When I stepped off of (and in some ways on to) the train this morning, I ventured into the unexpected. Venice was a mystery. My side-reading had never involved it like it had with the Medicis in Florence. My history studies had never touched on it. I knew very little about it other than what I’d seen in “The Italian Job” with the very cool canals.

The first thing you see when you walk out of the train station is the grand canal. Grand barely describes it. Expansive, glittering, crowded, or perhaps even aquamarine would fit better. Grand just doesn’t go far enough. I got out of the station and got a 24hr ferry ticket so that I could use the ferries as much as I wanted. My first stop was the Gallerie dell’ Accademia, which I’d read was in the center of a bunch of the stops I wanted to see. I walked from there over to a quaint (yes, that adjective does do the job) church called Santo Stefano and had lunch in it’s campo at a little cafe literally called “Le Cafe.” I toured the church after lunch. There wasn’t a ton of material (at least compared to the Vatican — yeah, I know, a habit I’ll need to break quickly), but the roof design was awesome. I’m definitely not one who should describe it, but it had three rounded-tiers of its vaulted ceiling. See for yourself:

After I left there I tried to get to my favorite church of the entire weekend: Santa Maria della Salute. With two guidebooks that each had built-in maps, you’d think I could walk a simple 8 blocks and get there, right? Nope, six right turns later and I was lost and back at the Gallerie dell’ Accademia. So, I used my ferry ticket and went two stops down to find another church, San Giorgio Maggiore, which was across the water on an island. This was the point which convinced me that Venice is a city for Jesus: you have to be able to walk on water to get around it efficiently. Even living there doesn’t guarantee it’s easy to get around since having a boat means not only that you have to live on the water or have a garage to park it, but that if you go anywhere the person or place you’re seeing can’t have one parked there already. It’s gorgeous, but so difficult to navigate!

The inside of San Giorgio Maggiore is white marble – a nice look. It’s sad to always equate these things with pop culture, but the layout reminded me a lot of the castle in Shrek where Fiona and Farquat were getting married. After looking at a bunch in there I went up the Campanile and saw some great views of the city. The views were great but it was freezing (water+heights=windy) and I almost permanently lost my hearing when the bells 10 feet above my head started going off for the turn of the hour. I’d like to say I’ll always plan differently in the future, but I don’t plan well enough to always prevent that!

After that I came to the hostel, which is an experience I’m going to have to write on at the end of the weekend; it’s not looking promising.

Recovering from Rome is hard. School work stacks up, even when it’s a school trip; the nights are all full of activities; the hours of missed sleep never return. This week was the perfect example of why I won’t recover until I graduate in December. We returned from Rome on Sunday evening and I immediately went to work typing about the trip and starting to read for my classes. Monday night the TCU group went out and we celebrated my birthday. It was a fun time and Kristina made two types of cake and we had gelato on top. It was SO good!

Last night was the opera. I’d been to operas before, but never an allegorical one. The cast did Verdi’s “I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata.” The plot is about a family ripped with inner strife and plotting. In the plot the daughter is captured by the Muslims and she falls in love with the prince, only to have her family come after them in the crusades and completely massacre her lover and his group. In the end she is reconciled with her family after one of them baptizes her lover right before he dies and then the one who baptized him is also killed. It’s a strange plot that borders on the story of the patriarch Jacob’s family and the plight of his daughter Dinah. At other points it resembles a Shakespearean tragedy.

What was the most interesting is that they adapted it to be a modern political allegory. The family and their troops on the crusade had uniforms closely resembling the United States Army and the muslims were wearing clothes similar to Iraqis. Also, at one point when the daughter was berating her family they showed the horrors that the army had carried out – mirroring the shooting of innocent civilians and the embarrassment of Abu Ghraib. The allegory was obvious and the music was great. The jewel is that in the end the lover comes back in a vision to the daughter and he’s wearing a white suit and they sing a great duet of cosmic reconciliation. Better yet, in the end the family reconnects and ends its internal strife. Perhaps that’s an even better allegory: after all of the bloodshed, all of the embarrassment, all of the hate – reconciliation can happen for those who work for it.

On a lighter note: I’m taking cooking classes! The Accent Center hooked some of us up with the Apicius Culinary Institute of Florence. The 20 of us taking the class all gather and they have a chef and two assistants who teach us how to make complete meals. We each have our own workstation and full setup. Tonight I made spinach and cheese-filled ravioli starting out with just eggs and flour. I already know several things that I’m going to need for my kitchen once I get my own apartment. Other members of the group made a great bruschetta (toast with a sweet tomato/garlic/basil topping) and others made homemade tiramasu with quite a bit of rum. Next Wednesday we have another lesson. What’s best is that one of the assistants also teaches at his home on Saturdays. There are several of us who will probably do that for a couple of weeks whenever we’re in town.

I’m reaching a turning point with my Italian studies. With every language it usually happens like this: once I hit prepositions and take the time to learn them, the rest flows together. Back in 6th grade with English, Mrs. Mineart’s biweekly “preposition memorization tests” were my challenge. I never learned them and at that point I didn’t understand how they even worked in sentences or phrases. That came later though …

with Greek! In Greek my turning point where I started understanding the structure of both Greek and English was when we started doing the different types of prepositions. I didn’t master them until my 3rd year; actually, “mastery” still escapes me even though I’m pretty sure I can at least claim “competence.” With German two summers ago it worked the same way. Once I figured out which prepositions were paired with which phrases and cases, the rest of the language started making sense.

The ironic thing with Italian is that the class’ reaction to prepositions never changes! In 6th grade we freaked out and threw a fit asking what why we needed to know them. I’m still wondering that question since I graduated high school without knowing how their function in the syntax. Nevertheless, in Greek the class reacted with fervor because we had to translate them but were lacked the confidence. The basic reaction to them was to ask Dr. Schmidt to slow down, stop, and tell us exactly what would be on the test. The tests really didn’t matter besides giving a benchmark for our grades. They never do. In German the class didn’t go ballistic like before but there was definitely a lot of tension in our study sessions for it. The nice thing with that program was that most of the students in my class were over 25 (many very close to 30 actually), so the maturity held back part of the anger.

Now in Italian I’m encountering it again. We’ve had a sub in my Italian class this week since our professor is on vacation. She’s taught us some of the rules for using 4 different prepositions and the class was about to read her the riot act. I’d like to say I’d never seen such a reaction, but I have. Several of them raised up their hands and said “OK, do we need to know this for the test?” What does that matter? You need to know it for the language. The mentality of bunkering down to know it only for the exam is pointless. One of my classmates kept asking for a list of what our regular professor would be testing us on. Looking at the list brought on the question, “so we don’t need to know any adjectives?” My reaction was one of dismay. Languages are cumulative. It’s not like one could create a test using only words that we’ve covered in two weeks and nothing else. The bunkering mentality brings out the yearning for simplicity. Life isn’t simple. Languages aren’t simple. Does the grade really matter so much that the quest for it gets in the way of actually learning the language or might it possibly be better to work diligently, learn the language as best you can, and then the grade will reflect that!

I’m sorry for this rant, and it’s probably unfair to gauge my classmates’ reactions like that, but come on people — just do the work and quit freaking out! In your fourth week of learning a language, you can make mistakes. Indeed, it’s expected. So if you don’t have the correct preposition with the phrase and the professor kindly corrects you, don’t unleash the wrath — say thank you, and then try to not repeat that mistake again. If you do, it’s ok. By that time it’ll only be in your fifth week of the language.

I’m writing this during the return trip from Rome, a city I now love. This morning we did the tour of many of the ancient Roman sites in the city. I’d already seen most of these during the first night we were there, but seeing them in the daylight with Jeremy explaining how they all related was better. They look more impressive at night, but the daytime visit was necessary.

We walked through the Roman forum and then went up into the Coliseum. For some reason, I wasn’t as thrilled with it as I had been during my night visit. More generally, I’ve noticed, I liked the ecclesial sites more than I liked the ancients. I’m taking it as a good sign that I’m a Religion major and only a Classical Studies minor.

I’m leaving Rome for a pile of laundry and homework that I have to do when I get back to the apartment. Why do we have to have traditional classes? It’d be SO much easier to just read at night and spend every day in the museums and actual places. Part of me is relenting the homework I have ahead: art history readings, political science readings, Italian review, Aristotle’s Rhetoric for my classical rhetoric course. I feel kind of guilty about letting it pile up; then again, I am living in Italy — oh well!

I just got back from a very fun night. Dr. Antrim, one of the TCU professors, had recommended this restaurant to us for our trip to Rome. It didn’t disappoint. One thing we’re having trouble with, as a TCU group, is learning to be individuals and to break off. So, after going to three different places to find tables for 8 (not the best idea at 8:45 at night), Jen and I went on our own back to the “Cul de Sac” to see how good the food really was.

One again, it didn’t disappoint! We waiting probably 45 minutes for a table for two, and they gave us one in the outdoor area right beside the street. Even though those in the states think this is probably some of the worst seating, we still enjoy it in Italy because you’re at the center of everything. You see the people walking in the streets. You have wonderful conversations with each other. You hear the cars buzz past you going 50km/h in the alleys. You feel the cool fresh air of the nice Roman (or Florentine) night. It’s nice.

The wait was worth it because I got two dishes that filled me up and were “oh, so good.” The first was Pheasant pate (that’s pronounced ‘pat-aye’, I just didn’t know how to put the accented ‘e’ on the end). They serve with with sliced carrots and you spread it onto toasted baguette rolls. I’ve never had pheasant before, but it was great. Then came the lasagna. Jen and I both ordered it, which could have been bad if neither of us had liked it. But who couldn’t like it?!? I think there were at least four or five layers of pasta noodles with so much stuff in the middle that I couldn’t distinguish between the cheeses, meats, and other spices. Also: so good!

Before we had those, though, they brought us the menus. The waiter put it so perfectly when he said, “here are your menus (he handed us two laminated paper menus) and here is the book.” We laughed and started looking through it and the ENTIRE book was different types of wines. How should I have reacted to that? Should I have said, “oh, thanks, give me a year to read through them” or better yet “wow, which one of these is your favorite?” The wine book is something that I love. If you have a type of wine you like, there’s a good chance it’s in there, you just have to find the number. I knew of a great type that I’d had before, the Vernaccia del San Gimignano (the place I’d visited on a previous trip), so I chose one of those vineyards – they have four different ones. It reminded me of my Barry Schwartz mantra: “choice isn’t always a good thing.” The one we decided on matched up to the previous kind I liked – always a good thing.

The food was great. The atmosphere was great. What topped it off was the night; no, I didn’t indulge in a Roman gelato binge! When we were finishing dinner, this street entertainer came up. Normally they are pretty non-chalant and will ask for money and accept a head shake. This one, however, stole the show. He has to make so much money! He was street magician who had one phrase: “guarde …” Everything he said was that followed by some other filler word. (That’s Italian for “watch” by the way — I’m not sure if it’s imperative or perhaps just the 2nd singular). After the first trick we finally figured that we wouldn’t be able to ignore him since everyone else in ours and the two surrounding places were watching him; and we had the best seats! So he went through his magic tricks, most of which were pretty funny and pretty obvious. He had one fumble which got the whole crowd laughing. His candle, which was obviously hollow, accidently popped it’s tea light top and the trick was transparent. It made it even better though! At the end he did a magic trick where he took off his wig, showed his bald head, and used it as a collection hat. He was such an entertainer and such a comedian that most of us decided it was definitely worth it. The night was made by “guarde!”

Is it possible after spending an entire day in museums and basilicas that I want to go back for so much more? That’s the current mood. We started with lines. As I’ve heard is unavoidable, we stood in line for about 90 minutes just to get into the museums. It was well worth the wait, but that’s foreshadowing.

The mistake I keep bringing up for my semester is that I’m not listening to the advice people are giving me. In this case, it’s a suggestion Dr. Enos gave me for anywhere I go. He suggested a series called the “Blue Book” guides, which not only give places to go and great walking tours, but put in detailed accounts of the histories and current info of each spot. Jeremy, our wonderful guide, was using his for Rome. My mistake was that I didn’t pick one up for either Florence, Rome or the Vatican. There is SO much to take in that the book would have definitely helped me.

When we first got into the museums, Jeremy took us into a section off to the right that’s skipped by most of the big tours (thankfully). The Vatican Painting Gallery (Pinacoteca Vaticana) was loaded with some of the most important pieces in the history of painting’s evolution from wood to fresco to canvas surfaces with the mediums of tempura (egg yolk with ground color) all the way to oil. We saw pieces by Caravaggio, Giotto and so many others.

Then came the part where Jeremy released us and we could go through the rest of the museums we wanted to (like that was actually possible in that time frame — but that’s a given) before meeting him at the Obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. I had no idea where I was going, except that I didn’t like the huge tour groups, so I started following the Roman numerals in ascending order once I got inside each museum. I know, what a concept — learning Roman numerals actually helped me!

When I got to the Cortile Del Belvedere I saw some of the famous statues which I’d read about before. They were impressive, but the tour groups around them were huge, so I stayed for short moments. Then I found it: the Etruscan museum! While the Etruscans aren’t an exciting historical civilization for most people, I’ve done enough side readings related to my Classical Studies minor to know that the Etruscans were important. No, they’re not as famous as the Greeks, but for some reason, the Etruscans got a lot of stuff right before the Roman Republic and Empire sprang up. For instance, the Etruscans (contemporaries of the classical Greeks) had a culture where women and men had equality in terms of doing business and for their roles in society! Anyway, the Etruscan museum seemed like my own place when I went in. There were some people ahead of me, but as I looked at the sarcophagi and the statues they were always off in the distance. The museum personnel were nice, however, and smiled whenever I moved to the next room. When I started looking back I saw that they were shutting off each room and exhibit once I left. They weren’t rushing me, though; I could look as long as I wanted!

There were several parts of the Etruscan works that I loved. First, was something the museum couldn’t provide: I was listening to my iPod and turned on and completed Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”). It’s been my favorite for 7 years or so and hearing it put me in the mood to appreciate what I was looking at! The music was definitely not written for looking at Etruscan artifacts, but it worked. The music was actually written in Iowa when Dvorak (a Czech) had just come over to America for some extended periods.

So listening to the french horns’ great sections I was going through the statues. Listening to the beautiful clarinets in the Largo movement I was looking through the pottery and the little figurines made out of some type of metal. The symphony finally ended when I was getting ready to go into the Stanza della Segnatura. Sure enough, I didn’t beat the closing for it, and so I missed out on Raphael’s masterpiece, Philosophy (or “School of Athens”) where he shows most of the famous philosophers from the classical period with the portraits of many of his contemporaries (like Da Vinci). Oh well, there’ll always be another time.

I made it to the Sistine Chapel, and while it was impressive, the crowds drove me nuts. The great thing about big cities (which partially make me want to live in Rome sometime in my life) is that they offer SO much to see and do. The downside is that the reason they’re big is because they have people – lots of them! So the Chapel was packed and I decided to get the Michelangelo and Raphael book that the Vatican sold detailing all of the works and even some that I didn’t see.

Looking back, my favorite work of the entire day that I saw was Raphael’s “Transfiguration.” It tells so much of the story in such a good way (which was the main requirement of the paintings) that I pulled out details from the gospel narratives that I barely remembered reading. So good!

We finished off the afternoon with Jeremy explaining the genius of Bernini for designing the Piazza of St. Peter in order to make the Basilica seem even larger. When we got on the inside he showed us even more. While St. Peter’s is amazing and so nice and huge, I actually prefer the more intimate churches I’ve seen. Then again, when you have five million people going through there for John Paul II’s funeral, all the space that the church can give is crucial! It’s a wonderful place, just not my favorite.

The TCU crowd is going to a restaurant Dr. Antrim recommended to us (Cul de Sac) near our hotel tonight. Nap time for now!

I woke up this morning in a self-induced state of hell. We went out last night and celebrated one of the TCU girls’ 21st birthdays and I overdid it. Perhaps what was even worse was my coping with it by drinking a lot of water in the morning to try and re-hydrate. That ended with me having almost 2 liters of water sloshing in my stomach in the middle of a bumpy bus-ride. It didn’t end up good.

When I got to Rome I was feeling the worst that I’ve ever felt. Then, after showering and taking a half-hour nap in the hotel, I felt like I was ok enough that I could do the walking tour with the group. Funnily enough, the turning point with my outlook on the day occurred when a bird went to the bathroom on my neck right before we started. This bird had great aim. It was probably 20 feet above me and somehow it hit the neck and completely missed the shaved head and the shirt! At least I had something to be thankful for. Here’s the culprit who I captured on camera but not in life:

The afternoon tour was phenomenal! Jeremy, our tour guide, put in so many funny details and background tidbits that stuff was making sense. I’ve never had a huge interest in art, but I’m definitely growing one with my class and with Jeremy’s tours.

Our hotel, the Albergo del Sole, is nice! All five of the guys here (three from the San Franciso group and then Brett and I) have a room with four separate beds, one of which is a queen. I’m also loving that the hotel is centrally located. This may be my hotel for when I come back in the future on my own — we’ll see.

Before coming over to Italy, Mike Bruce (a friend who goes on the Appalachian Trail each May) gave me a map of Rome with walking paths marked that he and Angela had done as well as a lot of sticky notes giving me good places to eat, places that were scenes in Angels and Demons, and some of the best views. Mike doesn’t disappoint! He’s so organized he would be a great travel agent.

Our hotel is actually right above a restaurant that he and Angela had eaten at and he’d marked on the map. So I figured that serendipity was working and I ate there for dinner tonight. The food was great! With gnocchi and a type of fried flower, I was dining nice. The waiters made me feel even more welcomed by giving me a table in a corner with an electrical socket to work at. Every time they came by they grinned and looked over to see what I was doing on my computer. When I showed them the pictures I took during the day they were even nicer!

I finished out the day by taking one of Mike’s walking tours and seeing the Coliseum at night. I’m pretty bad at using maps when I have them. I don’t have a problem reading them (that’s the easy part); the problem comes from taking the time to stop and pull them out to read. For tonight’s route I memorized each of the streets that I was going to turn at. That worked pretty well, and I only had to pull it out twice to realign myself.

One of the things I should have noted is that Mike and Angela walked the route by the circus maximus right before dinner — not two hours afterwards. It wasn’t until I was 2/3 of the way to the Coliseum that I realized it wasn’t the best idea to walk through an unlit park by the river in Rome alone at 9:30 at night wearing all-black clothes. The thing I realized that made me laugh is that people were probably more afraid of me than I was of them — I was wearing all black and have a shaved head! Stereotypes fuel fears and this one might have actually worked for me in this case. Then again, it’s all speculation. Once I got to the Coliseum, however, there were always people in view and I took major streets back to the hotel after that. On those streets were the Monument to Victor Emmanuelle (gigantic+enormous = ginourmous) as well as the first Jesuit church in Rome!

Tomorrow morning we wake up and go to the Vatican Museums early to avoid most of the lines. I love this city!

I witnessed, and I guess caused, my first technological casualty in the trip just a few minutes ago. My charger for the rechargeable batteries I use for my external flash for my camera is now out of commission. Plus there’s a little brown spot on the electrical socket by my bed. It all started when I plugged my charger into the socket. I thought I’d read all the directions beforehand, but for some reason I forgot the most important one. My charger came with a converter for the European outlets. What I forgot to read, however, was that there’s a switch on the back of the Plug that you also have to toggle to take it from 110V to 220V. I should have known since I’ve been so careful with all of the rest of my electronics. Within 10 seconds the fuse blew for the entire apartment and I immediately knew what I forgot to do. I unplugged it and then went and switched the fuse. When I came back I saw that I’d melted half of the adapter and it reeked! Oh well — since Florence is such a tourist center, I know where a couple of camera shops with cheap rechargers are. Tomorrow is Jen’s (one of the girls on the trip who’s also a Disciple) birthday and so we’re going out for dinner soon and then out for drinks afterwards!

Calcio – the Italian sport (yes, they claim it as their own) that the rest of the world knows as futbol or soccer. I’ve yet to make it to one of the games of the local team, Fiorentina, but I have three on my calendar. Hopefully I can get to at least one. The team is actually second in the Italian league, behind only Turin’s team, Juventus.

Every week the Accent Center has a program at least one night per week. Tonight’s was a calcetto (mini-soccer) tournament. Teams of five signed up and a tournament was organized. I didn’t end up playing; they did it in teams of 5 but there were 8 of us from TCU. Rather than go another week of everyone asking everyone else if they were still thinking on doing it I decided not to add an additional player to complicate it. The teams created their own costumes and prepared in their individual ways. The TCU team decided to go with cowboy-themed costumes. Rather than get dressed up, I took the safe route behind the camera and cheered the team on. They did admirably. Unfortunately they lost in the first round to Colorado. After that, they battled for third place and defeated those from KSU. Perhaps the funniest comment I heard in the night was from Sarah, one of the Accent staff members when the Colorado team was warming up. “Hey guys, chill, you’re playing cowboys and scarecrows!” The KSU team was dressed like the Wizard of Oz characters (no, Florence isn’t in Kansas and their Dorothy knew it). The team that ended up winning was the Fanta girls from CCSF in San Francisco.

Earlier in the day I saw something I’m glad our team didn’t try. The Soccer Mullet. It was advertised on a poster in a professional hair salon along a side route from our apartment to the Accent Center. What is a soccer mullet? My brother plays, my dad coaches, my mom refs, and none of them (thankfully!) have sported a soccer mullet. The poster (to the right) features a player(?!?) with greasy looking facial hair and uneven lengths at the top of the head sticking up and hair creeping down the back of the neck. I’ve yet to notice anyone here wearing the style; and given that it was written in English words, I’m guessing the ad is not directly aimed at the Florentines. It’s just a reminder that you never know what you’ll see when walking on the streets when you keep your eyes open.

PS – sorry about the window glare — I didn’t feel like bending down to get at eye level!

You’d think while studying my third language I’d finally learn. Nope. I’m consistent: I never do the preliminary work to make my life easier. Before going to Seattle three summers ago I put off learning to do things which would make life easier — like learning how to cook full meals. Two summers ago I could have made my arrival at Boston easier by perhaps looking at a map beforehand and knowing, at least somewhat, what section of town I was living in. This past summer it wasn’t until two hours before I left for my internship in Keokuk that I actually wrote down what route I needed to take to get there; and even then, I didn’t have an Iowa road map with me and I’d only briefly glanced at a zoomed-out version on Google Maps. For Florence, I perhaps prepared worse than all of those situations combined. I didn’t start packing until late the night before I left. I’d only briefly skimmed over some guides before taking off for Europe. I knew so little of what I was getting myself into.

So I’d hope that since I’ve taken three years of Greek at TCU as well as a year of German reading in two months that I would have at least tried to learn a little bit of the language prior to arriving. Nope! What’s worse with this one is that I had a friend who’s a priest who lived in Italy for a while give me a great way to study. Jack recommended that I get the Gospel of Mark in both print and audio in Italian and then read/listen through it several times to at least get a feel for the language. Did I do it? Nope. I actually downloaded the MP3s for free online and the text, but never spent the time to read it.

Today may mark a turning point in my semester. I know, I’m only in my third week, but I’m now at the point where I need to concentrate. Florence, or at least the center of it, is famous for not requiring Italian to live here. You can speak little bits of English and the people generally know what you’re talking about. I’ve had it — I’ve got to work on my Italian more than I am. The 1/2 hour I spend on it five days a week somehow doesn’t absorb as much as I want it to. I know: what a shock.

The sad thing is that I followed this exact pattern with Greek and German. My first weeks were lackadaisical and it picked up after that. The only reason the Greek is still there is because I took so much of it (and it is still there — I’m working on translating different parables while I’m here!). I forgot most of the German about three months after I left Boston. So I’m stuck here tonight picking out cognates here and there, knowing that at some point this language will click with me. Now I’ve got to figure out how to make sure it doesn’t wait to click until the few days before I leave!