GALLERIES UP

pictures posted, drawings posted, one last post posted... I think that officially puts an end to my trip. No more Italy. I will miss you. :'<

Looking Back

I feel like maybe I should have discovered the meaning of life, or something.

The reality is that I lived some amazing experiences, and then I came back to a few familiar things such as responsibility, a near-empty bank account, the realization that I'm not graduating this year either, that there's no fluffy & smelly dog to greet me when I get home, and that I desperately need to find a stable job.

There's a few things I miss already: the amount of food, the quality of food, pasta, gelato (McD's soft ice cream just doesn't cut it for me anymore), the need to speak Italian, the gentlemen-like attitude of the real Italian guys (over here, they push and shove and laugh at you as you try to open a door alone and you're carrying an entire week's groceries in your hands).

I'm still not sure whether I'm supposed to be back here, and I'm even less sure of whether I really fell in love over there with Italy, or if it was just being in love with travelling. So I've decided I need to travel some more, to make sure. For now, there's no way I'm leaving the house for the summer, so I'll make do with what I have, but that doesn't mean I have to stop dreaming...

My next trips will include: Peru, California, Lausanne (Switzerland), England, Ireland, Turkey.

WORD OF THE DAY: a la carbonara
dunno what it means, but it has to do with pasta, and it's delicious. I should post some recipes on here.

PLUS: see gallery section! pictures should be up of the trip
AND I'm adding a drawing section as well.

The last few miles

I was sad to spend a last morning in Rome. I realized I could become Roman. A real one. I could unpack and stay here, find a job, feed the homeless with my breakfast sandwich, and bargain in Italian better than real Italians can. I never want to leave this place. But there`s so much to go see, so I set off to Naples with two girls from my class and the boyfriend of one of them who joined us at the train station that day.

Naples was gross. Grey, filthy, littered in creepy dudes and abandoned construction sites. The walk from the train station to the hostel was scary. I feared for my life. Everyone around seemed like they were either criminals or packing up to get the heck out of there. And we were coming in. Getting into the Hostel of the Sun was like walking through the Pearly Gates of Heaven: bright colors, happy tourists, and a very nice smile from the woman at the counter made me feel right at home. They all spoke wonderful English and helped us with all our problems. We ordered food, too tired to go out (not like the scenery was particularly motivating anyway), and watched Gladiator. I slept like a baby until the next day. We took the bus to Pompei.

The ancient city, still under constant excavation, is already large enough to spend a full day walking around in. Followed by a few of the 47 stray dogs that live in the park, we discovered life as it was frozen back about 2000 years ago. The courtyards are brilliantly organized to catch rain water. The marble counters are equipped with what used to be ovens and stovetops. A few walls contain political messages and graffitti. The city is a labyrinth where you can keep walking on and on and only find a few bits of rubble, then turn a corner and see a fresco that looks as if it may have been painted just days ago. The walls are still stained with the pigments, some houses still have a roof and second floors. This is where people lived. And I walked there 2000 years later. All that's left of these people today are plaster shapes they managed to salvage from the burnt bodies. Although they were few and placed in a row behind a glass wall, the positions they have been petrified in chills the bones: babies, teenagers, adults and the elderly all shared the same fate, and all died in awful pain or despair, or both. Pompei is definitely a must if you ever come around Italy's side of the world.

I left Pompei with one of the girls from the group, leaving the other and her boyfriend to go along their own path (to Greece), and we took the train to Paris. We had been given separate beds in separate cabins, in separate wagons. I was doomed to sleep with an overweight, overly horny Indian man who kept running his hand through his greasy hair saying "what's your number?", so I ran to my friend's cabin, who had been placed with 5 smelly, obese people. I took my courage and for once, complained about the situation I had been placed in to the conductor. Luckily, there had been a free cabin where my friend and I had been placed. An American woman joined us later: she had been put with 5 men who stared at her intently but said nothing. We got along wonderfully, but were quite happy to finally get off the train the next day.

Paris was a special place. For one, I couldn't seem to get my bearings. I also didn't find many hospitable Parisians, maybe except for the family friend whose house we stayed at (who is, in fact, American), and her partially Algerian partner. There were many inconveniences and arising issues that we hadn't prepared for; for instance, cameras needing new batteries or new memory cards, getting lost, arriving after the opening hours or to find that there was a 3-hour line-up, getting lost... Despite all these setbacks, we managed to run in and out of the Louvre, Orsay, Notre Dame de Paris, Versailles (this was the only place we truly took our time), Moulin Rouge (seeing as the shows were out of our budget range, we went to the nearby eroticism museum), Sacre-Coeur and Paris' Fine Arts College (Ecole des Beaux-Arts). Our time spent there may have been short, but it have been deeply engraved in our memory. The most special moments were: staring at a REAL Delacroix, feeding brave pigeons, and walking along the endless busts and paintings of the "War Room" of the Versailles Palace.

PS: the food there was brilliant. I have never been so excited by breakfast before, or lunch. The hot dogs, croque-monsieurs, crepes, gauffres (waffles), and breads and cheeses were delicious.


Unfortunately, not enough time was spent in Paris, and I soon had to head for home. I took a train back to Rome to catch my flight. This time, I was rooming with 3 Texan teenagers on an end-of-the-year school trip. It was entertaining, to say the least. The train was late 4 hours because of an accident on the railway causing a fire, which caused the track to be closed down, which caused our train to be late, which caused me to... miss my flight... I spent 20 minutes trying to get on the plane (it was boarding as I arrived, but the gates had been closed 20 minutes prior to my arrival), and then the next 4 hours served to get me another flight, call my parents, and find a place to sleep at until the next day. Thankfully, everything turned out great. And I didn't get sick on the flight back, and I saw my family at the station waiting for me, and I went home, and life went on...

WORD OF THE DAY: Arrivederci
They say that when you throw a penny with your right hand over your left shoulder while looking away from the Trevi fountain, you've just made a wish to come back to Rome, and that wish will come true. This is what I did, and I hope with all my heart that fate brings me back to that place, and if not Rome, at least Italy, and if not that, then at least Europe. Arrivederci, literally translated in French: "a la revoiure", means something like, "we'll see each other again". This is what I said to the Trevi fountain, and to Rome, and to Italy when I left it.

The long one

I realized how much I disliked Florence when I set foot in Rome. More on that later, however. There are four  days between Florence and Rome that need to be described. They were possibly the best days of the trip, despite the extreme sense of awe that I've felt these past few days in Rome.

The Sunday after our return to Florence, it hit us that there was only one day left to the drawing course we had all taken. We set out to explore some areas that we had never bothered to see before, and we tasted a little bit more of that pure Italian countryside culture. We walked along the gravel and dirt roads, reaching fields of hay and discovering nature as it is, and as it has been for 2000 years and over. A shepherd, dressed in a robe and dragging a wooden stick, walked his goats to the nearest patch of shaded grass. Dogs greeted us with barks, and birds fluttered away at the sound of our footsteps. The stream where I had watched tadpoles grow for the last month buzzed with life: lines of busy ants, flies, mosquitoes, etc. We drew what we saw, and I loved what  I drew because I loved what I was seeing. There was this calm atmosphere that one feels on a Sunday, along with the serene balance of nature. It was a magical experience.

The next morning we visited Bolsena for the last time. We drew chicken coops, vinyards, etruscan landscapes and roads of more than 2300 years. We drew the lake from the mountain, the cherry trees. We visited Santa Christina's church, and walked through the layers of time, deep into its catacombs. I remembered I was claustrophobic... but this mood allowed me to make some good charcoal drawings. The scene reminded me a bit of Indiana Jones movies. We spent the afternoon on the beach, and I tried a Campari (some alcohol I always see Italians drink that actually tastes like a mix of nail polish remover and mosquito repellent).

We gave in our sketchbooks that day, to be observed by the teacher. We realized at this point that we had gotten so used to drawing that not having our sketchbooks with us made us feel naked, or empty. Everywhere we turned, we wanted to draw this, or that, and we found we couldn't. My critique the next day went by smoothly: I knew what I was good at, and I knew what  I was doing wrong. Nothing really came as a surprise.

The last supper on Wednesday felt unreal. This is when I fell in love with Italy, and I'm getting all emotional writing about this. It may be my melodramatic- hopeless romatic attitude, but I really felt strongly about that night. Our supper was delicious, as usual. The comfort of having regular meals there made it feel even more special. We took a bus to the next town over, Torre Alfina, to have gelato as desert. I sat in the front with the bus driver, looking out into the night, the first few meters ahead of us lit by the headlights of the bus. The trees hugged the streets so tightly, it almost felt like we were driving through a tunnel. I'd met the bus driver previously: he was the designer for the Pugnaloni of the Centro team (with whom we spent some time partying). I was nervous to talk to him, but, starting a conversation, I learned he travelled a lot between the small villages around Acquapendente, and that he worked in Torre Alfina, at the Nature museum giving tours to school kids and accompanying them on nature walks. He went to college to draw in a bigger town further away. I got along with him so well that my heart broke whenI thought of the fact that I had to leave early the next day for Rome.This was one Italian that seemed to have not a drop of anger in his heart (that doesn't happen often), a sincere smile, eyes that dreamed of romance, but a heart that was perfectly content in the simple kind of  life one leads in small towns. I learned this was also the man that had fallen for a Canadian (in this very drawing course, 5 years ago), who had followed her home for 2 months, and sadly moved back home when they realized it wasn't going to work out. It's one of those stories the teacher tells at the beginning of the course to warn us of the dangers out there. Despite this, I think I fell in love. At least for a moment.

Torre Alfina is a wonderful little town realted to Acquapendente of about 300 people. They have a group of soldiers that play music (they have a specific name, and it's a very important section of the Italian army...but I can't remember the name...) and we found them practicing for the 150th anniversary of the Reunification of Italy which was to take place the next day (the big party was in Rome- more on that later). They saw how amazed we were at this performance, and dedicated a few songs to us (the Italians, they're such romantics...). We then got gelato (I'm proud to say I haven't yet had the same flavor twice!... and I have gelato almost every day...) and walked up to the castle. Along the way, we noticed many contemporary art installations, sculptures, canvases that played with light and optical illusions, etc. This town was full of surprises, and the artworks were scatteres in such a way that it was always a pleasant surprise to fall upon one. At the castle, I talked some more with Fabrizo (the bus driver) and an older German man, whom I met up there, and who told me about the next day's celebrations in Rome (an engineer, he spoke many different languages, had a house in Rome, and was on vacation in Torre Alfina). On the way back to the bus, I met a Japanese man with an Italian sheep dog (an enormous white fluff ball named Tarò). I spent some time playing with him, and giving him affection, immediately, and once again, falling in love. Having such a connection with this dog made me feel so much better, especially when thinking of Cham, and although I was glad to have met him, I heard him howl back at me for the next 5 minutes as I walked away and my heart sank again. It didn't stop me from sleeping like a baby that night.

The next day, we left for Rome. The bus ride was long, but I was entertained by a conversation with one of the girls in the group, and it semed like the 3 hours were nothing. The hotel, it turns out, was 5 minutes away from the train station, and had much better breakfast than the one we had stayed at in Florence. I knew I loved Rome when I saw the orange trees lining the streets. As if it was completely normal. It blew my mind. The next few days were more mind-blowing: I saw the Trevi fountain, churches in which inhabited Carravagio's artworks, ate the best gelato in the world (saw some flavors I never thought existed), saw some amazing percussion bands, walked inside the Parthenon, the Colliseum, the Forum, a stadium, the house of Nero, Augustus, the Vestals, the Pope's, etc... The Oratory in Montreal always amazed me because I saw the madness (or the passion?) of the people who believed in something so much that they would build monumental places to honor these things. I saw it again, and again, and again in Rome. The Trevi fountain is clearly an overly ambitious and crazy idea, yet it's also one of the most amazing things I've seen. I cried when I saw the extent of the ancient Roman city and realized that we were never original, really, in our modernity. Anything we have now, the Romans had long before we did. This was the center of the world. For so long, and to such an extent, that we should be ashamed as a civilization today. There are 3 layers of city built upon city. We built ourselves around it, but we were never really in it. This is what I learned as I was walking around in Rome: we are nothing new, nothing special, we stole our ideas from those who were more amazing than us.

Special thanks to the wonderful guide we had: Gino, who made us question reality, see wrinkles as marks of a history, laugh, cry, not just look but truly see, and who gave us frequent bathroom and feeding breaks. We all loved you, and we wish you a long and fruitful life.

NEXT: Naples tonight, Pompeii tomorrow (with a climb up the Vesuvius), then night train to Paris. In Paris, we have a long list: Notre Dame cathedral, Eiffel tower at night, Catacombs of Paris, Louvres, Orsay, Versailles. I'll be travelling with a girl from the class, then it's back home to Montreal. I'm so glad I have Gravol.

WORD OF THE DAY: carabinieri
this is what we call policemen. Here, the carabinieri of the Italian President wears a beautiful combination of shiny roman armour and modern pants and shirt. To be hired by the President, they must be 1.90 meters, must be built like an ox, and must have an attractive Roman face (I don't know why, but that seems to be a pretty important criteria).

Running out of Time

I have only a few hours left here in Acquapendente. I'm going back home in less than 10 days... I feel like I did when I finally finished Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris:... now what?



I went to Florence. On the way, we stopped by Orvieto, a gorgeous town on a plateau, like sitting on a throne. I first saw it in a purplish-blue silhouette, surrounded by a cloud of fog, rising above the landscape. Majestic. It funiculare was the only way to get up there other than a long, steep road strictly for cars. The duomo was a work of art in itself, rivalising with that of Sienna. People are insulted at those who dare disturb the peace by taking pictures, yet a nun held out her cellphone as she faced the honored reliquary (a chunk of rock soaked in the blood of Christ) and clicked away subtely. We all took a picture of her taking a picture. I spent the rest of the morning swaggering from shop to shop, swirving to avoid breaking the countless ceramic artworks that are the specialty of this town, and I found myself in the small workshop of a young artist who painted byzantine-style religious canvases. We spent somewhere around 30 minutes switching from Italian to English to French ans we wove together a conversation. He suggested I visit the church along the cliff on the opposite side of town, so I set off to find it. I never got there, constantly disctracted (once by the breathtaking view from the side of the cliff, once by a few mummies in a museum, other times by ceramic shops that seemed out of the ordinary). I regret spending so little time in this goregous little town (and not giving the artist my phone number!!!)



We reached Florence by train from the station in Orvieto. My first vision of Florence was the train station which looked like a near-exact copy of Roma Termini (which I didn't particularly enjoy) and then a McDonald's. The town stinks, is dirty, the people are all snobby tourists and unhappy locals. The beauty of the architecture is lost, drowned between more modern, average buildings. Apparently Florence is an acquired taste. The duomo was also disappointing (I'd seen those of Sienna and Orvieto and didn't feel as overwhelmed as with those two). However, I went shopping and found leather sandals, purse, bag, which I fell in love with and managed to bargain down to an acceptable price. We saw the cast from Jersey Shore (who are filming this season in Florence, having been refused from every other city in the world), and ran after them like cheeky fan girls but got pushed away by the rude and unpleasant body guard. The highlight of the trip was walking into La Loggia, the Uffizzi, and its temporary drawing exhibit. The sculptures and paintings I saw warmed my heart, and I cried in front of the most beautiful woman in the world, Venus. She stood on her shell with her gold-woven hair fluttering with the breeze, and her silky-smooth skin made me jealous. We also ate some pretty messed up gelato (the Gelato Festival egged us on to try the Italiano Trio: tomato, basil, and cheese gelato). I missed the Academia, the walk up inside the Duomo, and the Palazzo Pitti. I will have to go back.

WORD OF THE DAY: Attraversiamo

because I finished the book, finally, right on time. Attraversiamo means "let's cross over", which is Liz's favorite Italian word, and which, coincidentally enough, fits with my leaving of Acquapendente to Rome: Iàm crossing over from a small Italian town, to a big Metropolis. That's the end of authentic Italian for me, I think. Eat Pray Love was a brilliant read with lots of insight and that made me expect to have a spiritual, life changing journey, but I realized this isn't the sort of thing you can force yourself, and so I'm still sitting here waiting.

back to the internet cafe...

Continuing from the visit to Tarquinia and Tuscania: 

The two churches were crazy insane. The oldest things I've ever seen. The chunks of painted plaster still clinging to the walls are few and far apart but you can tell the entire insides were covered in frescoes back in the day. The best part is that nothing matches. People have painted over what was already there, making an interesting mash-up of 7^th and 17^th century art. The capitals and columns have been mixed and matched from other sites, or created by various artists all individually in charge of one (they really weren't very good at teamwork, these guys). Contributing to the asymetry of the places are these notions of “the good side” and “the bad side” (which is, obviously, on the left): on one side pretty animals, and ghosts and ghouls on the other; or a painting of salvation and one of damnation ot balance it all out. One side of the wall has dark arches whereas the right has bright marble... These churches are among the weirdest things I've ever seen.

Speaking of weird things: I spent Saturday in one of the most ancient “Haunted Houses”! It's a statued park created in 1552 by the super rich count Orsini, who had a little bit too much time on his hands, and a weird sense of the romantic. Here, the story sort of splits into two theories: either he wanted people to fall in love in hte garden, or he wanted to scare the shit out of them. I think it may be a mix of both: you lose your lover in a forest, you come across enormous scary figures like giants, elephants, crooked houses, dragons, and gorgons, and you're scared to death. Ideally, you find your lover at the end of the day and he comforts you in his arms, fortifying the love between the two of you. I think it was supposed to be a test of bravery and courage. Seriously, can you imagine in 1567, walking around in the forest, and coming across the hugest sculpture of a dolphin with pointy teeth? I took a picture of me being eaten by that thing. It's awesome.

I went ot the theaters that night and saw the fourth of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. This time, though, it was in 3D, and let's not forget to mention, also in ITALIAN! I got to practice this wonderful language, even though a friend pointed out that the only time I was really going to use this language was nowhere but Italy...not extremely useful. I'd be better off learning some sort of Chinese... Anyway. The movie was really interesting. Yes, they recycled plotline, character personalities, soundtrack, and everything else you can think of (except for Captain Jack's new wig), BUT, I really really, as usual, enjoyed every little teeny tiny visual detail in the moving images, and I liked that there was a better pirate than Jack, and that person also happened to be a woman :) Of course, she was mostly there as eye candy, but I really got some heart-skipping moments where she was majorly awesome as a character, and the perfect alter-ego to Jack. Oh, and I love the Spanish. Maybe I'll stop by Spain on the way back home?

Tuesday, we visited Sienna. It was marvelous. The churches are more recent than the ones I saw in Tuscania, but no less interesting. Sienna is separated into 17 “contrade”, or regions (des quartiers), all named after animals (giraffe, owl, caterpillar (so fearsome, that one), dragon and unicorn (they don't seem to think these are mythical creatures), snail, etc) and every year, twice a year, for thousands of years now, they've picked one person from each contrade to race around the main piazza 3 times on the day of the palio. The competition is fierce: they say if a baby will be born outside of his7her family's contrade, they will bring earth from that region to say that the baby was born in it. Heaven forbid people from different contrade fall in love and get married. Maybe this is where the idea for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet came from? Anyway. Went shopping, couldn't stop, boutght some clothes, jewellery, got yelled at by a store clerk... twice (once for going into the wrong changing room (who knew there were two different ones?) and once again for stepping on the bench that blocked the entrance to that closed changing room (I had to step back out of the changing room at some point, no?))... it was awesome. On the way back, we stopped by Le Terme, some very extremely old sulfuric natural bathes that were warm enough to melt your socks off. We got our feet in for a bit, walked around some remaining ruins, met a cat, and went back home to have supper. Some day I'm going to have to talk about the food here...

WORD OF THE DAY: Andiamo!

This means: “Let's go!” Something we say everytime we go somewhere. Tomorrow, we happen to be going to Florence: “Andiamo a Firenze!!!”

PS: the Gelato Festival started in Florence yesterday, and it's going on all weekend long... I'm going to have to buy out the seats next to me on the plane...

The God of the 41st Chunk of Sacrificed Lamb's Liver says it's Going to Rain

yep. That's right.

The day after the show was a Monday. Class started up again. This time, we bussed back to Bolsena, but to visit the Etruscan ruins. Basically, at the time, the Romans were wrapping up the different villages of Etruscan peoples and were relocating them in other places to live as a community near the Romans (sounds a lot like concentration camps, if you ask me). After a long lecture on the history of these Etruscans (which included much about the art of divination and how the priests used to cut up a sacrificed lamb's liver and split it into 42 or 43 equal parts to which a God was attached for each piece. They read the weather, people's fortunes, made decisions about moving, or going to war, or building something, all according to the amount of blood, or the color, or the arrangement of the veins on each chunk) we finally descended into the forum, then the marketplace, then followed the road to the house of an acient wealthy family. It was breathtaking. I was standing in the middle of a field with carved rocks of more than 2300 years old. OMG. I saw where they used to store wheat. I saw where they used to pray to God in secret basements, where they peed, slept, and the marble floor on which they ate during parties. I looked at that dusty marble flooring and wondered what it must've looked like back then when people still lived here, and then the teacher threw a bucket-load of water on the ground and washed away the dust- the colors brightening up to what they would have looked like originally- the whole place came to life. The rest of the week was particularly bleak compared to this event.

That Friday, though, we took a private bus to Tarquinia and Tuscania. 

After the motion sickness due to the winding roads and the many hills and valleys combined with a speed-loving bus driver, we landed in an Etruscan museum with many sarcophagi, Grecian plates, and stone urns. The art and development of these people is fascinating. We went to see their Necropolis not long after: fields upon fields (about 6000 little houses found so far) of underground tombs richly painted and very well preserved. Ducks, lions, people in togas, Caronte (Satan), etc. were decorating the walls of the crypts. We hopped back on the bus to Tuscania and saw the two oldest churches there.

I'm being kicked out of the internet cafe now.

More to come later...

Drawing in the Face of Danger

It has been two weeks. I feel Im in a mid-life crisis: my time here in Italy is going by too quickly for me to grasp it properly. There is still so much to see, but so little time in which to do it... Time goes by too quickly...

Too many things have happened for me to relay them all on a blog. Despite everything I have lived through recently, I find it difficult to express in words how it has changed me. I only know that now, as I reflect upon my experiences, I have been left with a deep imprint by Italy and its people.

For instance, I have a new-found respect for flies. This might come as a surprise (why now when Ive had 21 years of fly-swatting experience?) I saw a fly in pain. Out of pity, I decided to put it out of its misery, and instead found that it had in fact been in labor and I watched in shock the baby larvae crawl out of their mothers abdomen. Knowing that female flies feel the same pain we women do when giving birth to children opened my eyes to the fact that they are, like us, living, breathing beings, and I suddenly find myself incapable of killing a fly. Sine the incident, I have made many fly friends at the Agriturismo where I stay.

The Saturday following my first party, I spent the day on the beach in Bolsena. I drew, enjoyed the water, and spent a couple hours tanning. As I was comfortably installed on my towel near the end of the day, a biker came up to me and asked if he could take a picture. The man was tall, built like an ox, his leather jacket plastered with patches and metallic studs, and his enormous handle-bar mustache held up his nose and sunglasses on his face. I freaked, but nodded, not exactly sure how to react. As I was posing with the first, a second one came up and positioned himself opposite to the first. I was surrounded by huge biker guys. My face was panicked in the picture. I hardly tried to hide it. A third man came along and decided my other friend should be in the picture too, so we posed again... they thanked us warmly and left. It may be safe to assume that I am now the new face of Harley-Davidson, Italy.

That day, we came back to Acquapendente to help put the final touches on the Pugnaloni, came back to the apartment for supper, and went back to party. We visited almost every one of the 15 teams working on a Pugnaloni, then went back to our friends to dance. I feel I did not get to dance very long, as we were soon dragged out for a walk by a few friends, and we ended up in the main piazza of the town, eating sandwiches and meeting Romans in a bar who came to party. We walked back to our rooms at 3am. The next morning was brutal...

The celebration for the Pugnaloni occurred that Sunday. It was one of the few days we had rain. Legend has it that this particular weekend always gets odd, cold weather due to the fact that it is during this time that we remember the cherry tree growing in the field in the middle of winter (the sign that encouraged the people of the town to overthrow the evil invader Barbarossa). We got to the town just in time to see the finished Pugnaloni exhibited in front of the main church, and then get wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain. The parade arrived in the main piazza a few hours later. The rain had taken a break just long enough for the show which included lots of men in tights: 2 opposing bands with drums, trumpets, etc., knights and damsels and beggars in original renaissance outfits, and the flag-throwers (an awesome and extreme sport: a mix between cheerleading and javelin throwing). After the sow, a few girls chased after the hot knights while the others went home due to the pouring rain that had started up again just as the ceremony was ending.

Drawing class is intensive. It is definitely worth the 6 credits in terms of work load... and risk. We draw in narrow streets in which we can hardly share the space between ourselves, even less with the cars. The wind near construction areas blind us and cover our clothes in dust. The church catacombs and crypts are dark, moldy, and of a kind of freezing that tears straight through your skin and into your bones. We rush from space to space in the steep roads between the houses: one minute here, turn around, another minute there, run to the other side of the street and do another 1 minute drawing... We truly are drawing in the face of danger. But I would not exchange it for the world. I have had a crappy week of drawing, totally thrown off balance. My once-confident abilities have been put into question. In other words, I am growing; developing into a new kind of artist, sensitive to the texture, the mass, and the sounds of every element of every place. And when I feel overwhelmed and overworked, in the afternoon, I run to the cemetery or the forest and I draw some more.

I met the man who sells flowers to the grieving. I met the local mangy dog, the old man who always takes care of his garden. 

So much has happened and so much will happen, I doubt I will have time to write regularly (not that I started out being "regular") but I will be visiting Sienna, Florence, Rome... and then Naples, Pompei, and Paris.

Will write back soon... just dont know when...

keep in touch!

WORD OF THE DAY: Orario

schedule. as in the weird schedule that stores have. they all close when our class ends, and reopens when we are busy having supper... they have a 4 to 5 hour long siesta... so inconvenient.

All Roads Lead to Rome

We woke up at the crack of dawn to catch the train for Rome. Sitting down to enjoy our breakfast, we realized there were too many people for a regular train this early in the morning… we had caught the train during rush hour… I ate a Nutella and apple triple club sandwich and a half or a pamplemousse  that was worthy of Italian fruits: fresh, juicy, sweet, and, consequently, delicious.

Getting off the train at Roma Termini, the main station, we realized we had another train to catch to get to the airport that would take us longer than we could afford. We had to go to the bank to get money out and it ate my friends card. We managed to call from the phone of a really nice Italian, who I should have asked out but did not think about it at the time… Anyway, when we finally got to the airport after having fixed the bank card issue, we were early compared to the rest of the group! We waited at the airport until 3pm and finally left on a nice bus toward Acquapendente.

I do not remember much of the ride. Everyone was sound asleep. I nearly fell off my seat while drifting away. The place is called Agriturismo Buonomore. It had a few apartments and very nice restaurant. We get free breakfast and supper. So far everything has been delicious. I sleep with 2 other girls in the same room, and two other girls in a separate room. We have 2 washrooms, a kitchen, and living/dining room with our own terrace facing the back yard. I slept amazingly well that night.

The next day was a Saturday. We got a guided tour of the city and were told many wonderful stories. In particular, one very important to the city. It is the story of the Pugnaloni. They have a festival every year to commemorate the day that the evil Emperor Barbarossa was thrown out of their town (that is where the term “Barbarian” comes from, by the way). After the fall of Rome thanks to Constantine, everyone went wild. The villages all tried to become the next source of power by invading every other village they could. Barbarossa took Acquapendente. The sad villagers asked for a sign from the Virgin Mary to start an uproar. When a cherry tree grew in the middle of winter, they knew it was the time to attack, and they drove him out successfully. Since then, they have 15 teams competing to make the best pugnaloni: a large canvas painted by collaging flowers and leaves of different colors. We met a few of these teams and were invited to work on the pugnaloni with them. We eventually ended up in a wild party with typical Italian sing-alongs, followed by intense dancing with the typical American party music (Waka Waka, Thunderstruck, the Macarena, etc). We had a blast and made lots of friends!

On Sunday, I did my laundry, relaxed, went into town where I ordered some gelato all in Italian- a first (so far the best combination has been orange and coconut!), and later had my first official Italian class given by my teachers Italian boyfriend. I ended the night with a panic attack: we had plates of seafood for dinner and although I did not have any, my face was red and swollen and I thought I was having an allergic reaction. Turns out it was a sunburn… oh, and those “bed bug bites” were actually mosquito bites!

Today I had my first drawing class. It lasted all of two hours. The demands of the course are a bit vague, very poetically explained by the teacher. I feel as if as long as I have passion I will be just fine. We went into the field across the road, and practiced loosening up our pencil by drawing without looking at our paper, then did some observation of space, and contrast. The idea is to get the feel of the place, not necessarily each leaf on each branch.

I managed to pick up Eat, Pray, Love in English and I am at page 17. I am in love.

Will also be uploading photos soon of drawings and sights. Stay updated!

WORD OF THE DAY: sarò

It is the future tense of “will be”, as in “Io sarò un insegnante di arte”, or “I will be an art teacher”. This was the sentence I officially learned in class yesterday. This is exciting!

CIAO!

Bumps and Soares

There's a lot to say about the last few days. Who knew travelling could make someone a busy person?


I'm currently writing from Francesca's B&B although there in no actual Francesca that runs the building. It's lost in the middle of the labyrinth that is Venice. Clean, basic, convenient, and inexpensive, it's our second night staying there... but it's been a long road...

The plane ride was littered with turbulence. Two movies were shown, both of which I only rarely caught glimpses, every time I took my face out of the plastic-lined "air-sickness bag". When supper came around on the plane my own came flying out... I spent the last 3 hours of the ride swinging between semi-consciousness and a heavy sleep resulting from the exhaustion of puking out my own guts. I managed to take breakfast with me off the plane, but was distracted from it as we realized this was the first time we were seeing real palm trees. Needless to say we spent a few minutes giving them hugs and taking our picture with them. The train ride to Pisa was long, but we met very nice people, in particular an old woman and her 5 year-old grandson, who agreed to teach us some Italian. We arrived in Pisa at 8:30 pm, and headed to Samuele's home.

We had reserved his guest room through CouchSurf and I was a little bit worried. The man himself, and his roomate Daniele are wonderful people, but there was only one single bed. I was lucky to get the bed... but maybe not... I may have gotten bitten by bed bugs while I was asleep. I have 2 lumps on each hand and one on my face. Hoepfully they'll go away and it's just the hypochondriac in me that's panicking.

The next day we visited Cinq Terre. We took the train to the first village, walked around, hiked in the hills to the second village, Vernazza, and then took the train to the 4th town because the passage was closed, finally walking the Via Del'Amore between Manarola and Riomaggiore where we took a train back to Pisa. We saw the local pests: small lizards, and also the local flora: bamboos and giant lemon trees. It was warm, sunny, and a very tiring hike. Near the end of the day, the ticket booths for the train were closed. We hopped on the train anyway and were given a ticket... for hopping on without a ticket. The conductor had pity for us tourists and told us that 10 Euros were enough (fines are normally about 50Euros)  because women from Montreal were beautiful.

We slept in Pisa a second time, and the next morning enjoyed a walk to the Leaning Tower and its surroundings before taking a train to Venice. We bought a calling card there that we later realized was a hoax...

In Venice, we were shocked at the cold weather and the structure of the streets. We got lost. When we finally found the B&B we decided there was a need for some relaxing, so we set out to find a place to sit in the sun. We found ourselves on a table by the canal with free home-made wine and three galant waiters around us. Americans sat on the table next to us and with a long chit-chat we left with free passes for the boats, and nearly more maps than we could carry. We left a little tipsy for all the alcohol "on the house" and with our bellied quite content. We took the most beautiful boat ride along the canal during the night, ending up at Piazza San Marco to find gorgeous architecture and a full orchestra for a free concert. We slept very well in Venice that night.

Today we spent our last day in Venice. We went grocery shopping (the Sicilian oranges are to die for) and took a boat around the remainder of the Island. Once again, we ended up at Piazza San Marco. This time we visited the cathedral. The gold mosaics were jaw-dropping. After lunch by the bridge of Sighs, we walked back to our B&B, taking our time. Along the way, we stopped to feed pigeons, we ate delicious gelato, did a bit of window shopping, saw the Rialto bridge, and we were happy.

This is our last night here in Venice. Tomorrow we join the class in Roma and head off to Acquapendente. I'm sad to leave this place so early...

more later!


WORD OF THE DAY: POMODORI
this means tomatoes (one tomato is ismply pomodoro). A kind lady at the market told us that the Italians used to have yellow tomatoes (pome d'oro= apple of gold) but that they were breeded out by the red ones. She helped us figure out in Italy, you are not allowed to handle the food at a market... we learned the hard way...

4 days!

I'm officially excited!

We've booked our stays with a couchsurfer in Pisa for the first two days as we visit the Cinq Terre, then we head on to Venice, where we'll spend the last two days before we have to meet up with the class in Rome on the 6th.

I went shopping and got everything I need (except for the sunglasses and maybe a hat).
and I started packing. The small bag I bought is going to be perfect to carry my dictionary, lunch, sketchbook, and extra change of clothes in case.

Now I have to start to plan for the five days after the course!
On the MUST-SEE list: Pompei and Vesuvius
On the definitely, maybe: Ravenne, Capri, Amalfi, Sorrento, Verona, Assisi, San Gemeniano, etc...
I'm thinking of setting up camp in a nice B&B and traveling to and fro every day. I wanted to stay in Rome, which is where I have to be to catch the plane back, but I found this gorgeous B&B in Verona called Juliette's House (not actually Juliette's house, but nearby). It's a little off budget, though... anyway... plenty of time to plan for next month!

I have to go reserve our beds in Venice.

WORD OF THE DAY: LOTTA
"Lottare contro Massimo!"

Funny story: looking for a couch host, we found Massimo, the super awesome guy who lets you stay at his place... only if you're willing to wrestle with another couch surfer. He was ready to let us stay because he thought it was going to be a man-on-man fight... then he found out I was a girl... how disappointing. We found ourselves a prettier place where we don't have to wrestle!

Avec Tes Yeux de Femme

on voit toujours tout avec nos yeux de femme... faudrait bien que je les emmène pour le voyage... il y en a vraiment trop à voir! Peut-être que je devrais m'emmener une deuxième paire, au cas ou...

Voici le plan pour l'instant... ça va changer d'ici la fin de semaine, mais bon...

Priorités: 5 Terre, Venise

Plan d'action:

• On débarque à Nice le 2 mai. On visite la plage, les environs.
• on dort à Nice, Pise, une des 5 Terre, ou G-Town (Genes ou Geneve... je sais jamais)

• le 3 on fait une belle randonnée au 5 Terre et on visite Pise si on a le temps
• on dort à Pise, une des 5 Terre ou G-Town
• le 4 on visite Pise si c'est pas fait, on voit Vérone et/ou Venise
• on dort à Venise ou Vérone
• le 5 on visite Venise toute la journée
• on dort sur un train en allant vers Rome
• le 6 on rencontre la gang à midi à l'aéroportet on part pour Acquapendente dans un mini-bus

Les grosses questions:

1. Est-ce qu'on va se stresser à rusher ou est-ce qu'on s'est donné assez de temps pour bien voir nos priorités?
2. On veut pouvoir partir déposer nos sacs là où on dort avant de faire les 5 Terre et avoir le temps de revenir pour dormir... est-ce que ça se fait facilement et est-ce qu'il y a une meilleure méthode?
3. Est-ce qu'on a choisi le trajet le plus rentable et efficace?
4. Est-ce qu'il y a une manière d'utiliser moins de jours (périodes de 24h) sur notre passe de train?

Si seulement on pouvait penser avec nos cerveaux de femme aussi, on y verrait plus clair...

MOT DU JOUR: AGRITURISMO
genre... j'ai toujours pas compris ce que ça veut dire...

Labyrinthe

Les trains sont trop fous.... j'y comprends rien!!!!
Qu'est-ce qui est moins cher? Qu'est-ce qui prend moins de temps?

Aussi... est-ce qu'on fait dodo à une auberge? Sur le sofa de quelqu'un? J'ai entendu des horreurs à propos du couchsurfing, mais quand même, c'est beaucoup moins cher qu'une chambre d'hôtel...

J'ai finalement de l'assurance pour partir. Je sens que je suis déjà à moitié là... entre-temps, je me ramasse encore un peu de cash avant de partir...! Grosse job de traiteur demain soir!




LE MOT DU JOUR: PIACERE
Genre: Piacere de conocerti! (Plaisir de vous connaître!)

Start Packing!

Departure date: May 1st 2011
Return Date:... I don't want to think about it

Now packing art materials, clothing.
Need socks, bag, sneakers, sunglasses.

Can I bring my nail clipper or should I buy one there?

Leaving in less than 2 weeks... still have to call insurance, BMO, Koodo.

I'm SOOOO Excited!

WORD OF THE DAY: BIGLIETTERIA