The last month has gone so quickly that it seems absolutely impossible that I am on Spring Break. Since I got back from Prague I have since: started my University of Florence class, had several wonderful visitors, taken a day trip to Ravenna, celebrated my 21st birthday, gotten laryngitis, and had midterms.
I chose to take a Linguistics course at the University of Florence this semester, after much stress about the Italian University system, scheduling conflicts, confusion about exams and modulos, and my director not being entirely sure if this course would be something too “technical” for me to understand in a foreign language, I went. And I understood almost everything, it’s a very dry subject, but it’s something I’m interested in especially since it is a General Linguistics course and therefore discusses not only the aspects of the Italian language but also compares it with English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and whatever else the professor can come up with. My exam is on April 7th, it’s an oral exam and I have no idea what to expect. We’ll see.
One of my good friends from Smith came to visit a couple weekends ago who had taken Italian with me but decided to study in Scotland this year instead and it was fabulous to have a visitor that reminded me exactly what I loved about this city. When I met her on the steps of the Duomo shortly after she arrived she gave me the hugest hug and looked at me with tears in her eyes, pointing up to the bell tower, “Maggie! Look where we are!” She reminded me of my original passion and excitement every time I saw laundry hanging outside a building, or the way the sun casts its light on a yellow building and a terra cotta roof. It was a nice reminder.
That same weekend we took a day trip to Ravenna, our third trip with the school, and after being jaded by the last two trips, which were less than exhilarating, Ravenna came as a pleasant surprise. First of all, I saw Dante’s tomb. Even though Dante was a die-hard Florentine, when he died he asked one of his monk friends to bury him in Ravenna. Florence tried to take him back a few times, but when they came the monks had dug him up and hidden his bones somewhere else. The Florentines finally gave up and now he’s back in his original tomb, although every year a group of Florentines come and fill a lamp with Florentine olive oil that burns inside his little altar. It was beautiful and gave me such an amazing feeling to know that someone so grand in the world of literature, Italy and history ended up just like everyone else, right where I was standing. The rest of the Ravenna trip was just as moving. We were shown several different churches all filled with Ravenna’s famous mosaics. Most of Ravenna’s buildings were done during the Byzantine Empire, back before frescoes, when the art was still mostly mosaic work. These decorations are impossible to describe, they covered entire church walls and ceilings depicting groups of people, and animals, all made up of tiny 1 x 1 cm. glass tiles that were each cut by hand. Incredible.
The last three events kind of come in a mish-mash that was last week, I began getting sick last Sunday but ignored it knowing that I had mid-terms and a birthday party to look forward to, by Saturday morning after two exams and 6 days of ibuprofen and lots of water I woke up with absolutely no voice. Not wanting to miss out on my own birthday party I thought positive and went out that night anyway to a nice dinner and then a few bars for some 21st birthday drinks, needless to say the next morning my body wasn’t very happy and I spent my actual birthday in bed, without a voice. Monday I missed school for the first time and went to the doctor who prescribed a giant dose of antibiotics and to “rest my voice.” It’s been very tough and made me feel like a foreigner all over again, but I’m finally healing up and hopefully will be back to 100% by Sunday when I fly to Paris for my newest adventure.
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