So mel and I didn't make it out of italy before the volcanic ash destroyed everyone's travel plans, so there was no budapest or vienna in the cards for me. Melissa finally made it out on a train 5 days after her scheduled departure and Katie got a flight out of bologna airport this afternoon. Instead of waiting in bologna for the travel mess to cool off (more like the volcano) we skipped town to Perugia for a bit, where I'd stayed in a farmhouse hostel with joey over new years.

Not only was april 15th to 21st quite a complicated travel period, but I also managed to screw up/find out a lot of screwy things. I didn't get the Beinecke, that huge graduate fellowship I applied for, which is fine in the end I think, cause i guess in a lot of ways i don't have to worry about having to get a PhD in Italian, so awesome. I can just do this master's and see what's up after that. I'm in a bit of a pinch academically and really need to get to studying, but for some reason my attention span is just destroyed. I cant do anything longer than 15 minutes without getting restless. I'm actually starting to really start worrying about leaving Italy and going into really intense academic environments--I can only imagine how the kids from last term must have adjusted.

Anyway, so no Vienna, no Budapest. Next thing on the agenda is an exam in may, and Barcelona may 22nd.

cocktails

I have a new ambition in life. I want to own a club. I don't think I'd be a good DJ, because I wouldn't play music other people like, but I just want to be able to play my favorite dance music REALLY loudly and dance.


Anyway, Yesterday was awesome. My housemates and i had an aperitivo at our house, which is like a cocktail party with LOTS of appetizers. It was to celebrate my and my housemates birthdays, since they were close together, and I hadn't really done anything for it because my birthday fell on a holiday in Italy and my i was fuggitively sneaking my friends into my dorm so it wasn't like we could go out and do anything to exciting. So, at 8:30 it was supposed to start, because that's the normal aperitivo time, and at like 9:30, its just me, my 3 housemates and one of their boyfriends. I'd bought like hella €'s worth of food and alcohol so i was like, fuck. FAIL. literally thought no one was gonna come. By 10 though, it was a like someone opened the faucet, people started pouring in. So that was fun, cuz 2 of my really good italian friends made a cake (one of them is coming with me to portugal!) and there was a good vibe. Then near the end, my 3 housemates took me into one of the bedrooms and gave me this AWESOME gift. They got me an awesome leather 2010 agenda for me to write my thoughts and poetry in (i'm such a hippy/wannabe poet?) and inside they wrote a jim morrison quote in english and that was just SO thoughtful, and THEN!!!!!! they gave me a music box that plays HAPPY BIRTHDAY which, if you know me at all, you know its one of my favorite songs in the world. I lost my shit about the music box.

I guess I just wanted to write about the party cuz it was so exciting for me I guess. I sort of love when a bunch of italians and americans get together, cuz its just really fun to watch and try to communicate and dance. Also, earlier this week, my advisor Claire, the director of the program, took me out to dinner for my birthday. It was really sweet and I ate super well and I didn't expect it at all! So this week was like birthday redux. it was cool.

Masks, Churches, Friends, Spring leee leee laa la la

First things first! Look at this crazy awesome mask I got in Venice. I'm a dork, I've been to this crazy mask-makers shop 3 times in my life now, and this is the first time I finally bought something I liked. They're a little costly, but I'm happy I got it because it's perfect for a masquerade I'll be going to sometime this summer.



This masks makes me feel like a ferry or forest-dwelling fantastic animal, and basically makes me want to dork out watching lotr. love the color. yeeee

So! What have i been up to? Since my birthday and easter, I've just been visiting, visiting, visiting with friends. Melissa and Katie came first, we passed easter together, and like 2 good catholics, mel and katie asked if we could go to service.(for subscribers to both our blogs-sorry for the overlap-she's got the pictures too!) Even though it was in italian, we went to a mass in a crazy echo-y church, and then went on a nice long walk of bologna including some other fancy churches, and the big public gardens. Next day, the epic 21st, we went to ravenna to see the ancient mosaics, eat piadina, and drink my first legal beer (in the US-seen in prior post below.) Katie and Melissa went down to Perugia and Rome, and in the meantime, Tess, another good friend from Wellesley, came to visit and we went to the huge open air market where I bought an unbelievable summer dress, a super long summer skirt, a white zip up hoody with quirky designs. Then we went to san luca, the awesome hike with unbeatable views outside of the city, and the next day she left early. Same day, melissa and katie come BACK to bologna, and show them the same things I showed tess and her friend grady-the market, and san luca. Then the following day, we went to venice, because I had promised melissa ages ago I would go with her, and it turned out to be the most beautiful day I've seen in italy in a long time. The glistening water, typical venetian beauty basically, which was pretty cool after having been there twice during very late fall and middle of winter. We went to one of my favorite museums, Peggy Guggenheims old house, and I bought more postcards. Then i bought the mask-woops?

It's been a crazy couple of weeks and I'm getting ready to head out for 'eastern europe?' YAY! can't wait. my travel bug is kicking back in.

"Artists ought to be writing/ about what they do/ and/ what kinds of procedures they go through to realize a work/ what their presuppositions in making a work are/ and related things. If artists' intentions and ideas/ were more accessible to the general public/ I think it might break down/ some of the barriers of misunderstanding between the art world/ and artists/ and the general public/ I think it would become clear the extent to which artists are just as much a product of their society as anyone else as in any other kinds of occasion/"
-Adrian Piper

I read an article today about international water crises. It's funny to me that this article was one of the last un-bolded, smaller font, articles in the 'world' section of the NY times website. I wonder what we're going to do when the water crises hits the middle class. Right now, 700 million people are already under sever 'water stress' even if its not a crisis yet. Ethiopia, Haiti and Niger are experiencing real crises. It just makes me wonder about the functions that water parks, hot tubs and pools, and irresponsible domestic water use serve in our society.

i've been really getting into food and what i eat (for health's sake) and informing myself about nutrition and stuff like that. I've recently drastically changed my diet and have started a weekly workout routine with my roommate maria. I'm trying not to set the initial stakes too high, but i hope it works out for the better. We need to change the way we do so many things, and if I can't change myself... well then i'm not going to be effective in any other ways.

21

finally.

Berlin stole my heart....and my camera

So i shouldnt blog before I even see a city as a general rule of thumb, but i just had the most ridiculous night of aimless walking. I havent even seen berlin yet and i´m exhausted. not to mention this german keyboard is on acid. all of the characters are in different places and they dont have /'s and many other characters.

So anyway, the first night I got to berlin was quite a mess (like the rest of the trip, in retrospect). I got in at the airport around 8:30, stumbled around to find the train that took me into the city center. Took one train but where I needed to change trains, I didn't get off, so I accidentally rode the train back to the airport. Then when I got off at the right stop 30 minutes later, I couldn't find for the life of me where the train was that actually went into berlin, because everythign was under construction and there were no lights or signs, but hella people were moving around so I just stood still in the same spot trying to figure out wtf was going on. When I finally find the train I'm looking for, which is on a COMPLETELY different track and basically in another building, I ride it 2 stops before everyone gets off, even though it was supposed to end on the complete other side of town (where i needed to go). Turns out there was huge construction on a large part of the line, so the train stopped there. All the signs pointed to a bus line replacement for the lack of trains, but by this point, it'd alreayd been an hour or so, and I decided to call the hostel to get help. Poor lady heard from me like 6 times before I even got to the hostel. So i find a tram service instead of bus or subway, had to change trams at one point, and finally get to the neighborhood where I'm supposed to go. Only problem was that my map of berlin was a way too far zoomed out google maps version of berlin, so street names didn't help me at all. I basically ended up navigating the city like a maze, interpreting the shapes of the corners and angle to tell me where I was on the map. It took 1.5 hours of walking around the neighborhood where my hostel was before i RANDOMLY heard some english, stopped the people and asked if they knew where this one street was. As soon as I opened my mouth, one of the girls asked me if I was from california. didn't realize my accent was so identifiable? I always thought californians hd non-regional accents? anyway so I get pointed in the right diretion and FINALLY find the hostel.

Hostel was awesome. had free internet, great company, and a nice location. I was staying in the alternative students/artists quarter of berlin, and all the restaurants and public spaces were just really fuckin awesome. While I was walking around AIMLESSLY for the first 3 hours, i was able to witness the beer phenomenon that dominates berlin. literally everyone of all ages and styles carries a beer bottle in hand. As in, they're actively drinking it. literally everyone. I noticed at the airport, when I saw a group of teenagers get on the train with bottles, but I assumed they were just being rebels. Then at the busier stations I noticed men in suit coats, motherly looking women, kids, adults, EVERYONE had a beer! I felt left out! Then when I finally got to my quarter, it was exponentially more visible probably because it kept getting later as I was walking around. I loved that about berlin, they have no public drinking laws. There's no shame around drinking outside, but its not like people are really irresponsible. I met an american girl in my hostel, and we were talking about hwo australia, england and america have these crazy drinking problems, and those are all the countries with restrictions. fuckin europe's got it figured out, especially berlin.

BERLINS cheap as fuck. psyched for the food, it seems so multicultural, and the museums. i can tell tht i dont have enough time already. whatever. Mostly i just needed a fuckin map when I showed up, but once i got one the next morning from the hostel, I was on the go. The first day in berlin I did/saw SO many things. I'm gonna list because if not, itll be too long.

1)ate awesome pastry in a cafe in a childrens park right in front of my hostel. The cafe had a sand box inside for children
2)saw that there was a childrens market-literally, for and by children. The parents just sort of hung out in the background and socialized.
3)Found 3 different craft markets in the commercial center of the city. sunday is market day.
4)got a HUGE twice the size of my face cheese pretzel
5)saw the awesome downtown with the radio tower and all the other important buildings.
6)went into a memorial of all opressed people during world war 2 and after, really moving, and bare, just a grey statue with a red rose in front.
7)Went to bradenburg gate, which you should read about if ur interested. It was blocked off during the war and part of the death strip. now its a symbol of peace.
8)Went into a nondemonational room of silence...another nod of the head toward peace.
9)Went to the holocaust memorial, a huge series of different sized huge grey blocks. Melissa were u the one who showed me this before? it was surreal.
10)Went to the ruins of the building where the gestapo and german secret police had their headquarters. It was like an outdoor museum.
11)Went to checkpoint charlie, where the divide between east and west berlin (into the american part) was most heavily patrolled (at least thats what I gathered) It was a huge museum inside of an old house, very overwhelming, too many things on the walls, but lots of history.
12)Ate hagendaaz...lol
13)Went to the east side gallery, which is a HUGE section of the wall thats left in east berlin covered in murals, paintings/graffitti that are so beautiful...i dont even know how to explain. It was probably my favorite part of berlin.
14)Gorlitzer park-this awesome huge public park covered in grafitti, its sort of famous for its grafitti, and I went just to take pictures of it. Then i lost my camera, but im still glad I went, because the park had sucha cool vibe.
15)Went to this EPIC burger restuarant near my hostel with a girl, brook, from my hostel, and had huge pints of beer and the BEST BURGER IVE EVER EATEN in my entire life. It was called 'the works" had bacon, cheese, onions, meat, and something else amazing, as well as a huge order of chronic fries. it was kind of expensive, but a good decision.


Next day I....
1)Accidentally took the wrong train and took a detour way outside of berlin into residential countryside Germany on my way to a section of the wall
2)Went to another section of remains of the Wall in the quarter of berlin I was staying in, Prenzlauer Berg. This one was so different because you could go up into the old watch towers, where people were shot and killed if they tried to cross the wall/death strip. There was a beautiful skyline view of all of Berlin, with the radio tower, and really moving photos.
3)Ate falafel and fresh orange juice and baklava at a killer falafel restaurant
4)Found a dali museum that was open after realizing that on monday all the museums in europe are closed, and saw some of the craziest pen/pencil drawings I've ever seen. I'm a new dalì fanatic after that exhibit. The reason it was so cool was because it wasn't his famous paintings at all, it was all this sort of sketching, skulpture, and idea development stuff. I loved it.
5)bought 2 pairs of earings and new sunglasses that I really dig.
6)Went back to the burger place but only for their "Angry Hour" which is not happy hour, but the same idea. 2 pints of beer cost only 3€. I went with the girl from my hostel, and then we did a pub crawl through another hostel, and I met abunch of crazy canadians and australians.
7)Got back to my hostel at 5AM after realizing I'd lost my keys to the hostel, my eyeliner, one earring, and last but not least, my beloved DSLR camera.
8)woke up at 10:40 am when I had a 12:15 pm flight back to italy. took a cab there, and made just barely onto the flight.

I wouldn't take back a thing about berlin. Its stupid I lost the camera, but I had a great time, and I love the city. Everyone should go if they ever get a chance because it was crazy and I even had fun by myself. Its a beautiful and culturally CRAZY city.

Back to the daily grind here in italy

My Funny Valentine

is the only song I ever sing. Last night, I sang at a club in bologna with a group of italian professional jazz-heads. The leader of the group is the pianist, Teo Ciavarello, who is a professor at the conservatory. We met during auditions and he invited me at that point to sing a tune at this place Bar Wolf. I went one night with Tony, he gave us free wine and we stayed and listened for a bit, and after that, I never went back because I was way too scared. But when I went on monday night, I was with my american piano professor the one I've done 2 concerts with, and he knows teo, so when we came in Teo greeted us, got us a table, asked us to do something together with the band. Since funny valentine is the only song I know, that was it. lol. I think it was alright, but I was so out of sorts vocally. Like i hadn't warmed up, i'd been drinking wine for the last 3 hours and no water. So it was a little rough, but it was enough for italians to clap for me at the end, and Amelia said I was just being too harsh on myself. I was really glad I had 2 american friends there though, because it made me relax a little, the fact that people i knew were there. Made the audience less scary. Here's a picture of me with the band




I had an awesome time with Amelia who just went back to london this afternoon, and we did too much to recount in detail, but the highlight I would say was a birthday party in a medieval tower that we went to last night. Here are pictures from the top terrace of the tower looking at 2 scenic and important parts of bologna: the two towers of the Asinelli family, and the Piazza Maggiore.





My roommates birthday is friday and I'm going to her house before heading to berlin. I was thinking about it, and I think going to her house will be one of my first time's inside of an italian household where I wasn't working. Like just for fun. I'm excited! she's turning 21.

-Ali