pilgrimage complete

sort of. I went to england this week, but i still felt like i returned to the motherland a little, being possibly old school american (but probably not?)

London was the longest trip i've been on yet during my time abroad. I was there from Sunday to Friday, staying melissa, an ANGEL of a hostess, and visiting with Emily whose on her way to morocco. At the end of 5 nights, I could say that I had a sense of london, although being a well-signed, touristy city and having a friend who lives there helps a lot, as well as walking instead of using public transit. I knew next to nothing about london before going, especially because I was sort of stressed with the logistics of my big-picture life before going, so when I showed up, i had no idea what I wanted to do.

Main ictivities included (in no specific order, but definitely out of order): Tate modern art museum, this incredible independent tea house, Victoria and Albert Museum, seeing a few important places like buckingham palace, big ben, thames, trefalger (haha i know that spelling is wrong) square, oxford street (shopping district),playing bingo inside an english pub, late-night slightly buzzed food shopping, random 30 min. conversation with an old irish sketch-artist, meeting more irish, english and even ITALIAN flatmates of melissa's and asking them questions, and of course, walking around, talking, eating, and being merry with friends.

I don't know much about art, but going to 2 museums in a rather short time period (at least for me) was really enjoyable, especially with a friend who'd already been and does know much more about art (melissa studies art history). London's museums are very spacious and organized, and even though the amount of stuff is overwhelming, its not stifling to look at, the way I sometimes feel in italian churches, like there is just too much crap in one space. the tate was especially cool, even though I know i saw hardly a fraction. My favorite thing was this peice done by a polish artist (hell if i know his name). {disclaimer: all of the following information i got from mel} The tate is built in what used to be a warehouse, so its got these huge industrial spaces, 6 or 7 floors, of boomy echo-y metal space. In this one spot, the tate allows an artist to use the space to do something with it, anything they'd like, and it stays for a fixed period of time.

So, right now its a ridiculously huge metal box, raised off the group above head height so that u can walk underneath it, and it has only one open side. At the end of the box/rectangle (you can only approach it from one of the short sides) there's a ramp that you have to walk around to enter the huge metal mass. While you walk toward the ramp, u see the underside of it, and it already gives this haunted strange feeling, since your walking below an insanley large metal box, with the inclination that it could fall and crush you at any moment, and yet you sort of have to keep going to see whats inside it. Inside the box there is no light, and this structure is in a room already lacking in lighting of any sort. The walls are pitch black and so you have no reference point for the dimensions of the inside of the box. You can hardly see the other people moving around, even when they're nearby, and its really quite.

Going inside of it was one of the most intense physical or emotional reactions i've ever had to art, be it music, dance, visual art or film. For me, it created a need in me to find one of the walls so as to orient myself, and until i did i was scared and tiptoeing because i didn't want to go to far into the dark. It also flooded me with thoughts of mass graves and the holocaust, because its the type of object that people would be herded into like cows for mass transit, but its at least 2 stories tall, and something that large would never be used for transportation so it made me think of cargo, but there were people inside--i was inside. I dont know how to explain, it just took me a long time to understand how i was feeling and I was completely blown away by something so simple making me react like that.

I had a lot of great conversation, lovely catching up, relaxing, tea drinking and LAUGHING in london. One thing I miss the most about the states is that I understand and LOVE the humor with so much of myself and its draining to be in a foreign country where humor, social interactions, and hello/goodbyes are so strained because we just have different customs that dont always translate, you know? Some things are universal and some things I'm starting to understand, but when I can just laugh naturally with people I know well, i get warm-fuzzies like there's no tomorrow. it's bad. but that's how london was times 10.

From now on, I sort of only want to travel to places where i have friends. Not having to stay in a hostel was a huge relief, and meeting someone as soon as I got off the bus stop was invaluable. One thing that really stresses me out about traveling is all the logistics, and when someone who cares about you expects you, it just makes things so much easier and so much more enjoyable. Speaking of which, I have a free bed in my room right now because my roommate moved, and I'm really hoping no one moves into it so that I'll be able to host guests super easily-with their own bed and everything! I loved melissa's place and her set up, it seems really comfortable. But when I got home yesterday and sat on my bed, i was so happy to be back.

Speaking of getting back, it was ALMOST a disastro. I went to the place where I was supposed to take the same bus I'd taken from the airport to london back to the airport, but the stop was in a slightly different place, which took us about 25 minutes to figure out. My flight was at 11:35 and I figured if I left london by 9:30 at the latest, id still be able to make it (the first time it took about 1:10 to arrive in london) I think I finally got on a bus at 9:35 or so, and immediately proceded to fall asleep because I'd only slept for an average of 6 hours every night of being in london. The driver would announce every once in a while how far away we were, and once we'd finally picked all passengers up from the other stops and were leaving london he said we STILL had an hour, even though it had been like 30 minutes. But my phone was completely uncharged (didnt charge in london-no idea?) and there was nothing i could do but wait, so after drifitng in and out of sleep, i wake up to a 2nd announcement saying that due to traffic we'd been help up and were still 40 minutes away. So that would put me after 11:35 practically. I basically lost hope. Knowing ryan air, the evilest but cheapest of all airlines in europe, i assumed I wouldn't be able to get on another flight, and that they wouldn't accept my luggage (it was slightly too big). I dont know what magic trick the driver pulled, but I got to the airport at 11:25, SPRINTED FROM THE BUS TO MY TERMINAL, stopping only to have my passport checked and go through security, and made it to the flight with a few minutes to spare (or they were just late boarding). I got on the plane last, sat in the last row by myself, slept another two hours, and made it home to bologna. whew. so glad I made it. that would have SUCKED.

Sometimes i wonder why....I keep a blog. Amelia, a wellesley friend studying abroad in london, mentioned that the quantity of pictures i post is overwhelming, and it sort of made me think about my uncontrollable desire to share with people the things I do and see. I suppose that really only manifests itself publicly in pictures and blogging (maybe even facebook activity?) but i guess there's no reason for all of it. I know several people read, but maybe not an audience big enough to warrant the length of posts and quantity of pictures I post. I dont really have patience to edit tho. I just put it all out.

In other news, I babysat last night, will be doing it again tonight, and recently assumed another job teaching a young italian girl english. Classes FINALLY are starting on monday, and I should go book shopping and put the rest of my life together. I feel like such a mess. Next travel stop is france, and I can't really wait to go, except to make as much money as possible before it happens. London was expensive but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Nothing like norway. haha.

stay warm everybody. it snowed in bologna while i was gone and was frickin FREDDO (cold) in london 2 nights.

jet plane...

I'm about to leave on a jet plane for london on sunday morning (weeoo!) and um i guess i thought i'd post more pictures for those of u who don't see them via facebook. They are from my winter travels and an apperitivo (drinks) i did with my roommate before she moved to spain. She's doing erasmus (study abroad) there until july, so I have a single room right now...which is weird/cool. A friend of mine from Wellesley just happened to be in bologna yesterday and today, and she stayed over at my place in a real bed.

I'm in a phase of bad music. I need new stuff. Jordan williams gave me a world of stuff which has been and is a good pick me up, but i'm feeling dull.

Here are the pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=189114&id=634486277&l=05780c2de4

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186417&id=634486277&l=2f416298a9

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186413&id=634486277&l=9c95155593

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186378&id=634486277&l=909ba8d007

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186374&id=634486277&l=e80ec1a9cf

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186371&id=634486277&l=596f11c707

un paio di cose

(a few things)

I'm busy lately with new things. My life sort of feels different here now that I know the city and I can get around easily. I guess it's just really easy to get a lot done and not be lazy or confused. I'm sort of going balls to the wall right now, i guess.

hm, so. where to start? Things at home are really good. 3 of 4 of my house mates are here, even though 1 i haven't even seen it (the one that's crazy about cleaning). My actual roommate is going to spain to study abroad this semester, and she's been here, just collecting here stuff and organizing the room. Her best friend who lives in our dorm just had a birthday and so tonight we're all going out for apperitivo to celebrate the birthday and enza's departure.

In going out news, my life has totally change. I've been going out, not even necessarily to club and drink, but just to talk and sit in a cafe' or bar, almost every night. There were 1 or 2 nights this week where I was home. I don't know why, but a lot of things have just come up lately. I sort of feel like i'm in the movie yes man or something? I just don't let anything pass by me right now. So what have i ended up doing at night...

-Got drinks in a bar where a bossa nova band was playing with a grammar teacher last night
-went out to 2 bars with a big group of americans
-went to a club to dance a little
-went to a dave leibman concert-one of the higher ranked sax players in the world (for soprano sax)
-went out for apperitivi with my housemates and their friends, saw a really strange band, and met a homeless polish man who -told me very interesting things about the mice he ate when he had insane hunger, and how he thought the mice were rocks, -and how he's an alcoholic and recently got out of prison from an 8 month sentence that was for stealing a shirt

For my day job, i've been having conservatory class (just thursday and friday morning) and then working on applying to these 2 grants. One of the grants is for wellesley juniors looking to stay abroad in their country for an additional month to research. It's for 2000$ and you have to propose a project proposal, with a budget, resume, and 2 essays of intent and qualification. last semester they only granted 3, and this semester they're not even sure if they're going to have it. I'm trying to make my application as convincing as possible so that they'll maybe have interest. My program ends may 31st, but then, I have to stay til june 26th to finish conservatory exams, so I really need the grant in fact, just to pay for rent and food.

The other grant is one for graduate study for kids who have displayed financial aid need and want to purse an MA or doctoral program in humanities and arts-ME!!!!! that has me written all over it. The deadline for that one is really soon, so I'm looking to put all the materials together really fast before I go to london, but these things take time. Again, this grant would be wonderful considering i've already been admitted to a graduate study program.

Otherwise? Conservatory, oh man. It's always a ride going to class there. I'm the only foreign student there, so the classes are very fast paced, its a very casual environment seeing as its jazz-ish, so everyones making jokes and using slang that I dont always know, and what else? I duno, its intimidating, and I had a lot of classes this week that I'd never had before. so I was a little nervous. But it went well. In ear training, i didn't miss anything on the quizzes we did, so good?

Hm oh! in other important life news, My plans to thesis in music recently just got approved, I still have to formally apply but my advisor, Claire Fontijn, who is the director of the program here in Italy that I'm doing, had been emailing with Wellelsey's music department and they usually dont allow untenured professors to advise thesis students but the sax teacher who teaches the jazz band I played in is going to my professor with my ethnomusicology teacher, and I'm gonna do some sort of ethnomusicological jazz study, i guess? Sounds useless, right? That's cuz it is. I'm pretty excited though. At least it means I'll have done something with music while at Wellesley. I think my project proposal to stay in Italy longer is going to have something to do with my thesis, too, which is good, cuz then I can at least CLAIM to have started my research. haha. Then i have to do a tanner presentation of the stuff I did while i was gone.

Speaking of this research, it's probably gonna have something to do with the jazz scene in Bologna, into which i've been trying to immerse myself. I know there's a bar with no cover with jazz every monday where Teo Ciavarello plays, the guy who asked me to sing with him, and I just saw that dave leibman show on this street thats sort of like the hub of bologna jazz, which has a very lively scene. It's awesome that I get such direct interaction with the players, a lot of them teach at the conservatory which is awesome. So, in this vain, I am, along with ECCO (my study abroad program) hosting another concert at Caffe' Zammu, where I sang last semester with some friends from the program, but this time, the piano player is gonna be my piano teacher of sorts from Boston, John Arcaro. So i'm PSYCHED! we're doing it the day before valentines day, saturday 13 february. so thats cool too.

Huh, what else. An american friend, Leslie, from the toons, is teaching physics here in bologna at a high school in english through a month long exchange program, so we've been hanging out, which is AWESOME and its so fun to show someone all about the city. we have gotten cafe together and went to the market and ate lunch and all kinds of things. She's fun! hopefuly we'll see eachother a lot more.

Also last night I saw clockwork orange with my housemates in italian with italian subtitles. it was awesome, i'd never seen it, but SO hard in italian. poetic language. super tough. I'm gonna rewatch it in english, surely.

last thing, i started crying when I read all the haiti articles and saw the pictures. Mostly the pictures. a picture of a kid. a part of me really wants to go there when more manual labor and organization is needed. Clearly right now ppl flooding the island doesn't help, but when the volunteer effort starts, I feel like I should go. Maybe after i finish my masters.

That's all for now.

when i get back to vermont or california next summer here are a few things i want to do:

eat a lot of salsa and tortilla chips
go to the marin cheese factory
go to stinson beach
eat sol food
eat a LOT of sushi
find a new thai restaurant (but also eat at the old ones)
go to golden gate park or some sunny event in sf
grant and green/hear more jazz
MAKE GOOD SALAD (candied pecans, craisins, avocado, feta....ugh)
hike
BURRITO/FAJITAS
CREEKSIDE
have good sandwiches (this is possible also in vermont)
not eat pasta for a week
not forget how to speak english
order a beer in a bar-legally!
make an underground beach stove again and cook shit in wrapped in banana leaves
write a lot of music
record a lot of music
not forget how to cook so I can attempt to cook for friends


& last but not least
be happy in america
see cool people

bike

Today, i rediscovered bologna on a friend's bike. Italy, as rumored, does have crazy drivers, so i was extra cautious, especially because most of you know how prone I am to getting thrown off things like bikes and skate boards (more like throwing myself off out of stupidity) but it went well all together. It was nice to go from home to my program office in 7 or less minutes instead of 30 on foot or bus. sweet.

apartment

i'm home, thank goodness. I was dying of over-travel. 3 weeks is too long to be moving around all over italy and what not.

I'm in my kitchen, just woke up and made a bell peppers zucchini and cheese omelette. is that weird? i've just gotten used to those being the only edible vegetables at the grocery store near me. speaking of food, I have 4 full pizzas in my fridge also, because there was a sort of welcome lunch in my apartment for the new kids on my study abroad program, and 14 pizzas were order, only 9 of which were even touched. what am i ever gonna do with that much pizza? I think i need to start delivering it to people or something, the new kids. i duno

anyway, traveling that much was a BLUR. i'm sure joey can testify, we probably planned too much in such a short 2 week period, but on the other hand we did a lot of major cities and stuff in the cities we went to: rome, florence, siena, bologna, perugia, assisi, castiglion del lago, and venice. I think my favorite this time was probably perugia, because we stayed in a backpacker hostel in the country side that was so awesomely beautiful. umbria most be a wonderland in the summer. In the winter it was super cold (nothing like boston status) but I couldn't believe how green everything still looked even though it was winter. In california we get brown soggy hills for about 3 months, but this looked like perfectly cured green rolling hills from a travel magazine or something. awesome. it's stuff like that that makes me remember I'm actually here in italy, and not just existing in some longwinded dream in the US. maybe thats all this year will seem like when i get back to the states for good.

At any rate, I was exhausted for the first 2 days I was back. Now, i'm just getting a cold, not as tired, but just as discombobulated. I'm getting paranoid about passing it around and where I got it. I've only been sick very momentarily twice last year, and i guess my only existing new years eve resolution right now is to keep up my same track record.

My fridge keeps turning off in the middle of the night, and I wake up and my cheese is luke warm. it's brie. boo, warm cheese = spoiled cheese.

In other exciting news, though, I have conservatory classes twice this month, and then I'm going to london at the end of the month. I'm psyched for london because i've never been and I have a bunch of friends that are studying abroad there. Then at the end of march, i'm hoping to head to berlin for 4 days. I've heard only killer things about both those cities, so i'm psyched. I have other travel priorities too, but they haven't materialized yet, except those 2. I'm also hoping to get a visit in to sicily, cinque terre, genova, milano, torino, puglia, croatia, budapest, paris, greece. But only like 1/5 of those will happen, duh. So far I've been to puglia, malta, tromso, oslo, amalfi coast, and venice.

No one's been in my apartment, there aren't many people here, because it's exam period for the italians. I don't have much to do but conservatory stuff, until february, so I'm just chillin in bologna.

I recently realized all my friends blogs are way cooler than mine. big surprise. haha.

happy new year!!! un bacione per tutti (a HUGE kiss for everyone)

t.r.a.v.e.l.i.n.g.

Rome was really only one day. Surprisingly rome seemed much more manageable then I'd imagined. I've heard about how its the biggest city in italy and all the tourists, etc, but since I got there the day after christmas, the city was pretty empty (even a roman told us that) The vatican museums were free on the 27th, the next day, so we went there, but we ended up climbing the dome thing and looking around the church. Of course I was going picture crazy, but I know the vatican is one of the world's most photographed monuments, so nothing I got could have been any better than pro photographs. We walked WAY TOO MUCH in rome, because we only took a bus to the vatican and then walked back in the direction of the colosseum, so it was a huge trek. From the vatican, we stopped to get lunch at a little pizza place, and I order a pizza with mozarella and tomatoes, fresh (uncooked), and instead of tomato sauce or no sauce on the bread, there was MAYONAISE, and a lot of it. In my experience thats not a very italian gastronomical move/concept, so I was pretty grossed out, but after a while it tasted like a sandwich. In that pizza place I met a guy whose studying to become a priest at the vatican (or nearby at one of the vatican schools) and I know 2 already ordained priests through middlebury that are in rome, and I hoped he knew them, but no such luck. Regardless he's from texas, and wanted to speak to us in english. (seems to only speak a lot of italian)

After lunch, we walked over to the pantheon, and on the way we passed this HUGE childrens carnival/fair (I have pictures) and it was SO festive. Awesomely festive. I love the vibe in italian cities when they're celebrating something, and they celebrate EVERYTHING-saints days, good witches, old pagan holidays, high holy days, I lose track. There's always afestival of some sort. Then the pantheon was this AWESOME building with a huge hole in the ceiling. It's been transformed into a modern catholic church, but it is obviously REALLY different from any other church (especially the shape). My roman history sucks, but apparently it was the romans place of worship for their gods, and its basically a huge circular shape. I liked it a lot. There were so many people there. It was NUTS.

Someone in one of the piazzas, I heard some very gypsy-esque music, and followed the sound till I saw this 6 person band (bari sax, alto sax, accordion, bass, drums, and trombone) playing, and they were tearing it up. They were awesome. Really cool time signatures, modes, and energy. They would drop down to 2 people for the beginning of a solo section and then everyone would come back in and build these cazy long solos. The alto player was good too. They sounded jazz trained. The drummer had his small bass drum and cow bell and wood block strapped to him, like Dick Van Dyke in mary poppins at the beginning of the movie, you know? I took at least 40 pictures of them (for my tweek portfolio-tweeking musicians is definitely my favorite type of picture to change) They were good though. I sort of wanted to buy a cd, but I gotta not spend all my money.

Anyway, from the pantheon, we saw a bunch of other cool piazzas with important bernini sculptures and obelisks stolen from egypt, and then we went into this TOTALLY awesome church, I dont know why I liked it so much out of the hundreds of churches i've been to in this country, but it had amazing frescos. I dug it. I took tons of pictures of it. Then finally made it to the spanish steps—can you say tourist? That was annoying. There are immigrants who sell roses all over italy, and these rose-sellers were clever, they gave u a rose for “free” and then made you pay them for it, but of course I didnt want it, even though it was already in my hand, so its awkward cuz they wont take it back from u, but u have to pay for it. They basically try to awkward the shit out of the situation, so u feel like you can't walk away. So that was weird, then I went to this other piazza where there was a guy dancing to michael jackson music, dressed up in this funny golden jumpsuit, and he was literally the wrost dancer I've ever seen, but there were at least 90 people watching him.

Then I went to dinner at paolo's house, one of the teachers from the program I did in lecce. He had me and joey over for dinner and we swapped stories, talked about italy, and ate tiramasu that he'd made the day before-SO NICE! The food was good and free, which was really nice of him.

So today, on the way to florence, we're in this really long commuter train (3 hours) and the trains packed because its so cheap right? SO i'm looking for 2 seats but its tough to find 2 together, and then I find some and across from the 2 seats theres a young girl (25) sitting next to an old man (75 at least). We sit down across from them, and I didnt even think about why they werent sitting across from each other, but then, I take my computer out and we're just looking a tmovies etc. But the guys is like staring at joey the whole time, and then I realize that the his hand was definitely on the girls ass, stroking her lightly. She was turned away from him sleeping against the window and he had his hand wrapped around his back, touching her. So I start FREAKING out privately, cuz I hadnt noticed, but that definitely expalined all the weird staring, and the jacket over his lap , and the sitting next to her instead of across from her. How did he know he wouldnt wake her iup? SO at first I'm like maybe thats her hand? But then I could see both of hers. Then I was like, well how could it be his? So hard to explain how he was sitting. But then I notice him move and pull his hand out from behind him, because the ticket check guy had come in the compartment and was about to check our tickets. Then he got off at the next stop and I was like KJHAKJHF:SKDHJG:KHJS!?!??!?! are you serious?

I'll comment on this later. I'm pretty sure all the readers of this blog would agree that that is HUGELY inappropriate. I felt like SHIT for not waking her up and saying something. I'd be so upset and angry if that were me....sigh. But also, it brings up that weird ethical dilema—if someone is blissfully ignorant, is it better to let them continue not knowing a painful truth, or to tell them? I'm pretty sure I already know the answer, but I didnt say anything... fuck

Signing off for now. Going to florence today. Bologna is next! I miss it!!!!