La Stagione delle Feste

At some point during the next two week I'll get around to all of the trips I haven't yet written about, but for now it seems more important to talk about the holiday season in Italy.

My favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, is, as Dad loves to joke, just known as "Thursday" here--I even had to go to class.  We did get to celebrate the occasion with a dinner at Rita's house, but even though I really appreciated her effort to give us a Thanksgiving with an Italian twist, and would normally be thrilled with pumpkin risotto, it definitely didn't feel like the holiday we all know and love.  Worst of all, the portions were a normal size, even a bit scant by Rita's usual standards. 

Thanksgiving turkey should never be so classy

So the next day (just a regular Friday, without any hordes of stampeding shoppers to be found) us Forni girls got busy in the kitchen and created a real Thanksgiving dinner, with all of our favorite dishes from home. This time, we all ate enough to confirm once and for all of the stereotypes our Italian roommates have about Americans. 

Molto, molto meglio

Molly, who lives in the other dorm, invited us all over to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah with latkes, applesauce, gelt, and a makeshift menorah (there were none to be found in Bologna, although Rome impressed us by having a giant one right next to its giant Christmas tree).  Unlike Thanksgiving, Hanukkah actually worked pretty well in Italy.  After all, what's more Jewish than recreating our traditions in a foreign land?

We had one day of snow here that melted by the next morning, but combined with the city's Christmas lights it made for a very festive evening.  Luckily, I'm already sick of the snow, so I don't feel too bad about how I'm going to be stuck inside for most of the rest of my time here, getting ready for final exams.

Lo Sciopero

There was a huge student protest/parade on my street this afternoon. I wish I was more aware of what's going on politically here, but I think it had something to do the professors at the University not getting paid enough.  And maybe something about scholarships, judging by one of their slogans: "O La Borsa! O La Vita!"  (Click to check out my nifty new way of providing English translations).  Lots of chanting, marching, and a bunch of people in white masks adding even more graffiti to the porticoes.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but I didn't stay and watch for long anyway...I saw a police van drive by followed by a bunch of cops with batons and riot helmets and decided it would be best to hide out in my room for awhile.

Actually, I'm not going to change the last paragraph and pretend I'm not ignorant, but I just checked out the Italian news and learned that it was a leftist protest against the Gelmini reform.  Over to Wikipedia, which tells me Gelmini is Berlusconi's minister of education, whose center-right politics aren't working out in education's favor.  Apparently his education reforms = a lot of funding cuts for the public education system = professors not getting paid enough.  Just like I said. 

It turns out there were over a hundred of these protests today throughout the country.  Gelmini countered that the protesters were against change.  Not exactly what I'd expect to hear said about the left... I'm going to try to remember this stuff/learn how to discuss it in Italian so that next time I have dinner at Rita's and she and her husband start talking politics I can (maybe) throw in my two cents.

Lots of photos here

Two thousand of my classmates

Palazzo Fava

My art history class got to visit the currently closed-to-the-public frescoes in Palazzo Fava last week--painted in 1584 by a  young Ludovico Carracci, the subject of the first half of our course, and his two cousins.

Tanti Auguri!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

La Vita Quotidiana

As the weather becomes colder (and nearly everyone I know comes down with a cold), I'm settling more and more into daily Italian life.  I know where to find all my basic food needs on the shelves of the Plenty Market, the people who run the fruit and vegetable stand nearby recognize me when I stop by on my way home from class, I never leave my grocery shopping for Sunday (since all the stores are closed) and my roommate no longer gives me constructive criticism every time I clean the bathroom.

My classes are nowhere near as good as the ones I've taken at Wesleyan--the language barrier contributes, but I also miss having the opportunity to participate in discussions and challenge the ideas brought up by our course material (in Italy, the professor's word is law).  I'm really getting into art history, though- I finally understood that thing my professor said about seeing works of art in person and in their original context when I was in Venice- I was transfixed for almost an hour by a Titian altar piece.

And while my weekends are still spent traveling, weekdays are dedicated to smaller, everyday adventures that become necessary once you've spent a prolonged amount of time somewhere.  For example, I could no longer see for my overgrown bangs and had to go get a haircut.  I studied up on vocabulary beforehand (solo una spuntatina- just a trim!) and the hairdresser patiently walked me through some that I had missed (I didn't want my hair angled, I wanted it scalata).  Even though my Italian hadn't seemed to fail me in this encounter, I still ended up with a way shorter cut than I had asked for.  I was upset for awhile, but I feel better knowing that it wasn't my fault- the hairdresser wanted to get rid of my rovinati ends, I didn't, and in a battle of wills, the one with the scissors usually wins.

Frustration from this encounter and the piles of reading that I'm forever behind on, I decided to check out a nearby gym.  So far, I've taken a kick-boxing and step-aerobics.  The step-aerobics class was eerily similar to those I've been to at home, right down to the music (sorry Zack, Black-Eyed Peas again!).  It made me feel a lot less homesick to be in a place where the only thing that was different was the instructor saying quattro, tre, due, uno instead of four, three, two, one.  The kick-boxing class was a bit different, but was totally worth it because I got to watch a bunch of tough-looking guys punch in time to Taylor Swift's "Love Story." I used to be disappointed that American music is played everywhere here, but in my cultural history class I learned that things can be much worse:



Recognize the tune? In the 60's, Italian singer Rita Pavone "covered" Pete Seeger's political anthem and turned it into a dance hit, with lyrics that more or less translate as "Give me a hammer so that I can hit people I don't like on the head." That's the spirit!

Venezia sta affondanda

The internet's been torturously slow lately (or at least that's my excuse for waiting so long to post)

Last weekend, the whole group went on a program-sponsored trip to Venice, only two hours away by train.  It was pretty much how I'd imagined it to be, which surprised me, because I hadn't been thoroughly convinced that a city built on water could actually be...real.  When I first walked out of the train station and looked out at the streets, it actually took me a few seconds to register what I was seeing.  I kind of just gazed out at the buildings for awhile before I even noticed that the street in front of me was full of boats instead of cars and buses.

There isn't too much to say about the trip--we stayed for one night and saw lots of churches, art, water, and glass jewelry.  I, of course, already broke my new glass earrings, but luckily I'll be going back next month with Mom, Dad, Danny and Zack.  Hopefully, it will still be there; sticks and mud are not the most solid of foundations, and the whole city is slowing sinking.

Sinking...

More amazing, overhead views

 

Napoli- Secondo Parte

Back to Napoli!

On Saturday, we left the city via train for Herculanuem, an ancient city that was destroyed by the same eruption that covered Pompeii.  Unlike it's more famous counterpart, Herculanuem is smaller, which made it easier to visit in the little time that we had.  It's also better preserved, and we were able to see a lot of the original mosaics from the buildings.

Next, we took a bus up to Vesuvius itself, and hiked for about half an hour to the top.  We were able to look inside the crater, where we were actually able to see steam rising up.  It was pretty foggy, so we weren't able to see much of the view, but it's amazing how close to the city of Napoli Vesuvius actually is--if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction back in AD 67, Napoli never would've made it.

Vesuvius as seen from Napoli's waterfront

Vesuvius as seen from the edge of it's crater

During this leg of our journey, we met an American couple from Rhode Island.  Of course, we played the "what are the chances that we are somehow connected?" game, and somehow made our way through four degrees of separation.  Thus, the greatest text message ever sent, to our friend Claire, from Wesleyan, who's in Italy with us:

"We're on top of Vesuvius with your dad's dentist."

I'd also like to point out here that, on this trip, we never once missed a train, bus, boat, or other form of public transportation.  We did, however, cut it close getting back down from Vesuvius, but we saved face by telling people that the reason we were sprinting down the side of the volcano was that we wanted to relive the Pompeii experience.

I didn't bring my camera to the National Archeological Museum back in the city, where we went next, but it's just as well because the entire second floor, which houses all of the cool stuff from Pompeii that we'd wanted to see, turned out to be closed "for emergency renovations"--and has been since February.  So Italian. 

But we did get the always-welcome overhead view of the city at sunset when we took a funicular up a nearby hill.

On Sunday, we took a ferry over to Capri.  I was tempted to take back everything I've said about Corfu being beautiful, because this island was absolutely stunning.

We didn't have much of a plan, so we took a funicular up to the top of the island and just started walking.  By some amazing luck, we ended up at the natural arch that's one of Capri's main attractions. We walked some more and ended up at a private beach where it costs 16 euros to sit in the sand.  Even though it was a warm, beautiful day, we weren't buying it, especially since we still had to figure out a way to get back to the main harbor.  I was dreading this part, since we had walked down A LOT of stair to get to the beach.  However, our lucky streak wasn't over yet, and we met a group of Italian tourists who let us hop into their boat.  They dropped us off at a smaller harbor, where we enjoyed Caprese salads (what else?) before catching a bus back to our ferry port.

 

Our new friends were excited to have some young people join their trip.  We were excited to be saved from a literal tourist trap, so everyone was happy.

Last but not least, there was the food.  If you've read Eat Pray Love or seen the movie, you'll know that Napoli is famous for having the best pizza in the world--it is, after all, where the margherita pizza was invented.  It's also known for having the best coffee in Italy...something to do with the water.  Everything we'd heard was true.

The first night, we ate at Sorbillo's, a restaurant recommended by Giovanni.  We chose our pizzas from a list of 21 varieties- each named after one of the owner's 21 children.  Mine was called Ulderico, it had eggplants on it, and it was absolutely incredible.  Hope had the "Elena," with artichokes, and it was also amazing.  We tried our best to eat them "Italian stlye," making our way through with a fork and a knife instead of picking up slices.

If I had an Italian boyfriend, it would be Ulderico

The second night, we went to Da Michele (the "Eat Pray Love place").  We knew we had picked the right spot when we saw the huge crowd of people waiting outside what otherwise seemed like a pretty basic pizzeria.  We had to wait for over an hour for our number to be called, and this time there were only two varieties- margherita and marinara.  We both ordered the margherita, and dug in under a picture of Julia Roberts filming the movie.  In between bites, we struck up a conversation with the couple we shared a table with--they were both from Napoli and lived just around the corner.  We asked them if they'd seen the movie that glorified their local pizzeria, and it turns out they were going to see it right after dinner. Adorable.

Julia Roberts eats her pizza like an American

But not me!

We were pretty upset when we realized that our new friends had ordered their pizzas with doppia mozzarella (double cheese)- they claimed that this was actually the best pizza in the world. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, we ordered a third pie to go and took it back to the hostel for dessert.  It was so good that pizza's basically ruined for me forever.  But it was soooo worth it!