long time, no post

Alright, this could take me a while....

It's been so long since I've posted, I don't really know where to start. Thanks to seth's reminder, I realized I should probably get back to updating you all, not that anyone checks this thing anymore, seeing as I've only updated twice since I've been in bologna.

So. much. has happened. I can't keep track of it all. In the most important news, I suppose I should explain what ended up happening with the conservatory situation. I had auditions around October 18th to 21st, which included a piano audition, a voice audition, and then a theory and eartraining test. I thought the piano audition had gone terribly, and I basically assumed I wouldn't get in because it had gone so horribly. The week before the auditions, I started considering applying to Wellesley's study abroad program from music in milan, which was the whole reason i ever started learning italian in the first place. I was pretty upset about a lot of things for the whole week, because I love the city of bologna as a place to study and live and I didn't want to go to milan at all, but I just thought that if I wasn't going to be able to study music for a whole year and not have access to a piano or practice room that I would go crazy. I emailed wellesley and asked if it would be possible to apply to the milan program for 2nd semester, and the study abroad office told me yes. So i was considering it strongly.

Then, the director of my program, Claire, who is a little out to lunch, if you catch my drift, went to Siena (a neighboring italian city) with the study abroad director from wellesley to look at another program, and while they were there, the woman from wellesley told Claire, my directory, that I was thinking about transfering and she wrote me this offended, immature email saying she was upset that I had gone over her head and that her job was to be the liason with the school, and it was not my place to ask, etc. all this other bullshit basically. I felt bad, but at the same time, I had expressed any definite decisions and Claire reacted like a child. The truth of the matter is that she is pretty uncapable of this job, too, seeing as she doesn't have any practical ideas for solving problems. For example, I started asking her about what the music situation would be like in bologna in January 2009, so 10 months ago, and she assured me that I would have access to a piano, i would study music and I would almost positively be able to take one class at the conservatory. I was psyched about that, and sort of assumed that things were settled, until I arrived in Lecce and found out that instead, she had no idea what the hell was going on, and hadn't communicated a word of it to me. So when i got to bologna, I was in this 2 month limbo, in which no one had any answers, I was going all over the city trying to figure out how/where I could find a piano or take classes, tried taking some music classes at the actually university of bologna, but they were totally not what I was interested in at all (jazz doesn't exist at UniBo), and for those of you who are musicians, you can probably relate to the feeling of being agitated when you can't play. I started losing my shit, in so many words, I mean i seriously felt weird. When i was at middlebury, and when I'm at wellesley, going to the practice rooms was one of the ways I treated myself after I studied really hard, it was sort of always what I thought of doing even when I was doing other things like eating and walking and in class. During my music classes, whenever we take breaks, I sort of subconciously always look for an empty room with a piano, even when i have something more important or pressing to do. it's almost a bad habit, i tell people sometimes, but at the same time it's my favorite habit.

So one day, when i expressed to claire that I was really starting to get frustrated (and trying not to be frustrated with her, because really it's not her fault that she can't figure things out-she's just not suited for this job, in my opinion) she told me she'd heard a piano across the street from her office and asked me if I wanted to go look for it with her, as if that would solve the problem-aimlessly wandering the streets of bologna to find a random door that led to the magic piano 3 floors above street level that she'd been hearing. I mean what the fuck kind of solution is that to the problem of "I would like a relatively constant place to practice, if such a thing exists in this country" not "i would like to touch a piano for 5 seconds before the random stranger whos appartment we're in tells us to get the fuck out." I mean, I think she actually thought we could just randomly knock on doors and ask someone if I could play their piano. I was really confused. I didn't even know how to turn her down.

So what ended up happening was, I got admitted to the conservatory for both voice and piano-the catch: I don't know if I can do both. We have to petition to the director of the conservatory for permission to do both tracks, because the conservatory hasn't had someone audition for both and be admitted to both. This multi-focus idea is very american, i guess. Italian's don't have double majors either, as concepts.

It was really exciting to be admitted, I guess, but it's also been really confusing. The dates for the conservatory are wildly different, meaning, where as the normal academic semester starts in October and finishes in December, the conservatory goes from November to early March, with a 3 week break in decemeber/january, for christams/new years. Also, UniBo ends at the end of May, where as the conservatory ends half way through july. Completely different. The other thing thats totally odd is that since jazz at the conservatory here in italy is considered an 'experimental track' (which is probably the only reason i was admitted, it's not a very competitive field in italy) the classes are held on thursday, friday, and saturday, which eats up what used to be my 4 or 5 day weekend. Right now, I only have class on monday, tuesday, wednesday, so with the conservatory that puts me at 6 straight days of class. At least i'm doing all my traveling early on, right? (ill get to that later)

Anyway, initially, I thought I'd just take one class at the conservatory, as in theory, or eartraining or something that I need to learn more about in the jazz world, but now it looks like which ever I chose (piano or voice) I'll be doing a full fledged conservatory track like in the States. theory ear training history arranging electives and lessons. good. I need it.

so where does that put me with my academics (always the burning question as a wellesley student) I just took the midterm for the italian political system class I'm taking, which is a 2 credit course, which ROCKS, because that means I'm done with my italian major electives, and I'll only have to take the senior year seminars when I get back to wellesley. The class is relatively easy, especially based on how that exam was compared to exams at wellesley. In terms of music, I have no idea how my classes will transfer, but my classes there don't even start until November 12th (which is the first day that I'll be in norway so I'm missing the 1st 3 days of classes anyway). I do have some sort of cognition requirement to do next semester, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Speaking of which, I have 2 trips planned-one to Venice, and then one to Norway to see the northern lights with my, i guess we'll call him, my boyfriend, Tony. I feel like I should introduce him to you all, haha although some of you already no who he is. He's doing my same study abroad program, so he's from the states, and in fact, he's from Southern California, Thousand Oaks to be exact. He goes to tufts, so his college is close to mine (tufts is in the suburbs of cambridge, mass) and yea, we met here in italy. yea, so that's tony. Anyway, I'm psyched about the norway trip. I don't know how many of you know, but I had a step mom for about 6 years who was norwegian, and when her family came to visit us in the states, they were always REALLY nice, and made me want to go to norway really badly. In short, I'm just excited that even though i'm basically in the southern most country of europe, I'm getting to go one of the northern most points. Should be a good time. I'll take a fuck ton of pictures and let you all know how it is when I get back. The venice trip is this weekend-i've never been and I hear its something else. I'm excited.

What else, I babysit 2, sometimes 3 times a week. Money is tight but it always is, and each time I work I only make 25euro, which i guess is about average for 3.5 hours of work, but the whole ordeal of getting to these people's house makes the whole thing 5 hours, which bums me out. my social life is pretty non-existent, but I guess its sort of like that at wellesley too, because I'm always doing something extremely strange like working, practicing or studying.

However, something pretty exciting did happen this halloween weekend-my study abroad program is obviously pretty aware of the fact that I'm a musician (because of all the conservatory stuff) and so they organized a concert at a local caffe' and invited all their italian friends. The concert was me on vocals, a bassist from our program, and a pianist from our program, and occasionally two guitar players playing about an hour of music for a mostly italian audience. It was quite a rush I guess because as vocalist, I sort of had to play liason between the audience and the band, announcing things, making stupid jokes, laying my soul out on the table for them to judge. All in all, it went well considering the group only practiced the day of for about 3 hours before doing the show. We did some things that were pretty fun and Italians, who aren't so accustomed to jazz and funk and r&b, were pretty taken aback, yet seemed entertained. My roommate, the crazy cleaning nazi one (i'm not sure if I've written about her), came, and she had a genuine smile plastered across her face which is good. i felt like she warmed up at the show. I got a little buzzed before the show so my italian was a little bit more fluid, and I got a few laughs out of the audience, even in a foreign language, and at the end I think i felt more accomplished about my correct use of grammar than the way I sang. Whatev? lol

For halloween, I was an italian soccer player. I had a VERY interesting night that included walking home for 1.5 hours from a big public garden party in shorts, a jersey and a jacket, at 3 in the morning. I wasn't by myself, no worries, but I was very very cold. Oh, the life of a student...

I'm supposed to do 2 other classes also, one's a writing workshop at my study abroad program, in which we're reading a book and writing 1 page essays each week about the chapters we've recently read. It's fun to dissect a book in any language, and i'm glad I'm getting to the point where I can do that in italian. Of course I did some of it at middlebury, but now, the classes are only 4 people, and we get 1 on 1 time with our professors to review our essay built in to class time, which is great.

I speak a TON of english here. Sometimes I get really mad at myself about it. I'm here to learn a different language, not to speak my broken english slang. But i can only do so much, I guess. I feel like I've gotten to the point where my comprehension is higher than it's been, although I know i can't understand everything, it's always getting better. I figure once the conservatory starts and I'm the only who speaks fluent english, I'll be speaking a lot more italian, which I can't wait for. Classes don't start for 3 weeks though.

Mostly, I've been occupying myself with keeping my house clean, working, going class, conservatory administrative issues, and making travel plans. Everything for venezia and norway is in place, but I also recently planned a whole bunch of stuff for december when Joey will be here.

It's interesting when I look around me at my american friends who are only here for a semester. I sort of envy the type of experience they're having, but at the same time, in the sense that they do a lot of things impulsively because the mentality is "i'm only here for a semester-I've got to go big while I'm here" and I can't exactly afford to do that-I'm not complaining, it's just so different. However, on the other hand, I'm actually living here for 11 months, August to June. and on a deeper level, i'm actually living here-working, not traveling to much, eating cheaply from the supermarket, and I guess with the economic crisis that reality is more italian than the typical 'american-studying-abroad' one. I think that's always been what I wanted though, an authentic experience. I want to get lost in the place, and although I may not be there quite yet-at the level of being totally submerged in this- I still have 8 months left, and a f**k ton left to learn. I guess it's hard to always be enthusiastic and chipper, I guess I'm like that at wellesley too, but I do have epiphany moments where I feel everything moving in such a big way, or where I feel incredibly different than i ever have before. and it all makes sense. I'm not really that surprised by the things I'm seeing or feeling, I'm just going through the process.

Lastly, I applied to the Middlebury grad school for italian, which is a 2 year program (2 summers in vermont, 1 year in florence), so next summer, I think I'm gonna go straight from Italy to Vermont to start the first semester of my masters in italian. It's sort of ironic to me i guess, that the last place I was in the states was vermont, and the first place I'll be when I get back is vermont. I don't even live there, but I guess middlebury will become my 3rd home in the states, after Novato and Wellesley.

I've been thinking about goign to boston for the winter holiday, but now that I got into the conservatory, i'm not sure I'll have money/time. I have classes from November 12 to Decemeber 19th, then from January 14th to June 16th (with a spring break and an exam break somewhere in there-i don't know i can hardly keep track)

ok. that post was long enough. I'll write more after travels/when I'm inspired (the latter is the problem nowadays-i'm usually to exhausted to write)

Ali

More pictures for those who aren't on facebook

Yo people don't use facebook often:

these are the links to my pictures from italy so far. let me know what u think. 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=156129&id=634486277&l=084e7a6573

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155200&id=634486277&l=7ab3378926

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155183&id=634486277&l=4081213942

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155170&id=634486277&l=7e1d5329d9

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155167&id=634486277&l=7c92e0298f

Ali

Bologna Inizia

So I've managed to go the longest since I've had this blog without writing in it. I guess when I was alone in Malta I wanted to write a lot about all the things I was doing, but I had to buy my internet there incrementally so I didn't.

After only 2 weeks, I hardly know where to start about bologna and my entire study abroad experience. It's crazy. Every few days there's something new or surprising about being here that I couldn't have expected but at the same time I feel pretty prepared and calm about new stuff. I guess what's really getting under my skin actually is lack of music/practice space, which seems to be my problem in life in general. Since I've been in italy, i've little to no contact with music, and literally zero opportunity to actually work on anything that's been brewing in my head. This happens to me every once in a while, like when I'm in california or during midterms at wellesley or when I was really busy at middlebury. Anyhow, I feel like I have no right to complain about it since I'm living in italy quasi-free and I've been having a really good time otherwise, but it's just a little bit scary that my life/mood are so greatly affected by how much i'm playing music and how productive I feel. I have a hard time being happy with myself when I realize i've had almost 3 months of no real musical contact.

BUT! In more exciting news about acclimating to this crazy country, I can say with confidence that living here for a year will be no issue. It's not all peacehes and cream, there are social problems that remind much of the US, and a city is a city is a city with racism, poverty and crime, but at the same time it's just been a bottomless pit of wonder for me to actually live in a metropolitan setting (and bologna is much smaller and safer than most cities) because everything, the food, the people, the nightlife, the buildings, the art and the sounds all amaze me. I think this one other student and I have become infamous in our program for constantly borderline overreacting with enthusiasm and wonder at everything we experience, but i'm trying to maintain some authenticity amongst it all. It's hard though, I mean really, this is all just blowing my mind so far.

Highlights of the last 2 weeks are to many to enumerate. Like actually. When I got here, I moved into my apartment which is for 5 people, 2 double rooms and one single, and my roommate is a 22 year old girl from the south of italy (crap I can't remember which region, I suck, I think Campagna? Or Basilicata) anyway, my roommates name is angela. I didn't really meet anyone in the house until the 5^th or 6^th day I was living there because I was spending so much time doing my 'permesso di soggiorno) permission to be in the country and orientation and starting classes that I didn't really get to have conversations with anyone. Other things in that initial few days included an incredible family style dinner, to which a girl from welleslsey who has done this exchange program in the past came to (because she lives and works in bologna since she loved italy so much when she was here for the year before), and I had talked to her so much while she was still at wellesley about bologna that she took me out to coffee afterward and walked me back to my apartment together. We switched numbers and have been going out to coffee pretty regularly, so through her I've met a group of italians and albanian people she knows, and they're all soo nice and awesome to talk to. I can't even explain how hard it is to meet real italian young people just when your walking down the street, so the fact that I had a connection with a young person in this city from the beginning has just been so amazing, and I've ever started bring other americans from my program to meet some other people so they can talk to and meet italians also. Anyway this girl's name is Katie or Katia, in case I mention her again later.

So, then as I got used to being here, we all just sort of explored the city and tried to get a feel for how the city transportation and streets work. Bologna is a medieval city (spelling?) and so the streets don't form rectangles or squares like in manhattan (quadrata is what the italians say). This means I basically always have to have a map because I can only navigate the main drags in the city without a map and when you try to explore and get lost on lots of tiny alleyways and side streets its a little confusing. At the beginning it was worse, obviously, but now we've figured out the bus system to get around, which let me tell you, is sooo italian.

So in bologna there are like 5 million bus routes that go everywhere. Any street that is straight with 2 lanes has a bus that comes every 5 minutes or so during normal business hours during the day (less frequent at night) and the way the tickets work is you buy them in tabacco shops (or similar stores) and they're these little 1 euro tickets, but when u get on the bus you don't have to pass the driver or validate your ticket at all. You're supposed to validate it in these little orange machines that are attached to the poles in the bus, and there's a specific date and time printed on the ticket that says when you used it, however, the only way someone knows where or not you have a validated ticket for that specific ride is if a controller gets on the bus, arbitrarily, and starts checking tickets. I have yet to see a controller and I have also yet to see an italian get on the bus and validate his or her ticket, which means that everyone is riding these public buses for free. Even when I get on an uncrowded bus and the driver watches me get on, not validate a ticket, and then get off, there's never a problem. They don't care, they don't say anything. So this was my first fiscal/governmental example of how senseless and dysfunctional italian organization can be. I mean really? They're paying drivers and controllers and tons of other bus employees without making a profit off of the thousands of riders that ride for free everyday. Anyway, interesting, but of course I'm not opposed ot free things, especially as a student who lives pretty far outside the city, so I ride them all the time and have yet to buy a ticket, but even if a controller gets on, you canjust get off at the next stop before he/she gets to you, because the buses stop every 500 ft.

So other things to write about, so much has been going on it's hard to write it all down. First off, I found a job thats very play-it-by-ear with a wellesley alum babysitting her three amazingly adorable bilingual boys. I have my first session with her next week for 2.5 hours, and I'm happy to do it because they're so cute and I could use the money. She offered to give my name to other italian families in the case that I would like more work, which I would but I'm still trying to find out my course schedule and that will change/depend on a lot of things. My courses have been probably the single most frustrating and time-consuming thing about italy so far. My real classes haven't even started but chosing them is like a puzzle, as it is at wellesley too, but i've been offered this chance to take a class at the conservatory of bologna, which would be wonderful, because their jazz studies aren't that presitigious which probably means I could take theory and ear training without being intimidated out of my wits, but it's all up in the air right now, and no one has decided or said anything about whether or not it will actually happen. So at this point, i'm like a fish out of water waiting to see which pool i'm gonna be thrown in, because I'll either end up being able to do the conservatory course, in which case I'll only take one course at ECCO (the home base consortium for our program that teaches 5, easier, middlebury like courses) and one course the university of bologna itself. If the conservatory thing doesn't come through, I can still just take one course at university of bologna and one at ECCO the consortium I'm studying at. I'm thinking the class I'm taking at UniBo is il sistema politico italiano which is 2 classes in one, so there should be a lot of reading but I've heard the lectures are really good.

So the other night, something else really fun that happened was my roommate, who i'd hardly ever talked to, invited me and a friend from my program out to aperitivi (drinks) with her friends, and we left at 7 and didn't come back till midnight. It was probably the best night i've had in italy. We didn't go dancing, we didn't do much of anythign but drink and talk, but we walked all over the city, we only spoke italian, and we went out into the city and wandered. It was pretty awesomely fun, and also, it was so convenient, because I was starting to get really disconcerted that I wasn't meeting young people, but instead, this has opened up door after door after door to meet more italians. You always meet friends of friends in this country, which is interesting as a social structure, because getting ahead in italy is based on like who you know and having connections, so the more outgoing you are the better? I duno, anyway, so I go out with these 6 other italians, and that night they were all talking about how they want to eat american food and meet other americans, and so I proposed having an american party at our apartment, because 2 of our other roommates are really awesome, and they are down to, so Friday this coming week, we're making brownies, pancakes, hamburgers, playing beer pong, chocolate chip cookies and playing american music (something that is not uncommon in italy as it is-seriously, its so crazy how they only american pop from every era in the stores here. I guess that's the thing to do?) Anyway, I invited katie, the girl from wellesley, and her friends to the party because they have bought me so much coffee every time we go out to cafe' and its my time to get them back, and then my roommates, and then also this other girl giulia pancani was the assistant in the italian department at wellesley last year while I was applying to go abroad, and she's back in bologna now. She invited me to apperitivi at her house, so i'm inviting her to this party, especially since she's fluent in english and spent the last year in america. I'm so excited, though, because it's my first like attempt at bridging the cultures and introducing my friends to the all italians I've met.

I love the other people in my program on the states. My one/biggest dilemma is getting too attached to my lovely american friends, who have become like family so fast, it's scary. We cook together more often than not, and usually it's been in the company of italians, so that we can start to speak the language more regularly, but sometimes, it's just so nice to know that we can hang out whenever. In fact, I think a group of us is going to switzerland together in november, and I'm really excited to travel with them, cuz i guess i haven't really done anything like that before

So I started writing this blog post in the most incredibly beautiful public park in bologna, giardina margherita. I spent about an hour in the park, just looking at the greenery that doesn't really exist inside the main part of the city. I guess I should explain the ambience of bologna a little, since I will be living here for so long and it is after all, my new home. It's a gray city, not with smog, but it's usually overcast. When it's not, there's a sort of pale autumn sun that shines down on city streets and sidewalks and into windows through the kilometers upon kilometers of porticoes that line every building. When it rains, you only get wet when you cross the sidewalk, or if you walk down a street without porticoes, because the entire city is just lined with these beautiful medieval covers of all the sidewalks. Lately this has made me feel really strange, I've never been in a place with so little visibility upward, and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm not getting enough sun or that when I'm outside, i'm not really outside, 2 very confusing things. I've also been getting used to the building differences-in the city, every thing is high ceilinged-It's probably a sign of richness in all the buildings, but each floor takes about 12 feet before some usualy very pretty ceiling signifies the beginning of the next floor. We've been in apartments, restaurants, shops, and homes, all of which has increidbly tall ceilings, and a certain grandness to each. The city is built in a sort of octagonish shape, a type of circle I suppose, and we live on the northwest corner. The garden is in the southeast corner of the map and outside the city “walls” where the medieval wall that lined the city used to be even though now there are only doors (or portas) to the city left. In the city, because there are so many cobblestoned streets, tall buildings, and porticoes, there are literally no plants, and so the garden made me feel so....refreshed? Balanced? I duno, i'm missing northern california, vermont, even wellesley for all the greenery. I love the city, but I guess I love my beautifully pampered preferia “subburbs) as well urban life.

So things are going and i'm sure i'll have so much more to write as time goes on. Ciao!

malta gets better

is it possible? oh yes.

before i get everything i have to write, today included two trips to the beach, being knocked over by a huge wave, seeing the most maginificently frightful yet powerful waves in nature, meeting my german roommate whos here in malta to learn english for three weeks, meeting everyone else from her program, taking a day trip to another city with them (the friends) who were 1 russian man, 1 polish man, 1 german girl, and 2 italians, one of which goes to school at university of bologna and wants to be my friend, not even joking with you, then taking a bus to this nice restaurant overlooking a gorgeous bay, eating a 3 hour long dinner and attempting to speak in english for hours, speaking in italian periodically with the italian women who were SO HILARIOUS, getting ice cream, and walking back to my hostel.


best. day. ever. i love traveling, and more importantly i love hostels and ranom young people, and international interactions. like seriously. best day ever. almost lost my shit cuz it was soo cool. they are all in malta to learn english, and thus I became there referecne for everything. it was GNARLY.

a million magic malta moments

this island makes me want to write standards with alliteration titles. i duno why. different ones keep crossing my mind.

So i'm here in malta, and I happen to be here during one of their highest holiday of some maltese saint, so last night, when I got in around 7:30, there were marching bands lining the streets, fireworks, street vendors (they had doughnuts, although i refrained from getting one) people with tiny dogs, children, statues, ornate red banners, and decoratins everywhere. I walked around and tried to get pictures, but just like most of the streets in italy, everything is so narrow here, its hard to get a good perspective in photos.

Anyway, the hostel I'm staying at is heavenly. The woman who runs it is an angel, and she has tried to/succeded at planning the 4 days I'll be here. Today I was planning on going to Mdina, the oldest city on the island, and she told me to go to Valetta first, because there's a sunday street market and then I can take a bus to mdina from valetta and make it back to Sliema (the town I'm staying in) in time for the huge procession of the saint's statue tonight. I duno, It doesn't sound like much, but i'm just so excited about everything here cuz this island is like some weird exotic paradise that I never knew about until 2 months ago. Anyway, I had 10 swedish roommates (all in the 50s or older) until they left this morning and now I'm in a big room all by myself, but still there's free breakfast that's bomb, really clean rooms and bathrooms, and I have two amazing balcony views (pictures to prove it).

Maltese, the language, is like a mix of arabic, french, italian, and english. It's sooo strange to here, and such a small population speaks it, that its more of a dialect than the real language. However, people know if ur really maltese if you speak maltese, but they dont teach it in schools and dont have books printed in maltese, because there's no publishing companies on this island, so everything's in english. The woman who owns this hostel speaks french, italian, english, maltese, and is learning swedish. I can only aspire to be soo culturally accessible to other people. I love that europeans are interconnected linguistically. its so cool.

I had this killer head cold the day I left for lecce that made being in bari and flying to malta miserable. I thought my head was going to explode when we were landing in malta, cuz my ears popped 4,000,000 times and my sinuses had tons of pressure on them. There was a baby crying in the back of the plane and I was like, ya baby, i know how that feels right now. I managed not to cry though.

Ryan air flights are awesome. Love that airline. They're punctual, simple, you get to sit wherever you want, and they're mad cheap. thanks, ryan air (haha i'm a commercial)

I'm here till wednesday night. My sole goal is to see some awesome stuff, and take a few pictures. Thursday I'll be in bologna. Can't wait to have my stuff all in one place for a whole year!!! how exciting!

ciao

if i let this wait too long....

When i first got to italy, all the people I was travelling with made phone calls and wrote emails when they first got here to let everyone know they were alive and well, but after that, they sort of stopped communicating. I found i did the opposite. I let a small group of people know I was alive, but after like 3 or 4 days I felt like I'd amassed such a huge wealth of experiences that I wanted to tell EVERYONE about, so I wrote mammoth emails and tried to update my blog. After like less than a week of not writing here, I literally feel like I have no idea where to start. SO MANY THINGS happen every day that there's no use in trying to write them all.

So, this past monday, the director of the school we're living at taught a cooking class for groups of about 7 students. It was so awesome, we made pasta from scratch, and he gave us a booklet of meridionale recipes, and even directions on how to make the pasta from scratch again. i'll probably screw it up, but i can't wait to try it again. Anyway, it was awesome to get so hands on with food, because for those of you who know danny or who he is in my life, I just leave it to him to cook absolutely everything for me, and when i try to help i usually just screw it up, but this time it sort of worked. The pasta you make from scratch you can't cook immediately because it has to dry for a day, so we made other pasta, totally delicious, and then we made a lemon cream desert thing, that was totally bomb. We ate outside at a lovely communal table, like usual, and then someone usually brings a barrel of wine for 20 ppl to share. This country is really expensive, but all the same, wine is basically expected or necessary with dinner. im too frugal to buy it all the time, but whatever.

Last week was interesting because the dynamic of our group of 20 americans started changing a lot. We've all formed friendships, some closer than others, but this past week, i felt like at least I'd established a strong understanding of everyone here, why they're here, where they come from, etc. As i think i've mentioned before, I'm starting to feel very interestingly dispersed in terms of friends like all over the states and italy. It's a little bit exhausting, to be perfectly honest, to get to know so many people so well for such strange pieces of time, (for instance, my novato friends, my california loved ones, my wellesley friends, my toons friends, my jamaica friends, my middlebury friends, my study abroad friends, the italians i've met thus far, my academic connections, my musical connections, SRA etc) but at the same time, I'm loving the ride. I guess last week i just started to feel plugged in, but at the same time, I'm really tentative about getting to close with any americans in our group because I really really don't want to be afraid or hesitant about meeting italians once i actually move to bologna. However, basically every one in our group has said to me in some capacity that I seem to fly solo a lot, because I'm always doing things on my own.

for example, during this week long pause we have before bologna, I'm going to malta by myself. I know that probably worries some of you, but its a really safe island, and I'm a pretty attentive traveler (except for the whole computer stolen thing-im bringing nothing of value, i promise) I just don't mind being a lone at all, even though im in this country that should, and I guess does in some ways, make me feel really foreign. I duno, i think what Im getting at is two-fold: I don't feel that out of place here in a way that would make me cling to things that are familiar, like americans, and also that in general, I just really love my solitude. So i guess i'm digging how this experience is making me think, i guess im probably being to open about it, but whatever.

two other things i've got to write about before i forget: the last few times we went to the beach in italy I made a point of swimming out pretty far into another color blue. I've got this obsession with contrast and colors thats taking over the way im seeing things, but at any rate, i would keep swimming out until i found a new blue, and then id just chill by myself for a while, and i duno, its nothing, it really doesnt mean anything at all, its just something i wouldnt or dont do in the states, i guess doing one new thing in my life leads me to a whole bunch of new things...

the other AWESOME thing I did was I went to church in lecce the last sunday before we left. I went with this kid stefano (i figure I should start introducing the characters of my life here, because they're slowly becoming more and more relevant in everything i do) and we were pretty late for the service, but i didnt care cuz im not catholic, the only reason I wanted to go was to hear the organ, and oh my god-that organ shit was spot on. I know I have only scratched the surface of catholicism and church music in europe, obviously, but after having studied western classical music in wellesley classrooms for 2 years and then actually hearing it in a baroque church was, i duno, it moved me. Im like, not religious in an organized sense at all, but that music was next to holy, its just totally sweet in a huge resonant church, i duno it reminded me of being in the stomach of a blue whale and hearing low resonant tones...It was some bach chorale, i wrote down the name, because on top of the acoustics in the church, it was a sick ass chorale, i was diggin it. Anyway, we stayed for the ending piece too and I just zoned out hardcore and took it in. I can't wait to go to more church to hear that stuff.

Speaking of which, joey, for those californians and some wellesley friends who know him, is coming to visit me in italy in the winter, and he's flying in on christmas so I'm gonna go to st. peter's at the vatican and see the christmas service, and I'm hoping, well i guess I can be sure, that there will be some kick ass music at that service. I duno if I'll get a chance to go to rome before, so I'm pretty psyched to have christmas day to like, roam (haha no pun intended) and see the city. Anyway, as plans develop I'll let u know where we go/what we do.

Leaving lecce was mad strange. I realized I probably wont go back there for a while. I'm fine with that, but we lived there for a month, and I duno, its just like jamaica, lecce, all these month long culture programs I have that just abruptly end and its on to something else, practicaly with out warning. I was also the last to leave with 3 other girls, so everything was empty and strange. whatev.

So my computer, (HUGE THANKS TO SRA) is in bologna, so once I arrive i can start skyping, uploading pictures, and really sharing my life, instead of just serious facebooking.

On to malta, ill write that in a different post though....

concert and cave

2 things, i dont have a lot of time so ill be really quick (i hate only being able to use the computers during a certain time period, but watever)

1) the concert on friday was a really interesting experience. I've never put on a full length concert vocally by myself. I sang 11 songs, 1 girl read a poem, and I played a flute duet with one of my professors. It was just a bohemian collective of weird music. In any event, the most revealing things about all of it was i sort of got to experience the limits of my voice and how tired I get, and the other was that now my group now knows a bit more about me. There were about 25 people there in the courtyard of our complex. Some people played percussion and we had a guitar player. It was really fun. An australian jazz singer was there with his wife, who was italian, and they were just showering me in 'baci e abracci' (hugs and kisses) at the end of all of it, giving me way to many compliments, etc. It was hard to deal with a little, i think a lot of u must now how terrible i am at recieving/believing compliments... but at the same time, it was really nice to have so many people enjoy (at least abbastanza) themselves and tell me about it. Oh also, i got recordings of each song from the concert, so they'll maybe end up on my myspace in like, a few weeks. if/when i get a computer.

2) on saturday, we went to the place where mel gibson filmed passion of the christ, the part where christ is walking with the christ. It was like, this CRAZY city built into rock faces and stuff. I duno its so difficult to explain, it was called matera, and I have tons of pictures that will surface sooner or later, when I get a chance to use someone's computer. It was called materna. After that we went to a non military-castle that belonged to federico the 2nd (for those of you who know about the origins of the italian literature, he's like the most important figure-his court in sicilia had tons of intellectuals who sort of started the italian language) it was really asthetically pleasing, based on the number 8 because its the infinity sign flipped sideways, i duno, there are like all these symbols of 8, 8 rooms, its built as an octagon with 8 towers, etc. sooo beautiful. It was built on this top of a big mesa that over looks a huge expanse in all directions of flat green valleys. I'll post pictures soon. It was nuts.

Then yesterday, i went like over 180 feet under the grounds surface in these AMAZING grottos called Castellana Grotte. google image search it. its nuts!!! i took a few pictures inside, even though we werent supposed to, and they're all orange cuz there was like hardly any light down there. I dont know, one of the most INCREDIBLY strange things ive ever experienced. It was amazing, but at the same time i was like, HOLY SHiT how is this possible.

lastly, im madly missing california today. first time. first dose of homesickness. whatev. We have a cooking class tonight, im psyched! ciao for now!

ali