When I set out to conquer the world, no one ever told me that there were certain things I would just never be good at. One of these things happens to be drawing, and as it turns out, I’m taking an art class. I’ve frequented art galleries most of my life, I’ve interviewed renowned artists, hell, I’ve even had a few of my own masterpieces adorn the refrigerator of my beloved mother. But attempting to recreate some of the works of genius in Florentine museums in my sketchpad is just belittling. And I know that the sheepish grin I give my professor when he’s gazing over my shoulder at the utter disarray lying in my lap says it all. Not only have I regressed to the level of a two year old when it comes to my communication skills, but I’ve also lost ground when it comes to my proficiency level in a class…though when it came to drawing, did I ever really have it? Thankfully, as all young human beings need a guiding force, there is Fillipo Rossi there to hold my hand throughout the progression. Not to mention that art teachers are like this anyway, as we live in a society where everyone is special and subjectivity when it comes to art in a classroom just doesn’t exist.
So as I meandered the halls of Il Museo di Archeologico, searching for my two favorite artifacts to sketch, I imagined that I was one of the accomplished artists who were scattered throughout, copying down their own renditions. And finally I stumbled upon the thing I was to re-master. Did I choose a perfectly shapely, symmetrical Egyptian sarcophagus? Or even settle upon an endearingly simple scarab? No, no. Not I. I decided to tackle the roaring lion with a snake for a tail, which happened to be biting the head off of an antelope that reared out of said lion’s back. That’s right. I went big. I even gathered a small audience at certain points during my creative process – nosy tourists who were sorely disappointed to see the majestic creature botched before their very eyes. But that’s okay; I wasn’t worried about destroying their fantasy…I was fulfilling mine.
So there you have it. My first day of classes, and already I possess the cockiness of a five year old strolling into kindergarten (I was never one of those criers). Tomorrow I intend to take on the Duomo, and after that – who knows? Maybe even the entire Tuscan region itself. One step at a time, my friends. Baby steps.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
yo
It feels like forever since I last wrote, but in reality, I think it’s been something like three days. This is most certainly representative of the fact that these past few days have been JAM PACKED. Additionally, the fact that I really haven’t been able to sleep and that my long periods of lying awake at night are, for all intents and purposes, days in and of themselves, makes it easy to understand why I feel like I’ve been gone for a week. Anyhow, I digress.
I’m really pretty wired right now with all of this over-stimulation and speaking in different languages and the like, so I’ll likely forget to touch on most of what has been happening, so I’ll just focus on the high points.
1. My host family is wonderful. I’m staying with an elder lady, Grazia, who lives by herself in a beautiful apartment right by Piazza San Marco (a bit north of the Duomo). Her entire house is furnished with antiques, paintings, drawings…you name it. Grazia is an amazing artist, so it’s her work that adorns the walls of every room, including mine! She also has a daughter, Guia, and a grandson, Cosimo, who live in an adjoining apartment. I also have a roommate, Alexis, aka my savior. However, the first night here was terrible. As hospitable and as much of a culinary genius as Grazia was, I felt like an absolute failure. I couldn’t for the life of me recall all that Italian I’ve studied, so I couldn’t communicate AT ALL and I really couldn’t understand anything. Even 11-year-old Cosimo made me feel like an idiot, as he slowly talked to me like I was five. Then I got attacked by mosquitoes for three hours straight in the middle of the night. Not a pleasant situation. Alexis, who’s freaking awesome, definitely helped, but definitely emphasized the fact that I was the class dunce that night. I’ve since picked up my skills, and the world is at ease again.
2. I have my own room and bathroom. ‘Nuff said.
3. Oh! So back to those mosquitoes – those mofos run rampant around these parts. I’m guessing it’s the fact that we’re so close to the Arno, but that is still no excuse. And these things are aggressive. I think they’re called tiger mosquitoes or something, and these seedy little a-holes literally assault you when you least expect it. The innocent, naïve victim wakes up covered in bug bites. I, on the other hand, fight back. For two to three hour intervals during the past few nights, I have been lying awake in the pitch dark, daring those mongrels to challenge me. As soon as I hear their annoying little buzz floating towards my head, I strike. This does have its drawbacks, as I generally end up slapping myself in the face and don’t get to sleep at night; and inevitably, I end up giving in or thinking I’ve killed them and waking up covered in bites anyway. But because I want to protect myself, several of these bites end up on my face because I’ve pulled the sheets all the way up to my face – very unbecoming. I’ve tried hiding under the covers, but more often than not I end up gasping for air and hearing their awful hum close to my head anyway, so it really isn’t a practical solution. So last night, I decided to raise the white flag. I instead took up my iPod, with the intent of drowning out their horrible noise so that I might calmly fall asleep sans anymore conflict. It was really quite depressing though. I felt like I was committing suicide, offing myself in the most peaceful manner I could. The music made it even more dramatic.
4. My classes are looking like they’re going to be awesome. I’m taking two art history classes that meet on sight all around Florence, so I’m basically going to be taking walking tours of the city for my lectures. AND these classes are taught by Professor Timothy Verdon – if you know art history, you’ll likely know Tim, as he has written several books on the subject, and is also the foremost authority on Florentine art history. He’s also a high priest at the Duomo, so he gets us into all sorts of secret places that the normal public (i.e. you suckaz) couldn’t dream of getting into. His celeb status over here explains why we have several tagalongs during lectures. Then I’m taking an art class (theory and practice) with a famous Florentine artist, Fillipo Rossi. Don’t be mistaken though. This will not be ten weeks of me fingerpainting. I get to draw, paint, take photographs, and write dreadful response essays in Italian every week. I wanted to take the cinema class, because they’re going to get to go to the Roma Film Festival, but that was my only incentive for taking it, and trust me, the class itself was a heavy price to pay. Perhaps I’ll get to accompany them anyway, as well as visit the sets of movies with them. Yes, you can read that sentence again. The other class I wanted to take is taught by a member of the Italian Parliament – our teachers are kickass if you haven’t gathered that by now – but again, that was the only incentive there, and the class looked really boring.
5. Today I visited Fiesole with a couple friends. It’s this gorgeous little town right outside of Florence that overlooks the entire city. It’s very small and very old-world, and I may have even pissed off a nun while I was there. The story isn’t that interesting, but I’ll provide some context so I don’t seem like a total blasphemer. I enticed my friends to wander into a private monastery with me where I took a picture. But I didn’t know it was private or that a little, old nun would wander into the room right after the flash on my camera lit up the alter. The three of us and the nun literally stood there for 20 seconds, silent, and extremely awkward. We then asked her for directions for the best view.
That’s all I got for now…I’m tired of writing and I’m sure some of the issues I could discuss will come up again, so I’ll go into them later. Right now I have administrative tasks to attend to, i.e. postcards, letters for the mag, and figuring out my life.
Ciao lovers.
I’m really pretty wired right now with all of this over-stimulation and speaking in different languages and the like, so I’ll likely forget to touch on most of what has been happening, so I’ll just focus on the high points.
1. My host family is wonderful. I’m staying with an elder lady, Grazia, who lives by herself in a beautiful apartment right by Piazza San Marco (a bit north of the Duomo). Her entire house is furnished with antiques, paintings, drawings…you name it. Grazia is an amazing artist, so it’s her work that adorns the walls of every room, including mine! She also has a daughter, Guia, and a grandson, Cosimo, who live in an adjoining apartment. I also have a roommate, Alexis, aka my savior. However, the first night here was terrible. As hospitable and as much of a culinary genius as Grazia was, I felt like an absolute failure. I couldn’t for the life of me recall all that Italian I’ve studied, so I couldn’t communicate AT ALL and I really couldn’t understand anything. Even 11-year-old Cosimo made me feel like an idiot, as he slowly talked to me like I was five. Then I got attacked by mosquitoes for three hours straight in the middle of the night. Not a pleasant situation. Alexis, who’s freaking awesome, definitely helped, but definitely emphasized the fact that I was the class dunce that night. I’ve since picked up my skills, and the world is at ease again.
2. I have my own room and bathroom. ‘Nuff said.
3. Oh! So back to those mosquitoes – those mofos run rampant around these parts. I’m guessing it’s the fact that we’re so close to the Arno, but that is still no excuse. And these things are aggressive. I think they’re called tiger mosquitoes or something, and these seedy little a-holes literally assault you when you least expect it. The innocent, naïve victim wakes up covered in bug bites. I, on the other hand, fight back. For two to three hour intervals during the past few nights, I have been lying awake in the pitch dark, daring those mongrels to challenge me. As soon as I hear their annoying little buzz floating towards my head, I strike. This does have its drawbacks, as I generally end up slapping myself in the face and don’t get to sleep at night; and inevitably, I end up giving in or thinking I’ve killed them and waking up covered in bites anyway. But because I want to protect myself, several of these bites end up on my face because I’ve pulled the sheets all the way up to my face – very unbecoming. I’ve tried hiding under the covers, but more often than not I end up gasping for air and hearing their awful hum close to my head anyway, so it really isn’t a practical solution. So last night, I decided to raise the white flag. I instead took up my iPod, with the intent of drowning out their horrible noise so that I might calmly fall asleep sans anymore conflict. It was really quite depressing though. I felt like I was committing suicide, offing myself in the most peaceful manner I could. The music made it even more dramatic.
4. My classes are looking like they’re going to be awesome. I’m taking two art history classes that meet on sight all around Florence, so I’m basically going to be taking walking tours of the city for my lectures. AND these classes are taught by Professor Timothy Verdon – if you know art history, you’ll likely know Tim, as he has written several books on the subject, and is also the foremost authority on Florentine art history. He’s also a high priest at the Duomo, so he gets us into all sorts of secret places that the normal public (i.e. you suckaz) couldn’t dream of getting into. His celeb status over here explains why we have several tagalongs during lectures. Then I’m taking an art class (theory and practice) with a famous Florentine artist, Fillipo Rossi. Don’t be mistaken though. This will not be ten weeks of me fingerpainting. I get to draw, paint, take photographs, and write dreadful response essays in Italian every week. I wanted to take the cinema class, because they’re going to get to go to the Roma Film Festival, but that was my only incentive for taking it, and trust me, the class itself was a heavy price to pay. Perhaps I’ll get to accompany them anyway, as well as visit the sets of movies with them. Yes, you can read that sentence again. The other class I wanted to take is taught by a member of the Italian Parliament – our teachers are kickass if you haven’t gathered that by now – but again, that was the only incentive there, and the class looked really boring.
5. Today I visited Fiesole with a couple friends. It’s this gorgeous little town right outside of Florence that overlooks the entire city. It’s very small and very old-world, and I may have even pissed off a nun while I was there. The story isn’t that interesting, but I’ll provide some context so I don’t seem like a total blasphemer. I enticed my friends to wander into a private monastery with me where I took a picture. But I didn’t know it was private or that a little, old nun would wander into the room right after the flash on my camera lit up the alter. The three of us and the nun literally stood there for 20 seconds, silent, and extremely awkward. We then asked her for directions for the best view.
That’s all I got for now…I’m tired of writing and I’m sure some of the issues I could discuss will come up again, so I’ll go into them later. Right now I have administrative tasks to attend to, i.e. postcards, letters for the mag, and figuring out my life.
Ciao lovers.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
the saga begins
It’s 5 in the morning and I can’t sleep. (This was written last night in my angst.) I’ve been lying awake since 4, and the wind rustling softly against the white lace curtains through a cute little window that overlooks an absolutely picturesque scene is frustrating the hell out of me, so I decided to chill out by writing a bit. Little did I know, however, that my ‘s’ key is starting to crap out on me, something which is sure to annoy me all year long. In any case, I’ll focus on the positive. (It just took me 3 tries to type out positive….NEVERMIND.)
Let me begin by saying that I am absolutely in love with Florence. Now I’m convinced that the half crazy, half quaint little city was calling my name. But I’ll first start by backtracking so that you can really get a feel for my long, perilous journey…
It all started when I set out to board a plane at Denver’s International Airport. But as luck, orange terror alert levels, and inept airport personnel would have it, this task was far more daunting than I had anticipated. Apparently stout, squealy little men with photo badges – he must have been a baggage worker or something – feel entitled to play security line marshal, because some asinine little man felt the need to expound his knowledge throughout the entire process. First he gives me the whole, “Is there a computer in that computer case?” As I stood in line at the conveyer belt as my purse, computer bag, and (gasp!) lap top computer all lay in separate bins, all I could do was smile and nod. But as he supposedly felt the need to recite the entire security sign warning to me, he earned himself a blank stare and nod, rather. I guess I needed his lecture though, because no sooner had I walked past the metal detector than the sneering lady behind the TV monitor snarled at me for not taking my liquids out of my purse (note: they were placed in a separate bag) and placing them in a separate bin. But hey! The squatty son of a bitch standing next to me had to get in on it too, barking so enthusiastically that I had to ask the mean lady to repeat herself, something which I guess was so outlandishly offensive that it merited one of the more hateful stares I’ve received in my day.
I’ll stop complaining and cut to the chase. The airplane ride was long, and I sat next to a man who seemed to be in a thoroughly bad mood the whole time and didn’t even glance my way. No matter – I’m not good at keeping up feigned conversations for nine hours anyway, so it was all good. Plus, I was in an emergency exit row so I had like five feet of leg room. Fast forward to Munich airport: holy sh*t! (I’m censoring these entries because I’m sure my grandparents will be reading them.) That place is a giant f*cking maze!!! (These little stars in place of the vowels in swear words are kind of fun.) Very chique, very new-age, very trendy, and on the whole, quite bland. By the way, Trevor, sorry I didn’t send you your picture, but I was too busy winding my way through an entire glorified labyrinth.
After another hour and a half plane ride over Germany and some of Italy (for the record, Venice looks very dry from a bird’s eye view…maybe it’s just me) I had finally arrived. The taxi ride was everything I had dreamed it would be – we almost got into a few accidents, nearly ran over several pedestrians, and the driver was absolutely delightful as we communicated in broken Italian and English before he went into a yelling tirade at someone on his cell phone. This is not me being sarcastic; I truly reveled in all of it. When I got to my hotel, I pressed the doorbell and was shortly rung in. But as I stepped into the entryway, I quickly realized that I had four flights of stairs to scale with my insanely heavy suitcase, backpack, computer, and “personal item.” Sh*******t. But I was soon greeted by an extremely built lady who helped me haul it all upstairs.
After sleeping for 5 hours, I went out with Molly – the girl I am sharing a room with. It was my first time really seeing the city, and I think I took somewhere around 30 pictures of alleyways. Nevermind that they all looked nearly the same, they were absolutely enchanting to me. We went to a gelateria called “Grom” near the Duomo, and I got Pera and Café gelato. I honestly thought people were just trying to act pretentious and cultured when they told me how amazing the gelato is in Italy, but those bastards really weren’t lying. The Pera was literally the ice cream version of pear. It even had that pear-y crunchiness to it. And, you guessed it, the café really tasted like coffee. But when I say coffee, I don’t mean our typical coffee ice cream, which is reminiscent of our typical non-fat, non-sugar, soy, decaf, whipped cream, Splenda Starbucks creations. This was more like the house blend. The Folgers. This was actual coffee. I was a little taken aback at first, as I am not really a coffee fan, but the café gelato grew on me. Yeah. It did.
Afterwards we walked around a little, got accosted by some gypsies while we sat on the steps of the Duomo, and finally returned home to prepare for dinner. We ended up going to this little restaurant on a street corner by the Duomo (all of my activities thus far are very Duomo-centered), where I ended up getting the Caprese salad and Linguine all’astice (linguine with lobster). Molly and I also split a half liter of the house red wine – the waiter assured us with quite a seductive wink that if we wanted more wine, not to worry…HE would take care of us – and a bottle of water. Man, even the water is good here.
We finally returned home around 10:30 and decided not to go out to “Happy Days” Wednesday at one of the local clubs (two promo guys had hit us up earlier with the invitations), so I decided to get ready for bed and quickly passed out.
But now, here I sit, wide awake and ticked off because I’m probably going to pay for it later in the day when I’m exhausted again. Screw jetlag!
Anyways, I’m meeting up at the center today and later on tonight I meet my host family. I’m sooooo nervous, but so far, my time here has been nothing but perfect, so I’m confident that I really don’t have anything to worry about.
Let me begin by saying that I am absolutely in love with Florence. Now I’m convinced that the half crazy, half quaint little city was calling my name. But I’ll first start by backtracking so that you can really get a feel for my long, perilous journey…
It all started when I set out to board a plane at Denver’s International Airport. But as luck, orange terror alert levels, and inept airport personnel would have it, this task was far more daunting than I had anticipated. Apparently stout, squealy little men with photo badges – he must have been a baggage worker or something – feel entitled to play security line marshal, because some asinine little man felt the need to expound his knowledge throughout the entire process. First he gives me the whole, “Is there a computer in that computer case?” As I stood in line at the conveyer belt as my purse, computer bag, and (gasp!) lap top computer all lay in separate bins, all I could do was smile and nod. But as he supposedly felt the need to recite the entire security sign warning to me, he earned himself a blank stare and nod, rather. I guess I needed his lecture though, because no sooner had I walked past the metal detector than the sneering lady behind the TV monitor snarled at me for not taking my liquids out of my purse (note: they were placed in a separate bag) and placing them in a separate bin. But hey! The squatty son of a bitch standing next to me had to get in on it too, barking so enthusiastically that I had to ask the mean lady to repeat herself, something which I guess was so outlandishly offensive that it merited one of the more hateful stares I’ve received in my day.
I’ll stop complaining and cut to the chase. The airplane ride was long, and I sat next to a man who seemed to be in a thoroughly bad mood the whole time and didn’t even glance my way. No matter – I’m not good at keeping up feigned conversations for nine hours anyway, so it was all good. Plus, I was in an emergency exit row so I had like five feet of leg room. Fast forward to Munich airport: holy sh*t! (I’m censoring these entries because I’m sure my grandparents will be reading them.) That place is a giant f*cking maze!!! (These little stars in place of the vowels in swear words are kind of fun.) Very chique, very new-age, very trendy, and on the whole, quite bland. By the way, Trevor, sorry I didn’t send you your picture, but I was too busy winding my way through an entire glorified labyrinth.
After another hour and a half plane ride over Germany and some of Italy (for the record, Venice looks very dry from a bird’s eye view…maybe it’s just me) I had finally arrived. The taxi ride was everything I had dreamed it would be – we almost got into a few accidents, nearly ran over several pedestrians, and the driver was absolutely delightful as we communicated in broken Italian and English before he went into a yelling tirade at someone on his cell phone. This is not me being sarcastic; I truly reveled in all of it. When I got to my hotel, I pressed the doorbell and was shortly rung in. But as I stepped into the entryway, I quickly realized that I had four flights of stairs to scale with my insanely heavy suitcase, backpack, computer, and “personal item.” Sh*******t. But I was soon greeted by an extremely built lady who helped me haul it all upstairs.
After sleeping for 5 hours, I went out with Molly – the girl I am sharing a room with. It was my first time really seeing the city, and I think I took somewhere around 30 pictures of alleyways. Nevermind that they all looked nearly the same, they were absolutely enchanting to me. We went to a gelateria called “Grom” near the Duomo, and I got Pera and Café gelato. I honestly thought people were just trying to act pretentious and cultured when they told me how amazing the gelato is in Italy, but those bastards really weren’t lying. The Pera was literally the ice cream version of pear. It even had that pear-y crunchiness to it. And, you guessed it, the café really tasted like coffee. But when I say coffee, I don’t mean our typical coffee ice cream, which is reminiscent of our typical non-fat, non-sugar, soy, decaf, whipped cream, Splenda Starbucks creations. This was more like the house blend. The Folgers. This was actual coffee. I was a little taken aback at first, as I am not really a coffee fan, but the café gelato grew on me. Yeah. It did.
Afterwards we walked around a little, got accosted by some gypsies while we sat on the steps of the Duomo, and finally returned home to prepare for dinner. We ended up going to this little restaurant on a street corner by the Duomo (all of my activities thus far are very Duomo-centered), where I ended up getting the Caprese salad and Linguine all’astice (linguine with lobster). Molly and I also split a half liter of the house red wine – the waiter assured us with quite a seductive wink that if we wanted more wine, not to worry…HE would take care of us – and a bottle of water. Man, even the water is good here.
We finally returned home around 10:30 and decided not to go out to “Happy Days” Wednesday at one of the local clubs (two promo guys had hit us up earlier with the invitations), so I decided to get ready for bed and quickly passed out.
But now, here I sit, wide awake and ticked off because I’m probably going to pay for it later in the day when I’m exhausted again. Screw jetlag!
Anyways, I’m meeting up at the center today and later on tonight I meet my host family. I’m sooooo nervous, but so far, my time here has been nothing but perfect, so I’m confident that I really don’t have anything to worry about.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
arrivederci
Today marks the beginning of my voyage. That's right - voyage: an entralling ten months (or more, should I choose to stay and piss off the rents) of sheer debauchery. Right now I'm prepping for my flight that passes through Munich and on to Florence, where I will wreak havoc for an entire three months; and then it's off to England to take Oxford by storm for the following half a year. The real chaos, however, will begin when I take up pack, travel guide, and a finite store of underwear to travess the depths of Europe. And hey, the little bro may even score a graduation gift to come join me.
But for now, I depart to resume the exhilarating task of packing (I tend to slack on these things). Don't fret though homies...I'll be returning shortly with tales of my disgusting ten hour flight and juicy arrival details in Italia.
Sianara bitches!!! (I realize I'm not keeping in line with the theme here, but I couldn't resist.)
But for now, I depart to resume the exhilarating task of packing (I tend to slack on these things). Don't fret though homies...I'll be returning shortly with tales of my disgusting ten hour flight and juicy arrival details in Italia.
Sianara bitches!!! (I realize I'm not keeping in line with the theme here, but I couldn't resist.)
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