A closer look

This post, i promise will not be as long. I just wanted to get out these few things before I forget about them.

So yesterday, we went to this ancient city called Gallipoli, which has a really mixed greek, messapi, and baroque history, so its sort of a confused city, but all the same it was totally awesome. It made me think a lot. I'm starting to see how full of contradictions the south is, and I guess it became most evident in Gallipoli for me...

So gallipoli used to be a little island that was only like 60 m from the mainland of italy, and it was a walled city, and theres a military stronghold castle there, built in the water right next to the island, thats totally gorgeous. Anyway, now, theres a foot bridge built between the mainland and the island, and you can walk all across the entire island in less then 20 minutes-its really small-but its got the most incredible views on the ionian sea. All the pictures of sunsets I just posted are from Gallipoli, from a huge vista point overlooking a little beach. I know I take too many of the same pictures, but I just never know which ones are going to be good... boh.

Anyway, in the city we went to an old olive oil factory, which doesnt sound to crazy, except ìthe system they had for making oil for like hundreds of years in Gallipoli, which makes some of the most famous olive oil in italy (cuz there are millions of olive trees in the nearby countryside) IS really crazy. So the factory is like a man made grotto underground, and its in the city center so its built right beneath all these bustling alley ways, but there are no windows, so its really dark, humid and muggy down there. The ceilings are no more than 6 feet tall. After the olive harvest in october, 8 workers would go down into this cellar, and stay there until APRIL making oil, without going up to the street level. They werent slaves because they were paid pretty well, but only 8 ppl could fit in there, and while 4 men work, the other 4 rested, and theyd switch ever few hours or so, nonstop for 24 hours, apparently. There were also 2 cows or horses down there that would pull a huge stone over all the olives to crush them, and one would work while the other rested, same system. can you imagine staying down there with huge animals? The only time they did go to street level was at night, because their eyes were so accustomed to the darkness below, that they couldnt go out in the sun, and they were allowed to do that whenever they wanted, but the tour guide said most of them just stayed underground.

My face, during this tour was like the little boy in mary poppins at the beginning right before she tells him not to be a fish and close his mouth. I guess its not that weird, it was just a sort of overwhelming experience just to be down there in the humidity, and i couldnt imagine staying there for 6 or 7 months with animals and the whole processgoing on. I didnt take pictures, but thats okay, it wouldnt have captured it anyway.

Other incredulous things lately, I found out that my teacher Gabriela doesnt have biological children, but after 4 years of the application process to adopt, she just recently officially adopted 3 african (ethiopian, specifically) orphans, ages 3, 7, and 9, none of whom speak italian. This, of course, happens all over the world, people adopt less fortunate children all over the world, but I guess the immediacy of her situation really struck me because shes going to Africa at the beginning of september, right after we leave to bologna, to go get them, and she'll be there for a month, and then she has to help acclimate them to a life in a developed country... I just... was really hit by trying to fathom how that experience will be for the boys, for her, and for the society of the south that is so plagued with issues of immigration and racist, especially toward africans.

And the last shocking, or depressing, more or less, was the beach we went to right next to Gallipoli before going to the old city center. All the italian beaches have really narrow shore lines that are just jam packed with tan bodies and all-colors-of-the-rainbow ombrelloni (beach umbrellas), but at this beach, there was the most bizarre trash in the sand everywhere. First of all it was already really unesthetically pleasing sand because there was all this broken tiny pieces of driftwood and rocks and painful things to walk on, even though the sand itself was really fine and white, but that didnt bother me, it was just like when we chose a spot, there was the worst smell and all these disgusting bugs attracted to the garbage, and yet, you could see gallipoli less than half a mile away in the distance, this gorgeous island city, well preserved, connected to the new city with skyscrapers and chain restaurants by a foot bridge. I duno, the view was a little to much for me to take, even though I know I overreact to seeing examples of polution in general, like in jamaica... but i cant help it. Nothing bumbs me out more about the world than racism and pollution. well, and war, and political economy....i duno its all related.

Last piece of info, which is less of a downer, I promise, is that my piano teacher from berklee college of music is here because hes dating the directory of our program, and we're putting on a concert tonight of about 15 songs or so, its just like a total random mix of standards, a few things of written, a flute duet, an italian poem. Ill be mostly singing, playing some piano, and some flute, but ya. I think we'll record it, so if i can post stuff maybe i will if its any good. Ciao for now!

Ali

Pictures

I've finally posted pictures of what I've been up to with limited captioning. You can check out the photo albums at these links, which more or less correspond to the stories ive been telling about where Ive been going and etc :

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147807&id=634486277&l=b02afe47d7

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147804&id=634486277&l=32ea6852b7

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147803&id=634486277&l=7c7e3834fc

Pardon the huge abundance of fotos and enjoy! its so late, i have to sleep!

Ali

Lecce, Leuca, Ostuni, Alberobello=Puglia

Yo blogspot.

So as I predicted in all my prior posts about internet in italy, the network here at our apartment complex has completely crashed. Its funny because since I lost my computer I’ve just gotten used to not being able to go online when I want, but now the other 19 kids here in lecce with me are starting to be like ‘AH what are we gonna do without the internet?’

We live at a childrens Montessori boarding school, so we take classes inside the gated complex that we live in. It’s really strange living arrangements, I had no idea it would be like this. I live in a triple room, but its connected to a living room and kitchen that two other bedrooms share, so its like a 3 bedroom apartment, 2 triples and a double. So there are 8 girls in our house, 8 girls in another apartment and 4 guys in a smaller apartment. Our apartments are inside this like gated school that we live at, and we go to classes in this building that has a computer lab with faster internet, so I spend a lot of the really hot parts of the day (12 to 3) in there using the internet. we’ve only had one day of class, Friday last week, but we have 3 hours of classes every morning, from 9 to 12 and then we’re hypothetically free to do what we want, but in reality, we have activities planned for us all the time.

For example, last week we went to this incredible beach called spiaggia bella which literally translates to beautiful beach. It was like, the epitome of mediteranean beach-going. I can’t tell you how many incredibly tan Italians wearing as little clothing as possible were littered on the beach. It was like one of those pictures from the 60s where the water is PACKED with people, and the beach has really bright colors. There were these batches of uniform ombrellone (large umbrellas, beach umbrellas) that you could rent and they were of course all rented. We went on a Thursday, too, and this Saturday/weekend was Ferre Agosto, a huge national holiday in italy, so I can’t imagine how full the beaches must have been then, let alone on a Thursday…

Of course, now I understand why everyones at the beach… the weather is out of control hot. I don’t really mind it, surprisingly, it’s hot but I never get too uncomfortable that it keeps me from doing what I want, except maybe work out, but that’s something I probably wouldn’t do even if it was like, perfect weather… haha

So, the last 3 days of my life have been out of this world. I don’t know how Wellesley happens to plan all these short month long programs that are basically out of this world cool, but this trip is like verging on topping some of the experiences I had in Jamaica. Which is hard for me to admit, because of course that experience was so unique and amazingly different from this one, but in any case, the only way I can even begin to explain what I’ve seen and done is with pictures. At the same time, I’m trying to strike a sane balance of experiencing the activities we do as a group and photographing the activities we do as a group. I have to be careful not to get to lost in my camera, because I don’t want to look back on italy and remember having my face in the lens the whole time, instead of staring at amazing views and buildings and people…

In any case, Friday night, a traditional Italian band from Puglia (the region that lecce is in) played about an hour and half of CRAZY music at our complex, and we’d learned about the history of this music and the tradition in my class earlier that day, so it was pretty interesting to see. It has really heavy tambourines and really intense dance rhythms, and the point of the dance is too release like huge amounts of energy by dancing a lot. So there were 3 dancers with the band, and the audience was sitting in a circle around the piazza where they were dancing, and after a few songs, they started encouraging audience members to dance and no one would, and then these 2 guys from Vassar got up and started dancing, and then I went, and then some little Italian kids, and then tons of people followed and it started this huge dance fest for the rest of the night. It was like the most exhausting thing I’ve done in a long time (beside drink at middlebury, o my god, so fun) and I got some pretty cool pictures of the dancers…

The next morning, we pack into a bus, and drive to this beach town called Leuca for a cruise on the Adriatic coast of Italy. It was really like less than half a mile of coast close to the harbor from which we boarded the boat, but what we SAW in this half mile of coast literally detonated a bomb in my head. I COULD NOT BELIEVE what I was seeing. I’m being dramatic, yes I know, but it was totally warranted by this coast line. It was like a huge series of incredible grottos in these rock face cliffs and the water was the most incredibly vivid blue with different shades. So at a certain point the captain stops the boat at this amazing double grotto so we could go swimming, so 20 of us all jump into the water like dogs eager to swim (with pure unfiltered joy and excitement, in other words) and swim to these grottos. I went to a different one than everyone else at first, so I went deep into this huge cave, at least 70 feet high from the surface of the water but really narrow, and it was connected to the grotto right next to it at the back, so you could swim over to the other one and come back out, but when you turned the corner to leave the other grotto there was the most amazing views I’d ever seen in my life. The insides of the caves were illuminated and the water was lit up like light teals and dark blues and glimmering surfaces, and the sun was SO bright but I was in the back of this dark cave just looking out at all these white white boats and waves crashing on these sheer rock faces and….just utter mindblowing-ness.

There was another tiny opening in the rock face at a slightly different place where our boat stopped that was completey different, there was only like a 1 foot opening that you had to slip under, and inside the water was really calm but completely lit up in a different way than the other, and the resonance in that cave was awesome and all I wanted to do was sing. I was in there for myself awhile too, it was pretty crazy

Then we got back on the boat and drove to the other side of the harbor to a different set of rocks, and we went to this cave that was FREEZING, which was strange because for the most part, the water was really really warm, like I didn’t flinch at all, which I’m not used to after the pacific, (OH! And also random side note, in general I can’t float, but because this ocean was so salty, I could float for 20 minutes no problem, which I did, haha) but anyway, it was really cold because it was fresh unsalted water coming up from this huge sand bank that was in the bottom of this cave, but the sand was really hot, so if you swam in far enough you could cover your legs in the sand cuz the water was really shallow, and just like chill there. It was so amazing. Also at that cave, you could climb the cliffs more easily, because they weren’t as steep, and there were a lot of Italian there who had hiked down from the top of the cliff to go swimming, and to watch the boats and people swimming, etc, so some people from my group climbed up and were jumping from like, I duno maybe 8 feet up or so, but knowing me, after an entire life of camping in California, rock jumping is like 2^nd nature, so I climb to the highest point, directly above the opening of the cave, and waited for someone to tell me it was clear to jump at the bottom. The Italians that were up there were like “are you sure?” and I just asked “is it dangerous? I’ll be alright, right?” cuz I’m not afraid of heights, I just didn't know how deep it was. Anyway, so I jump without hesitating once it was clear, and everyone from my group was like ‘AHHHH’ while I jumped. Haha. I guess It was like, 25 feet up or something, but it didn't seem that bad. It was just funny.

So then after Leuca, I was exhausted and the girls from my house just stayed in and had an intellectual conversation about the international political economy, education, and life plans. We’re an ambitious group.

Also, at Leuca, we got gelato and went to a street market after the boat. I bought an amazing black ring and a pair of maroon flowing pants that Italian women wear. I look like a poser, but I don't really care, because they’re so comfortable, especially during the heat.

So today, Sunday, we had yet ANOTHER field trip to 2 other places in Puglia: Ostuni and Alberobello. Both are amazingly cute towns built up on hills, and there’s just so much history I can’t even begin to explain.. a few of you might be lucky enough to receive post cards even…once I find a post office and figure out how it works…

Anyway, Ostuni is this city built overlooking the Adriatic from afar. All the building in the city are painted with white wash, (there’s even a city wide ordinance that forbids the residences and business owners from painting the buildings any other color but white) but the doors and window frames are all allowed to be colored, so there are all these incredibly beautiful contrasting pink, red, green, and blue doors and windows. Jesus it was like eye candy, I couldn’t help my camera… I photographed entirely too many things. So we have this tour guide woman, Maria, who takes us on each of these tours, (she seems like 25, I’m sure shes older, every one here looks like they don't age, they walk so much and eat well--why don't I live here??) and she took us to these incredible vista points of the ocean and also of the rest of the city. It reminded me of san Francisco, in that there are some alleys and stairways where you feel like you’re looking practically straight up to see the top. Every alley was so picturesque, and every white building against a perfectly cloudless blue sky was breathtaking. I couldn’t handle it. It was like overload, for sure.

Then we got back on the bus and drove another hour to this really interesting ancient city called albero bello where all the houses/buildings (used to be houses, now they’re historical monuments that no one can live in, they’re now mostly tourist shops) look EXACTLY like stone hobit abodes. Its too hard to explain, but when I get a good internet connection I’ll upload pictures and you can all see then. It’s nuts. Anyway, again we just walked around, took pictures, were typical tourists, attempted to speak Italian with merchants who would typically respond in English (embarrassing) but it was again just totally unlike anything else I’d ever seen.

In other more regular life news, the bread in this country kicks ass, which goes without saying, however, it’s also amazingly cheap. Each morning I buy bread to make a sandwich for lunch, and its like 30 centisimi of a euro! How cool! I’ve actually been pretty economical with food money, but I had to spend so much on a cell phone when I first got here, and some other stuff.

Anyway, long post, just the internet was dead all weekend so I finally just got a chance to sit at a computer and scratch everything down. It doesn’t really feel real, a lot of the things that have happened here, until I write it down. Immortalize it. Ha. I duno.

So sorry if the same thing happens again and I completely go under for a few days. I normally would communicate like exponentially more, but with this lack of internet and phone credit, its kind of hard.

Lastly, PLEASE GIVE ME UR ADDRESSES!! I want to send ppl stuff, at least post cards, but of course you wont get anything if I don't have ur address. Ok, ciao ciao for now, I’m mad sleepy

Ali

Lecce, finally...

So i'm having a really hard time believing I'm actually here. Among several mini catastrophes, like losing my computer, I've been just getting settled in. Today we waited 3 hours in the post office taking care of visa issues, after which we got cell phones, slept, and then took a walking tour of the city. It was awesome. Lecce is on-fire amazing. It's like this old baroque city that no ones knows about, and even though there are a handful of tourists, we're by far the most obvious group, which is 20 students. It reminds me alot of being in Jamaica, when we had a huge air conditioned tour bus and cameras. I'm trying to be subtle, but if you know how much I like to take pictures, its a little bit hard to hold back from taking pictures of everything.

So with my computer, it's almost sure now that I've lost it. If i did have it at airport security in New York, airport security and delta at JFK don't have it. That means I now have to call Germany and Vermont to see if either of them have it. The reason i was almost sure I left it in new york was because I would have noticed before security if it wasn't in my bag, but I'm almost sure I took it out and put it thorugh the machine. I'm not sure why i would leave it there, and if I didn't actually leave it, then someone stole it out of my bag at the lufthansa terminal. Again, i'm not sure why anyone would do that.

So I've got to work on buying a new computer, or organizing for something at least. I'm thinking of buying a little tiny italian laptop, like the one elisa had at middlebury, because they're pretty cheap, and I might be able to work it out. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to look into finding a used one in bologna or something like that. It really sux too, because I have a warantee with Apple, but of course they don't cover lost products.... anyway, colpa mia (my fault)

I'm dying of boredom with out a computer, but at least we have internet. I sort of thought maybe it would be a good thing to be less attached to my computer in Italy in general, but now I'm just really bummed that I lost fotos and also documents that I didn't back up on my hard drive... i duno i have really bad luck with losing shit. It's actualy gonna be a miracle if Lufthansa or Delta has it.

So tomorrow we have a placement test and then class starts on friday. I'm so frickin tired and the heat in lecce is killing me, i'm of course being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but other than that and losing my computer, I can't believe I'm actually here. The walking tour we took of lecce was nuts, and I'm sure the rest of italy is just going to get crazier and crazier....

Write me everyone! Send me emails and get in touch on facebook. ciao ciao

ali

Umm...

My flight here was perfectly fine. Except I lost my computer.

I dont know what happened exactly, and I just got here today at 4pm or so, and I dont have a phone or a computer so its been really hard to find time to get ahold of airline lost and founds and airport lost and founds especially cuz I had 4 layovers or something like that, but anyway, I know i had it in vermont, because obviously, I wrote that last post, and then I used it again some more when I went through security. The only thing I think is a possibility is that I left it at airport security at JFK which means 1 of 2 things-either security saw it and took it to lost and found, or someone saw it, and just took it. If they took it, sux for them cuz my computer is password protected and they'll never guess it, but also sux for me cuz I'm a dumbass and might have left my computer at airport security. Seriously, what the f**k (i have a wide ranging audience with this blog, gotta keep it PG) thats the stupidest thing ever. I just like gave away $1000.

anyway, so I'm here, I don't really have time to write cuz I'm on this other chicks computer and I feel super bad, she probably wants to use it too...

Flight was awesome. Met a norwegian helicopter engineer, the first in the world or something? who told me so many details about her life I can't keep them straight. She continually ordered me alcohol on the flight while I was sleeping, and also got me food, so every time I woke up there was some new refreshment waiting for me. I had a window seat, but it was to dark to see the alps (BOO) and also there was only me and the norwegian lady in 3 seats, so we stretched out and slept well. Lufthansa flights rock my world. it was sweet.

Besides the flying, I met the other students which has been fun and sort of strange. I'm starting to feel weird about the fact that I did middlebury, because now that people know, their like, asking me for words, and definitions and verbs, and even when I know the answer i don't want to say anything. at least at middlebury we were all doing that together, now its like, weird. I duno, they also give the student who uses italian most often 50euro, and when the director said that like 3 kids turned and looked at me, and i waslike, fuck i don't want to be that kid....

lecce's nuts. write more later. i seriously just hope i get my computer back, but its probably already too late.

ANYWAY gotta go. hope everyones amazing! ciao ciao

WEE0000

The airport in vermont has free wireless internet. That's like the only thing that's cool about this airport. but its pretty f-in cool.

I think i left my computer charger on my desk at Middlebury, so... I guess I'm gonna have to deal with that in a week or so, maybe jordan, my lovely roommate can ship it to me, if it doesn't cost a fortune. haha i dont even know my address.... 

In retrospect, I loved middlebury. I miss everyone there, and I'll probably go back. Who wants to come with me next time? They really take like anyone and everyone into the program...haha

Flying to Italy will take 2 days. I'll try to be sure to let everyone know that I showed up safe and in one piece, but it might take a while, especially without a phone, and computer. 

BUT CIAO baci baci  a tutti, i need to take a huge pisolino (nap) for the next 2 days because i sort of forgot to sleep the last few, but this is the perfect time. also, i hear there's alcohol on international flights....

peace love and harmony to all! catch ya on the flip

Save the best for last

Seems like things always happen this way, but middlebury has only just started to get good right at the end. After months of waiting to go abroad, I didn't think it would be possible to want to stay here but of course, now that its the end, i feel closer with everyone, i'm having tons of fun, and I don't mind going to class or doing my homework. STRANGE.

In fact, the last week and a half or so has been pretty different from any other academic or social experience I've had. I've been hanging out with a group of athletes from the italian school, the people that I'm constantly photographing for those of you on facebook, and we've got this strong like borderline cultish circle of friends going on that is so fun, but i guess the biggest difference is that I eat with these people at every meal, have 2-3 hours of classes with them everyday, hang out with them during the weekends, go to the movies and conferences with them, i dont know, we just all do everything together. I guess maybe its not that different from other groups, but i'm just not off doing my own thing as much, probably because I was feeling a little isolated doing that before, especially here, because if you don't talk to people and make friends, its really hard to like it here.

Yesterday, after the soccer game that WE WON which was so exciting, really well played, and an awesome photo op, a group of us went to these amazing waterfalls. Vermont is littered with like huge mountains and green forrests and waterfalls every 10 minutes on the highway that are totally amazing. I had no idea this state was like this...I was, unfortunately, attacked by a stinging nettle plant, and the inside of my leg has all these red dots but hey, whatever. 

An interesting thing I've noticed is that when we go off campus, we speak english. not exclusively. It's this weird mix of italian and english that is like borderline dialect for middlebury. We've created words, we start sentences in english and finish them in italian, sometimes someone will be talking to you in english, but you respond in italian. I duno, weirdest thing ever. It's also really funny because when we pull into the parking lot on campus, everyone snaps back into italian without anyone saying a word. I've never been in a community where everyone is striving to be bilingual, so to me its really strange and hilarious, but we all miss english so much that sometimes we're like, screw it, let's just use it for a little bit. 

I'm leaving for italy in 7 days. I haven't given it any more thought beyond just getting to the airport smoothly and catching my flights, mostly because I'm in complete and utter disbelief that 1) after planning for so long to do this, its actually going to happen, 2) that after 6 weeks of this intensity that is Middlebury I can actually sort of speak the language, 3) that I get to fly over the alps on my way there. I literally. can't. believe. it. I will do anything for a window seat.

Packing is nuts, the end of this program is going to be nuts because I have to finish everything in advance, all i wanna do is hang out with everyone and have fun before I leave the states, but nothing is awry, and I'm mostly just psyched to go. 

So in case I dont have internet in lecce, here's where I'll be for the near future:

Vermont: now till august 10

Lecce: august 11 till september 4

Malta: September 5 till september 9

Bologna: September 10 till...?

I imagine I'll be busy upon arriving in italy, but i'll try to keep in touch all the same. Miss you all so much already...