Quando sembra troppo vicino.

Last Saturday we took our second day trip with the school to a little town in Le Marche (a mountainous region East of Tuscany) called Urbino. They took us there because it is small but beautiful and home to a huge palace, but practically impossible to get to by means of public transportation. After three hours on the bus through winding mountain roads we were introduced to Urbino, a tiny walled city nestled within the hillside. We took a tour of Palazzo Ducale, but then were let loose in the city, to explore and eat for the rest of the afternoon. The town was small, there was lots of brick, we had pizza and drank wine for lunch, lost ourselves in tiny alleyways, took pictures of hanging laundry and vast vistas, before heading back to the bus.

The day in itself was nothing spectacular. Driving home however, watching the sun set as we descended the mountain on switchback roads, facing the Italian countryside spread open before us, leaving the little walled town behind, the three short months I have ahead of me finally seemed entirely too short.

I have since taken to waking up a little earlier, and staying out longer during the day, reading on church steps, watching people in piazzas, chatting with baristas. When days pass this quickly its all I can do to try and slow them down a little.
This afternoon I decided to climb the cupola of the Duomo for the first time. The monument that stole my breath when I first drove into the city in September has since become just one of the many churches I pass on the way to school in the morning. Every now and then I take the time to look up and see the façade just as striking against the blue Florentine sky as it was my first day here.

The view from the top (after over 400 steps and no elevator) was incredible. I fell in love all over again with the panorama of the city that I now consider my home. The red terra cotta rooftops littered the horizon up until the hillside in all directions, and I could pick out the streets, the churches, the towers, and the piazzas that I walk on, past, and through every day. I couldn’t bring myself to leave my post up there, at the top of my world, for over an hour. Even though the days rush by and the beauty all begins to look the same, I continue to be mesmerized by this place.

Beautiful Urbino:


Palazzo Ducale in Urbino:


The sunset from the bus:


Top of the Duomo:

Photos from Carnevale

The foggy view of Venezia.


View from the Rialto Bridge on the long walk to San Marco.


My "mask".


The first of many "maschere."




Having lunch, anonymously.




Piazza San Marco.

Carnevale in Venezia

After a week of exams and checking every train schedule in Italy I rewarded myself yesterday with a daytrip to Venice for Italy’s most extravagant celebration of Carnevale. Knowing from my quick trip there with my family over Christmas vacation how magical the city on water is, but also how expensive the trains are to get there I decided I had to find a better way to get there besides the 75 Euro round trip Eurostar train. A little internet research and I found it: leaving at 6:30 a.m. from Florence’s Santa Maria Novella station the cheap train runs to Bologna where you can catch a regional train to Venice for about 16 euros one way. In order to avoid a steep hostel price I opted for the late train back the same night, getting in a little after midnight, and ended up with 10 straight hours of Venetian Carnevale fun for a little over 30 euros in transportation.
My first trip to Venice the sun shone the entire time and I was introduced to the labyrinthine city bathed in an intense winter sunlight. Yesterday I was not so lucky. The weather forecast called for rain all day long, and for once the Italian meteorologists were right. I discovered though, that some fog, clouds, and a little more water doesn’t detract from the spell of Venice, and that the magic of Carnevale proceeds just the same.
I spent the entire day on my feet, wandering the streets with a friend of mine from school, finding the famed San Marco piazza despite the confusing signs and winding alleyways that litter the city. Once we were there neither of us knew exactly what to expect but Carnevale found us. Within a few hours we both had our masks painted on by the many makeup artists by the water side, we had toured the inside of the beautiful golden San Marco Cathedral, seen a marching band completely in costume, and witnessed the Maschere (masks) of Carnevale.
Venetians and other Italians use Carnevale as a time to put on their masks, hide their identities and indulge in sinful behavior before Lent begins. Unlike most European street performers, these people are for the most part just locals, Carnevale is a serious event for them, and their costumes prove it, they walk through the piazzas parading their work through the masses, posing for pictures, without asking for anything in return. It is the one time out of the year that the Venetians themselves become the spectacle of their city, instead of the miraculous city itself.
After a full ten hours of overstimulation, nonstop walking, eating, drinking and neverending drizzle, the train ride home was full of Italian University students making their way back to Bologna, under their masks, glitter, and confetti. A group in our car filled the entire two hours with singing every song they could think of at the top of their lungs. I kept thinking someone would ask them to stop, but the train operators just kept walking through, ignoring the scene of minor chaos, I guess that’s Carnevale.

Esami Italiani

I’m heading into full swing into Italian Finals. In reality the Italian school system doesn’t have final exams the way we know them. At university you don’t do homework or write papers, you go to class, get notes, do reading, and learn, then at the end you schedule an exam with your professor who asks you questions and grades you on how well you learned. Makes sense huh?

Since the only course I took at the University this semester I only audited I am not actually taking the oral exam, and since the rest of my classes are through the Smith program I have lots of papers and lots of written exams, my only escape will be my studio art class, where we’ll just have a group critique. I don’t mind writing papers here and there, but they definitely take more brain power in Italian, and I’m eagerly awaiting the end of next week, when all papers will be turned in and exams finished and I can start a new semester. Three classes I’m looking forward to a lot at the Smith Center: Racconti (Italian short stories), Contemporary Italian history (think Fascism, and the Mafia), and Italian Cinema, as well as one class for credit at the University of Florence.

As the Italian school system also likes to wait until the last minute to make any kind of plans, I still have no idea what will be offered this semester and therefore what I will be taking there, but it is sure to be a new experience.

Finishing the semester is tough especially after a long vacation, but it also means I’ve gotten to do some really fun things with my classes. Last week my literature class went on a literary tour of Florence on this city bus that is painted up with the picture of every famous writer who has ever lived in Florence. It included a stop at the British/Protestant cemetery in Florence where all of the famous British and American writers who lived in Florence are buried. A little nun (is there such thing as a protestant nun?) took us around showing us the tombstones that were fought hard for in the overwhelmingly Catholic place.

Right after getting off the bus I headed to Palazzo Vecchio with my History of Florence c lass. Palazzo Vecchio is in the same Piazza as my school and was originally a residence of the Medici family when they were still running the city and continues to serve as the seat of Florence’s government today. My teacher knows everyone in Florence it seems, and happened to be able to get us a special tour of the building including entering rooms usually not open to the public. In what looks like a giant Renaissance government office building the Medicis built themselves a labyrinthine system of secret rooms and passageways to get away from their work when they felt like it. It is exactly the castle you imagined as a kid, full of narrow staircases, paintings that open into doors and winding passageways.

Finally on Wednesday night I got to see my first Italian Opera (In Italy that is). We attended Madama Butterfly by Puccini at the Teatro Comunale in Florence. It is a beautiful building and the opera was incredible. The sets were beautiful, the music was gorgeous and the production overall extremely moving. I’ve only ever seen one or two operas in English and always found it strange to be able to understand what the singers were saying, it was very interesting when I realized I was experiencing this same sensation with this Italian opera.

After weeks of rain we are finally back to the beautiful Florentine sun I’ve come to expect, and I hope it makes the next week a little more bearable before heading into the second half of my Italian adventure.


The bus we took for the Literary Tour of Florence.


A view of the Duomo out the window of one of the beautiful rooms of Palazzo Vecchio.



The night at Madama Butterfly, Teatro Comunale.

A quick note on Italian politics.

Yesterday the Italian Parliament voted against their Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s request for a vote of confidence, meaning he’s out and they need to find a new Prime Minister. As an American with a very strict idea of when and how elections are held it is difficult to wrap my head around this idea of political disorganization (during the hearing one Senator while making his statements was spit on by another Senator, then fainted and needed to be carried out of the building on a stretcher). On the one hand it seems much more democratic to be able to express dissatisfaction with your elected officials when you feel like it. At the same time however, Italians have been through this revolving door before: this is Prodi’s second time being voted out of his position, and the only viable option as his predecessor under Italy’s current electoral system is to go to the party leader of the opposition party Silvio Berlusconi, who has also already been voted out of office twice as Prime Minister.
Living here for me definitely sheds light on our own political system, sure the possible Bush-Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton Presidential succession might resemble more of a monarchy than a democracy, and our current President would have been voted out of office years ago under Italy’s system, but at least with ours there is the possibility of an actual change by the time our elections do roll around.
It’s depressing to think that even a strong-willed woman like Luciana who consistently has called both Prodi and Berlusconi an entire array of Italian curse words, is now backing Berlusconi’s return. She explained it to me like this: No, I don’t like him, but Prodi hasn’t done anything with our tax money for the last 20 months, Berlusconi may be an idiot, but he has enough money that he won’t pocket ours. Doing something is better than doing nothing, she said.

Here is a link to an article I really enjoyed about Italy recently done by the New York Times that I think aptly observes Italy’s possibly fatal political and social problems.

La Bellezza della Storia

I wrote up an article for my school's news service. I thought you might like to read.


http://www.smith.edu/news/2007-08/JYA-MaggieMertens.php

A Fresh View

Vacation brought with it family and friends and holidays and even though I stayed in Italy, lots of travelling. From Lucca to Pisa to Venice to Volterra to San Gimignano to Siena to Florence and Rome, the time passed just as unbelievably swiftly as it has throughout my entire Italian adventure. Bringing with it incredible memories and also fresh realizations on my Italian life.

My return to Florence with my family and boyfriend gave me a chance to see the city through new eyes. I wanted desperately to show them the city I know but found it impossible to wrap up the place I have come to adore for its idiosyncrasies in a two-day museum tour. How can you decide what is most important? Is it the David, or the duomo? The collection of art at the Uffizi gallery, or the panoramic view of the city from San Miniato? How do you show someone a piece of your life?

After hitting the most important monuments and museums and enjoying several good meals and drinks I still felt as if I had failed to reveal the true spell this city casts over me. Now that everyone is gone and I am back to a routine here I have come to realize where the difference lies. It is impossible to take a group of six people and reveal to them the magic of walking along the Arno on a solitary, cloudy, Florentine morning. Impossible to sit and listen to the symphony of language used by an old woman while doing something as simple as ordering her morning cappuccino. Hopeless to get them to feel the overpowering sense of significance when realizing this is the street that Dante walked on, and this is the same street I take to school every day.

Florence is inundated with tourists, hundreds, thousands, every day. I guarantee I am in more tourist photos than I can count simply by walking past the Duomo and through Piazza della Signoria on my way to school. Florence is a beautiful city that houses innumerable works of art both in museums and out, it deserves this tourism and attention. I love to travel, to see the churches and museums and famous works of art, to be a tourist. But I am happy to know that there is another layer here, one I have found to be just as fascinating, and just as beautiful. Eating my panino on church steps, wishing my favorite barista “buon anno,” returning home to red wine, homemade minestrone, and lively Italian conversation every night: it’s not the Florence you can put on a postcard—it’s my daily life, but it’s just as beautiful.