the streets, the mass transit was shut down, there were no cabs, and everyone was drunk, yelling, and orange. It was absolutely insane, and after an exhausting flight and heavy baggage, I did not want to deal with it. Unfortunately, when you can't find a cab, you don't really have a choice. I hauled my stuff through the cobbled streets of Amsterdam and finally reached our hostel, where Sarah and Abby where I almost died. But luckily I didn't actually die. It was fairly late so we just went to find some food, and then hit the sack. In the morning, we woke up, and after a hectic period of changing hostels, we went to the Anne Frank house.

The Anne Frank house was an experience in and of itself, obviously. We're all made aware of who Anne Frank is, and why she is important, but when you go there and see the things, it makes it all real and you remember that these things actually happened, and that it was her life, and it was a real little girl who died. It was very strange, and I don't think that it was just me feeling it; despite the mass of people, the museum was very quiet, for the most part. The rooms where she hid with all those people are much larger than I expected, which isn't to say they're large. We followed her story and we saw the diary she wrote in, or at least a replica of it; the real one was in for restoration. I really enjoyed it, even if it did leave us all feeling a little down.

Lunch was pancakes, which certainly helped my mood recover. Apparently the Dutch are pretty famous for pancakes, especially savory ones, so I had one of salami, cheese and peppers and it was absolutely delicious. After lunch, we set off to walk to the Red Light District, which is a pretty crazy place. I'll leave it at that. We went to a sex museum, which was also a pretty crazy place — it's just so startling to see things that we think of as private just put up on a wall, or hanging out on the street! Just so strange. We stayed there for a while and then took off for a canal tour in a big long boat, which was really awesome and relaxing. Then came dinner and our first visit to a coffeeshop. The one we chose was listed in Rick Steves and, additionally, was where parts of Ocean's Twelve were shot, which is pretty cool, if you think about it.

The next morning, we headed off for the museum district, which was pretty far away from our hostel. We went to the Rijksmuseum and stood in line for seriously like a full hour, which wasn't the greatest. However, the Rijksmuseum has a lot of Dutch art so it was worth it in the end, though I have to say, the style is not really my favorite. I prefer huge Impressionistic stuff rather than the perfect little details that the Dutch seem to like. Either way, it was a lot of great art — a lot of Rembrandt in particular, and one Vermeer that I just fell in love with, The Milkmaid. It doesn't look as good in pictures as it does in real life, unfortunately — Vermeer, I have decided, is a complete master at light and reflection. After the Rijksmuseum came lunch at an Irish pub, then an attempt to go to the "Heineken Experience" — Heineken beer was once brewed in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the Experience is closed until summer. Instead, we went to the House of Bols, which is a small, modern place that teaches you about the special Dutch drink genever, and the genever made by the Bols company, particularly. I don't know if I'd call it a museum, but it was really fun -- very interactive, very shiny, and lots of experiments to see how you smell and taste and stuff. The design apparently won an award in 2007 and it's easy to see why, because the whole place is really cool-looking. At the end, you print out a drink and they make it for you at a special bar, and then we tasted some of the genevers — there are flavors like mint, mango, vanilla, etc. I guess they're kind of like liqueur? I'm not quite sure. But they were delicious nonetheless.

After the House of Bols, we went off to the Van Gogh museum, which was very cool but very crowded. I followed around the Van Gogh exhibitions and learned more about his (tragic) life than I had known before, and it was fantastic to see some of his more famous works up close, like Irises and that one self-portrait. I really liked it, because, as mentioned, I prefer art like Van Gogh to carefully drawn lifelike paintings. After museum, we had dinner and walked back up to the hostel.

In the morning, Sarah and Abby went on a long free walking tour of Amsterdam which they loved, but I knew I'd be complaining about the walking by the end of the first half hour, so I spared them the complaining and had a little free time, which I used to write in my journal, find breakfast, walk around the area where we live and read a little bit while sitting next to a canal. They came back at about three, we had lunch, and then we went and got a paddleboat and paddleboated around on the canals. It was very, very fun, and it was very, very hard to steer. We definitely ended up slowly turning in the middle of the canal more than once. I bet the motor-boatorists hated us, and every other tourist in a paddleboat. But it was still incredibly fun.

On our last full day in Amsterdam, Sunday, we started out by going to the Amsterdam Historical Museum, which was set up in a very interesting fun way; each room you passed through held material from a different time period in Amsterdam's history, so you followed it up from tiny village to Golden Age shipping kings to now, hippie haven. I really liked it and so did Abby and Sarah. After lunch, they headed off to another museum, but I was all museumed out so I did some wandering on my own, which was excellent because sometimes it's just nice to do what you want to do. I wandered down around the neighborhood of our hostel again, and by the Red Light District, and it was all quite enjoyable and it made me very happy.

That night was an early one, because we knew we'd have to get up at four in the morning the next day in order to catch our 7.45 a.m. flight. I was really worried something would go wrong (apparently this is what I do when I travel; I worry that something will go wrong) but nothing did, and we successfully made it to the airport by about five in the morning. Which turned out to be a good thing, because there was a huge, massive crush of people and we ended up standing in line for like an hour and a half, and then again for half an hour or so. It was so very, very fun. Not. But the flight was fine, and then the train to Malaga was fine, and then the train from Malaga to Cordoba was fine and fun because the seats were really nice. The building where Sarah lives has an elevator and all my stuff fits in her apartment, so all is well.

I really enjoy Cordoba so far, even though it is extremely hot, waaaay too hot for my liking. The streets are paved with round stones but everyone has been walking on them so much that they've become flat. I looked it up, and Cordoba has about the same amount of people as Florence, so it's a city that is of a comfortable size. This morning I woke up very late, took a nice cool shower, and organized things while Sarah was at class. She came back and we had lunch, and Sarah was not exaggerating. Spanish food is pretty bad, or at least the little I've had has been strange and specific. Flan, however, is delicious; it's some kind of dessert almost-custard-but-not-really thing that's made with eggs.... so good. I went with Sarah when she went to class at 4.30 and got coffee with her and Abby, and in a little bit I'm meeting Sarah and we're going to go walk around the city and have tea and maybe shop at some little market stalls, I'm not quite sure. But I'm excited!

Anyway, that was my last... six days. I will try to write posts for all the places I went, because I loved them so much. I bet the readership of this blog has dropped to one — my mother — but even so, I'll do it. On Friday, I leave for Paris from Madrid, and then on Sunday morning I fly home. I think it will be very, very strange.

So I haven't written in a long time, or: What I did last weekend.

So I guess when your mother starts begging you to write blog posts, it's just laziness if you don't. And yes, I am lazy, but I also feel guilty for abandoning this for a month, especially when I swore to my parents that no, I would keep them updated! Really! I promise! Clearly, my mind has been elsewhere.

I think I'm going to have to start with my most recent trip and then post a few blogs rehashing the things I've done in the past month. Because ohhh, there were a lot. So! Most recent! That would be Paris.

I went to Paris on an optional trip with my school, which was worth it if only for the fact that I didn't have to take care of any of the logistics of traveling or finding lodgings. However, the journey there and back was probably one of the more hellish experiences of my young life. Overnight train both ways. And although we had sleeper cars, it was still extensively hellish. Six girls packed into one train compartment? Not fun. Not to mention my carmates were all obsessed with things getting stolen. Which, considering what's happened to me, which none of you know about because I haven't blogged about it (hint: I had things stolen), you'd think I'd be more concerned. But let me explain. We locked both locks on our doors and they were worrying that someone would open the door the crack it can open, pop down the top lock, and unscrew and unlock the bottom lock to get at our stuff, and none of us would wake up during any of this or any of the subsequent looting. And I have to say: there is only so much you can do. We locked both locks. They are locks. The car is locked. There is only so much you can do. If you can't tell, I got a little tired of the obsessing.

In any case, we left Florence Thursday night and we had a direct train to Paris, so after a hellish night of train-sleeping, we got to the station in Paris at about nine in the morning. We took a subway en masse (about thirty five people, all told) to our hotel and checked in, at which point I think everyone on the trip took a shower. I was rooming with one of the girls from our sleeper car, Racheal, who was very lovely and a wonderful roommate. After we took our showers, we had some time to kill before the first and only scheduled activity of the weekend: a guided tour of the Louvre. So we walked from our hotel, which was a good amount north of the center of the city, all the way down to the Seine, and then along the river with a brief sojourn to Notre Dame, and then to the Louvre to meet up with our group. This walk took somewhere between three and four hours. But it was a really lovely way to see the city we had just arrived in, and I'm glad we did it. We also stopped along the way at a patisserie and had extremely overpriced, incredibly delicious pastries, which I photographed in the 2.5 seconds before their annihilation.

And then, the Louvre! Our tour only encompassed one wing, the (most) famous one. We saw a lot of paintings whose titles, artists and years of creation I had memorized as part of the art history class that I hate, and I felt a little bit smug. The Louvre is just insane. It's insane how much art there is and how little you can digest it. Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa, from ten feet back, behind a glass window, and no, I do not see what all the fuss is about. But I guess that's kind of the point. I preferred da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks, which is a painting of Mary with baby Jesus and baby John the Baptist in the woods somewhere, except there's also this weird creepy angel who's looking out at the viewer and pointing to one of the babies, and she has this creepy smile. It was weird. I liked it. Also, the Madonna of the Rocks is the painting on which the Da Vinci Code starts! No, I did not try to lift it off the wall to see if it was a true story.

After our tour ended, we had the rest of the night to ourselves. Racheal and I went down to see the Venus de Milo, which I actually really loved, but by then I was also completely exhausted and miserable and just wanted to go back to the hotel, so we left shortly after and took a really long subway ride home. Unfortunately as soon as we got back to the hotel we had to leave again, to go meet Sarah and her friend at Sacre Coeur. Yes, Sarah (Oberlin roommate) was in Paris at the same time I was, by a complete stroke of luck, and it ended up being quite lovely! Sacre Coeur is the highest point in Paris other than the Eiffel Tower, and it was absolutely mobbed with people. On the stairs right outside of the church there were some dudes playing guitar, and with all the people sitting on the stairs it was almost like a concert in an amphitheater. The four of us — me, Racheal, Sarah and Sarah's friend Naana — walked around Montmartre for a while until we found an acceptable restaurant, and had a very delicious not-French dinner, which was probably all the more delicious because all I'd had to eat that day were Pringles and two bites of this weird crusty pastry thing with meat filling that smelled like spring rolls and caused the subsequent abandonment of the food item. After dinner, Racheal and I walked back to our hotel and I proceeded to pass out.

In the morning, we got up bright and early to go on an optional guided trip of Chartres and Versailles. It was kind of awful because I honestly felt like I had a fever for most of the morning, but I popped some ibuprofen and was able to function. And Sarah and Naana came too, which was exciting! Chartres is home to a massive cathedral, and we learned aaaaall about it. Even things I didn't want to know. But most of it I found interesting, like always, and the town itself was very cute and small. We ate crepes and strange bitter crepe-like things filled with not-sweet food, like ham, or eggs, or cheese. But it was delicious. And then it was off to Versailles, which was large. Huge. Gargantuan. It is hard for me to understand what possessed people to say "I think I will build the largest thing anyone has ever seen. Ever. Ever." But then I remember that these people were kings and queens who had more money than God and it makes sense. Luke, one of the TAs on the trip, gave a little talk about Versailles before we went inside and noted that at the height of its use, Versailles and maintaining the staff and building and feeding everyone involved took up 25% of the France's national budget. He found an estimate saying that if someone tried to sell Versailles today, the lowest bid would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 billion dollars. Am I getting across how completely lavish this place is? It was incredible. We went out to the gardens and took pretty pictures, and obviously saw the rooms on display, including the Hall of Mirrors, where many important things took place, and where the king of France used to walk. Thinking about stuff like that makes me crazy.

After the train ride back to Paris proper, Sarah, Naana and I went up in the Eiffel Tower and stayed there for about an hour and a half. We went all the way to the top, and my stomach definitely dropped on the elevator ride up. I don't know what I was expecting, but it is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and riding up in the middle of some steel bars is not comforting. Sarah and I have this habit of planning things perfectly without meaning to, so we were actually at the top of the Eiffel Tower as the sun set. Paris is beautiful at night. Don't let anyone tell you different. And for a little bit every hour, the tower sparkles! Lights flash on and off and it's like a cabaret show, but a million miles in the air and for ten minutes. It's very pretty. We descended in full dark and had an indulgent dinner nearby, where we all had some escargot, which was pretty much exactly what I thought it was going to be — People had told me that the overall impression escargot leaves you with is "Wow, that was grossly chewy," and they were right. It was chewy. But I didn't think it was anything special. After that, we returned home to our respective hotels.

In the morning, I got to sleep in until ten — what luxury! — and then got up for lunch and kind of bummed around relaxing a bit in the hotel room until checkout. I met up with Sarah and Naana again at the previously planned Saint Chappelle, which was far more gorgeous than any of us expected, I think. There are two levels, and the lower one is painted in blues and golds and it's pretty and everything, but then you walk up a stone spiral staircase and come out in this room where you think for a second that the walls are simply made of stained glass. They aren't, but it's really hard to tell. It was practically floor-to-ceiling. Gorgeous. Different from Italian churches, obviously, but still gorgeous. After Saint Chappelle, we went to Notre Dame, which was a different experience than the first time I was there because a mass was going on, so the whole room echoed with decadent organ playing and everything seemed more beautiful because of it.

After Notre Dame, we grabbed a quick crepe and some free Red Bull from a Red Bull dispensing car and sat in a really nice park to eat it, and then took a very long subway ride to the Paris Catacombs, which were closed. I was really disappointed. The catacombs were what I wanted to see most. And it wasn't like it was closed because it was Sunday; they were closed for no apparent reason. It was really frustrating, and we wasted a 1.50 E subway ticket getting there. So we rode back into the main part of town and saw the Arc du Triomphe and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and then walked along the Champs-Elysees for a while. But at that point, I had to go back to the hotel to meet my group to go home, so I parted ways from them.

The ride home was equally hellish, though slightly better because I wrangled a top-bunk position, which meant slightly more air and more room to move. Even so, it was pretty miserable. And we got in to Florence at about 8 in the morning, so I just went straight to school for classes, then came home at 1 and took a shower and a nap. I've been sleeping a lot more lately, which is incredible, since I can't sleep in any more.

This week has been nice, but it's already gone and I don't understand how. This morning for a site visit we went to the Medici Chapel and saw some Michelangelo sculptures. That man is a genius. I walked around an open air market all around Piazza San Lorenzo and haggled very effectively for some fake Armani sunglasses. And after that, I went to the Accademia and saw the David, which was nice, because I got to skip the line and get in for free with my recently-recovered Museum Pass! The David is very large and very oddly-proportioned, and I know why! It is because Michelangelo originally thought he was carving a sculpture for up on the Duomo, and you have to proportion things differently if you want them to be visible from 40 feet below. And then in the middle, the people who gave him the commission were like, "Just kidding, this is for right in front of the palace," and he completed the statue with normal proportions. In all honesty, I couldn't figure out why it was the most famous statue in the world. I thought some of his other pieces were much more beautiful. But I guess if you carve a 14-foot-tall naked man and put it in front of a palace it's going to get more press coverage than a normal sized naked man in a church somewhere.

And now I am home! Writing a blog post to appease my mother. This weekend I'm going to Sicily, where I will see a lot of palazzi and learn about the mafia and work in fields that were confiscated from the mafia for all of four hours. I feel like it is very pretentious to act like the focus of the trip is that four hours of working when in actuality most of our time is spent sightseeing, but oh well. I'm going to Sicily, and that is one of the places I didn't want to leave Italy without seeing. We're flying down on Friday morning (I have to be at school at 3.45 in the morning! BLEURGH) and coming back Sunday night. By overnight train. Note to self: wrangle a top bunk again. It's all new people. No one will know you've been privileged twice.

I'm alive!

I am still alive, despite reports to the contrary! I'm just doing a horrible job of updating! My dad guessed that my writing would fall off as time went on, and it obviously completely has, as it's been nearly a month since the last time I wrote.

The reason? Extreme business. First came midterms, then spring break, when internet access was limited, and then more traveling (to London, to cities in Italy). My purse was stolen over spring break, in Austria, and I didn't have the energy to recount my tales for everyone for about two weeks after that.

But this weekend I'm off to Paris on an overnight train, which means I'll have a lot of free time, so I'm hoping to write catch-up posts on the train and post them all at once! Not ideal for you readers, but it'll get me caught up, finally. Don't forget me! I promise I'm coming back!

The tale of five cities

So much time has passed! So many things have happened!

Let's see, where did I leave off... ah, yes. Right before my trip to five Etruscan cities. The trip that, in all honesty, may have changed my life by giving me an interest in the Etruscans as a field of study.

Since I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, the trip was for my Etruscan and Roman Art and Archaeology course, which is my favorite course, and two of my better friends here are in it. The professor is also incredible, knowledgable and interesting to listen to, which is a requirement for me to like the course. The presence of all these things meant that it was bound to be a good trip from the start.

The trip started at seven thirty in the morning on Friday, when we boarded the bus and took off for Chiusi. In Chiusi, our first stop was at the Etruscan museum in town, which has a fantastic collection of the type of artifacts found at Chiusi, some of which are found only in Chiusi, like funerary urns made a certain way, or sculptures made from pietra fetida, an Italian rock that has sulphur in it and reeks when it gets wet or is scratched, and smells faintly bad when dry and in a museum. The artifacts in the museum were interesting if not extraordinarily so, and it was a great start to the trip.

Next in Chiusi we went into the tunnels. The Etruscans who lived in Chiusi 2500 years ago realized that the ground they lived on made a perfect water filter, so they dug channels into the ground and collected potable rainwater that had been filtered down through the layers. The tunnels are now open to the public -- for a fee -- so we headed down. At the present time, the tunnels end in what used to be a holding tank for water for the Roman fire brigade. From underground, we climbed up into a very tall tower and saw Tuscany and Umbria stretched out before us. It was beautiful and stunning; no matter how many beautiful views I see, I'm always struck by each and every one.

That ended our time in Chiusi, so we boarded the bus again for Orvieto. Orvieto was built on top of a cliff, and we went into another museum there, which I found to be less memorable than any other museum, but then we sequestered a public bus -- something you could never do in America -- to take us down out of the city to the Crocifisso del Tufo. What is the Crocifisso del Tufo, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The Etruscans are very well known because they buried their dead in necropolises, whose layout mirrored that of the city for the living. These necropolises' layout and construction varies by site and time period, but they are how we know most of what we know about the Etruscans. (The Etruscans, for anyone who knows absolutely nothing, are a Greek- and Roman-influenced culture that lived on the Italian peninsula from about 800 - 80 BCE.) The Crocifisso del Tufo was revolutionary because it was laid out along the cardinal directions, and shows an understanding of city planning that wasn't present before. We clambered among the ruins and into tombs where dead people once laid and touched writing that had been carved 2500 years ago and saw first-hand what we had been learning about in class since the start of the semester. We boarded the bus and went off to Tarquinia, where we were staying the night.

One of the most memorable things of the trip was dinner. For dinner, we went as a group to a one of the best restaurants in Tarquinia, one that our professor has been to so many times the people there know him. I had yet to have a good birthday dinner, so I was looking forward to indulging in really good seafood, as Tarquinia is right on the ocean. I ordered the "Frittura al mare miste," which translates to fried seafood, and was expecting what I'd get in America if I ordered the same thing: nondescript seafood covered in batter and fried to the same brown coat. No. I got whole fish, whole shrimp, and little octopi legs and rings, lightly fried until they were perfectly flaky, with all the bones intact and with all the legs intact. It basically looked like a tide pool leapt into the fryer and onto my plate. They were delicious. Add to that the two bottles of wine that our professor bought for each table, the appetizer my friend Lisa and I split of shrimp and artichoke, and the dessert of almond cake, and you have one very full, very happy girl.

In the morning it was time for another museum; the Etruscan museum in Tarquinia, which was very big and had a lot of very cool things but nothing spectacular to people who don't have more than a passing interest in the Etruscans. Then it was off to the necropolis of Tarquinia, which is built on a cliff and is thought to have more than 6000 tombs. They've all been dug into the ground and are some of the most beautifully frescoed Etruscan tombs in existence, but they're unfortunately shut off from the entrance with Plexiglass so they won't deteriorate any more, which means you can't walk around in the tombs or even see them very well. Still, the images in those tombs are some of the ones that are referenced whenever Etruscan art comes up, so they were definitely worth a visit.

Fourth city! We're almost done. The fourth city was Ceveteri, which was incredible. At the necropolis in Ceveteri, the Etruscans started on top of a layer of bedrock and carved a city of the dead down into it. The necropolis itself is open to the public and the tombs are carved into rock, and you need a flashlight in order to see anything. It's incredible. I felt so silly for being so excited about "exploring" tombs with my flashlight but really, the necropolis is so big that Lisa and I wandered off and didn't see anyone, and it was like we were alone in the necropolis exploring things. It was fantastic. I could go on about it for hours but I'm sure you'd all be bored.

Last city! Now we're really almost done! We hopped back on the bus and headed over to Norchia, which, our professor tells us, is "a very mysterious place." If I remember correctly, the inhabitants of Norchia abandoned the living city for no apparent reason, but of course, we went to see the necropolis. The necropolis here is built into the side of a cliff in the middle of nowhere -- we got dropped off in a parking lot and walked for fifteen minutes to get to a cliff, then climbed down the cliff to the necropolis ruins. On the way, our professor pointed out the ruins of a 12th century monastary on the cliff on the opposite side, and we ended up hiking over there to see them as well. Then back down to the valley floor and back up to the Norchia necropolis, which was cordoned off by some waist-height fences. Our professor said to us, "All right, have fun... I think the best place to hop the fence is over there."

We clambered about the ruins ourselves and it was incredible. This girl Jen and I went down into a tomb and discovered that it had nine sarcophagi in it, and we spent a good fifteen minutes trying to reach something we thought could have been a bone in one of them; we propped a lid against my back and I stretched out full length to get it after wedging myself in a corner. It turned out to be wood but that didn't matter at all. When I came out of the tomb I was grimy and sweaty and a little bit bloody and I don't know that I'd ever felt more accomplished or happier with anything I've done that's even remotely related to archaeology. It was fantastic. Sarah teases me a little bit for getting slightly spiritual about these sort of experiences so I won't go on for long, but let me just say that somehow, being in those types of places, thinking about the people who were there 2500 years before I stepped on the ground, just makes me marvel. It's so incredible for me to think about.

Finally, I've finished the field trip! Now a quick preview of upcoming entries: A brief summary of midterm exams followed by my first few days of spring break in Lyon, France, with my friend Camille. (It's been fantastic!) Unfortunately, I forgot to get a universal charger before I left Italy, which means that although I have my computer with me, it is out of batteries and I have no way to charge it. I've been stealing Cam's computer periodically to check my email and other things I need, but we're going tomorrow to find a transformer, so hopefully I'll be set. If not... well, Sarah has one, so I'll be up and running by Thursday evening at the latest. This also means I have no phone, because I don't want to wear out the batteries if I have no way of charging them for the next four days. Here's hoping we find a universal transformer!

The Trinity, spring break, tombs and Mr. Housley

It looks like I jinxed the weather with my last post! Since Monday it's been rainy and gross, not to mention humid. And I don't know if it's my volumizing shampoo or the climate here, but my hair is going insane. It's incredibly frustrating, especially since I can't wear my hair in a ponytail because it's still too short.

This week was generally uneventful. Classes go on, as classes are wont to do; for my Wednesday site visit we went to the Church of Santa Maria Novella to study Masaccio's fresco The Trinity, which is generally considered to be the first Renaissance work. It was very impressive but I don't feel like typing out why, because it has to do with the alignment of the shapes and figures and other things like that. I can tell you, however, that it is the first painting to be done using one-point perspective — you know, the technique we learn in third grade with the vanishing point and horizon line. Masaccio uses it to make it look like the fresco is another room in the church. It's so strange to think about something like that not being the norm at the time. Our TAs said that people in the 15th century would have been so unused to seeing illusionist paintings like that that people occasionally tried to reach into the room.

Santa Maria Novella is right by the train station, so after the site visit, I went there to buy my tickets for Lyon! Everything went off without a hitch, except for the fact that I switched the airport I'm supposed to fly into with the train station, and my tickets run out 45 minutes outside Lyon proper. This just means I have to get back to the train station, and I hope they can change it. I'll be staying with my friend Camille in her house in Lyon for the first weekend of break, before leaving on Tuesday to go to Vienna, where I'll be on my own for a few days before meeting up with Sarah. It looks like Prague is going to end up being a no-go — Sarah and I are both champion procrastinators, which means in this case we kind of screwed ourselves, as tickets out of Prague are close to $400. Instead of Prague, we may go to Salzburg, or Venice, or Zurich or Istanbul or Beijing or you know. It's a week to go and we're still deciding. I hope I'll be better at planning before I get out of Europe.

Tomorrow I'm off south on a two-day trip to visit five Etruscan ruins, with my favorite class and my favorite professor. I am exceedingly excited, as is my entire class. Two of my closer friends are in that class, so it should be even more fun than normal. And Mom, the flashlight you made me bring will come in handy! Professor Ewell said we should bring a flashlight if we have one so we can better see the tombs. (Etruscan tombs are arranged in necropoli, and, for the most part, are carved out of bedrock.) We'll be staying in Tarquinia overnight, which is right by the ocean, and Professor Ewell said they have excellent seafood, and that he'd make reservations at a nice restaurant for any of us who want to go with him there. I think we might all end up going, because we all adore him and think he's the smartest man alive. If any SMA girls are reading this, he's like the Mr. Housley of Syracuse in Florence.

I'm finally caught up in my pictures! I just today realized I had yet to post pictures from the last day of my trip to Mantua/Padua/Venice. With this post, I'm all caught up on both posting and pictures, and therefore entirely ready to fall behind after the trip this weekend.

My first post as a true adult

Today was one of the first truly warm days in a while, and I took advantage of it — I write this from the Piazza della Vittoria, a small piazza just down the street from my apartment with the Filippinis. I was so excited by the sun that I took all my homework outside and sat on two benches and did it here in the piazza, along with a healthy amount of people-watching.

This weekend was also beautiful, the first truly nice days in a while. It was so warm that Liz and I were able to leave our window open all Friday night without even getting chilly, which has never happened before and was certainly an enjoyable experience. The only downside is that Italian homes do not have screens, so I'm making friends with a lot of mosquitos. If by "making friends" you mean "luring in and killing." Which I do.

As some of you know, I missed my bus to Siena on Friday, but I'm not worried. There's another trip I'll be able to go on at the end of March, and since I slept through my alarm again, I clearly needed the sleep. I slept half the day away, then woke up and took my Italian translation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust out to this same piazza and did the same thing I did today: read and people-watched, with a short break to duck into a caffè for food. I was still exhausted at night so I stayed in.

Saturday was much of the same. I was late to rise, and didn't really do much until about eight at night, when I went with a few of my friends to Pizzeria Spera around the corner and had literally the best pizza I've ever had in my life. After that, we went on to a small bar and had a few drinks to celebrate me turning twenty one, even though that technically didn't happen until Sunday. And Sunday, while pleasant, was low-key; it was obviously a school night so I didn't want to go out, and the joy of being able to buy alcohol has worn off since being in Italy. I imagine I'll be annoyed when I get back to the States and have to start presenting my card everywhere.

Oddly enough, the 24th is Gabriella's birthday as well, and after dinner she surprised us with champagne and a two layer cake with Chantilly cream that she had made herself. It was beyond delicious. For the after-dinner coffee, she brought out the rest of the cream and we put it in our coffee, which I guess is something they do here. Liz and I aren't complaining.

I also got to learn some fun swear words because Lorenzo was watching the Milano-Palermo match during dinner.

Life here goes on. I was just thinking the other day how strange it is that in some ways, I now know Florence better than I know Portland or Oberlin. Portland is understandable to me; it's... I don't know how many times larger than Florence, but it's a lot of times. And I rarely walk in Portland. But for Oberlin I have no excuse; I don't even know where some of the biggest buildings are because I am rarely very far from north campus.

Florence is small but I know the street names and the piazzas. I generally know which direction I'm facing. I know how to get to several key points and I know where the bars are, I know where the ATMs are. I know which busses take me which places and I know which bars have the best midday sandwiches. It's a strange feeling to be so familiar with a place after just five weeks, but I guess as I've said, Florence isn't that big, and I've been spending a lot of time wandering.

I can't wait for it to be warm all the time.

This weekend I have my first trip I'm really excited about -- a trip with my Etruscan and Roman art class to five Etruscan cities. I love the professor and two of my better friends are in the class, so I'm excited to go for more than one reason. That's from Friday to Saturday; Sunday, as always, I'll wake up in the afternoon and proceed to procrastinate.

I can't believe it's week six of classes. The amount of time that has passed is beyond me. Midterm exams are next week and while I'm not worried, I'm also not sure how much of that is because Oberlin's grade policy is pass/fail. We'll see. These will be my firsts tests in all my classes, and it'll be interesting to see what they're like.

And two weeks from then, spring break! Sarah and I have finally decided on travel plans — we're going to Vienna and Prague together, after I spend a few days in Lyon with my friend Camille. We'll actually be meeting up with our good friend Ben in Prague, and then he'll catch up with us in Italy a few days later and we'll get to spend another bit of time together. After that week back, Sarah and I are jetting off to London for Easter weekend — it's really hard for me to imagine what it'll be like being back in a country where English is the main language! Hopefully we'll get to see our friend Andrew Mooney for a bit while we're there. And then it's back to Florence for me and back to Córdoba for her.

The bulk of my really exciting weekend trips — Pompeii, Sicily, Paris — happen after the break, so I'm obviously really excited to get back, oddly enough.

And now it's time for more reading. Expect another update when something interesting happens.