Cinque

Day 5 :: Florence :: Appreciating Art

• Saw Fra Angelico's cell paintings, Masaccio's Trinity, all of Florence from the top of the duomo, Donatello's Mary Magdalene, Michelangelo's Pieta and more.
  
• If that made no sense to you... well, we studied a lot of these things in art history this semester.
• It was really exciting for me to be walking (fairly speedily) through a museum and suddenly stop and recognize a statue (out of a bunch of similar looking statues in a room) and remember (vaguely) what I'd learned about it. And sculptures especially look quite different in real life!
  
• It's never really hit me so hard before that when you teach someone about something, they'll actually care about it. Something to remember the next time I get mad at someone for not caring...

To Venice tomorrow... here starts the real test of how well I navigate. I've been to Rome and Florence before so I at least had some idea about how to get around and what I wanted to do. Bring it on!

(Trying out Twitter since texting access is far more likely than internet access! http://twitter.com/felcearto)

Uno, Due, Tre, Quattro

I had written out a nice longish report on my first three days but I have no way of getting it on this computer... flash drives not allowed in internet cafes... bah!

Hence, the short version as far as I can remember it.

Day 1 :: Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi :: Saying goodbye

• Too many goodbyes said as all of us went our separate ways.
• I learned that 'home' is something I'll never take for granted again, even if 'home' is just a place to stay for the night. In this case, I had a place to stay AND the company of two amazing gals, Laura and Emily D. It was such a relief to navigate and whatnot on the first day on my own with the knowledge that I had them to go back to!

Day 2 :: To Rome! :: Winging it

• Unlike my normal plan every moment self, I decided which train to take and bought the tickets only after I checked out of the hotel and didn't have a clue about where I'd be staying once I got to Rome.
• I never really appreciated 'accommodations' listings until this day. Thank goodness for Lonely Planet! I picked the hostel closest to the train station and, thankfully, it worked perfectly.

Day 3 :: Rome and the Vatican :: The Pope

• Rome rocks because there's so much to see everywhere that I can easily navigate from the hostel to the Vatican by way of sight hopping rather than trying to remember street names. Went to my first mass. In St Peter's in the Vatican. Whoot! (Even though I had no idea what was going on)
• Left mass only to see a massive massive massive crowd in the square. Couldn't figure out where the heck the Pope was except that it was up since everyone was looking up.
• Became a sardine as I tried to make my way into the square. I've never been so smooshed in my life. Person behind you moves, so do you. Sardines to the max.
• Saw the Pope! When he had less than a minute left in his blessing. But still! I saw the small dot that was the Pope! And I have a picture. A blurry picture but a picture nonetheless. Whoot!

Day 4 :: Rome. :: Old Rome.

• Went to the Colosseum only to find that I had forgotten to put my memory card back in. Colosseum. No camera. I did it oldschool and broke out the sketchbook. aww yeah.
• Went to the Palatine and the Roman Forum. And got massively rained on. And learned that I should never wear my grey pants if rain is predicted because they get slightly see through when wet. Oh dear.

To Florence tomorrow!

On saying goodbye...

I'm very much a person who needs to mentally prepare, anticipate and "preview" the future in my head. I need a lot of time to say goodbye to places especially since I usually end up far more attached to locations than I initially realize.

Though the coming of the end of our time in Cortona snuck up on me, at least the realization came with enough time for me to start mentally preparing for our departure.

But for Westmont? I have one semester left until graduation. I think there's been a parallel process going on in my head between Cortona and Westmont: physically saying goodbye to Cortona and mentally picturing myself saying goodbye to Westmont.

I went into town this morning to send a tube of all my drawings and my prints home and to visit all the little shops in Cortona that I haven't been in. I accomplished the first goal, but didn't quite get around to the second.

Somehow I ended up at top of the comunale steps where I sat and sketched for about an hour. With only two and a half days left here in Cortona (We'll be in Siena all day tomorrow and we're leaving on Tuesday morning) it just made more sense for me to sit, sketch and watch instead of shop.

The view from the steps

Drew and Sally Ann eating Molesini sandwiches lower down on the steps... they left a few seconds after I started sketching them though. On the right is the view on Via Nazionale as you approach the comunale steps I was sitting on.

I had similar thoughts for the whole process of leaving Westmont. I pictured myself going to all my favorite places (the pond, the rock by the library, the trails, the stairs of death behind VK...), the dorms I've lived in (Clark and Armington), and the places I've spent a lot of time in (the physics building, the art building, the DC, etc) and sketching them and just sitting there and being there...

I was already having issues in my head about what it would be like to go back and have everything look "drastically" different with all the construction going on. I was sad enough when they got rid of the tree in front of the DC (last year?) and when I went back over the summer and saw all the trees behind VK and the VK alley parking lot area chopped down... Yeah, I really do get attached to little things like that.

So after a morning of Cortonese immersion: drawing Cortona, laughing at the swarms of students flooding the piazza and having two high school guys ask to take a picture with me (it was very random - they were sitting on the stairs near me eating lunch with a bunch of friends when they looked at me and asked "photo?"... twas highly amusing! I only wish I had thought to get their camera wielding friend to take one with my camera too.)... I went to Cafe della artista for lunch with Eunice, Madeline, Katrina and Sarah K only to get the news that Westmont is burning.

It was a shock to say the least.

I'm guessing this is Mark the RD's house. It's right next to Clark G where I lived freshman year... I heard that's completely burned too.

It was a relief to hear that no one was hurt and all the people were safe. So what got to me the most, even more than Clark being gone, was hearing that the physics building was gone.


Apparently I'm far more attached to the physics building than I had thought. I've spent so much time in there between regular classes for the past 3 years to working there for 2 summers. I had mentally imaged myself there next semester taking my final physics class with all the boys and with a goofy Dr. Kilhstrom standing and lecturing behind the desk (that doubled as an offering table when Dr. K lay on a bed of nails on it at the end of first semester physics). It's a bit of a mental jerk/twist/squeeze to correlate that picture to what there is now...


(I've been watching LA FOX news streaming online... a tad frustrating since the audio and video stop constantly. But yeah, I took screenshots because I'm a dork who needs records of everything...)


In the grand scheme of things it's not exactly a significant building... being the old garage of the former estate and doubling as a nursery for conference groups in the summer and all... but it's still a huge part of my Westmont experience.

I can't quite wrap my head around how different the campus will be next semester or what the students are doing right now or how Westmont will run for the rest of the semester with dorms and classrooms being completely unusable or entirely gone.

I'm saying goodbye to a different Westmont than I knew before leaving for Italy.

I guess there's just been a lot to think about in the past few days... Leaving Cortona, Westmont burning, getting into a car accident two evenings ago... (No worries, we're all completely fine.) I suppose the latter occurrence could have very well been saying goodbye to life. But it's hard to think of that in the same context as what I experienced...

We had a very fun filled day of hanging out of trees and olive picking. On the way back to our dorms, the car that I, Marissa, and Kiersten were in ran off the right edge of the gravel road and flipped over.

It was a shock and it was entirely surreal but it didn't seem like a near death experience in any way, even though in my head, being in a car that runs off the road and flips over should be equated with a brush with death.

But life goes on.

I think that's what has struck me most through all of this. Something happens but the world keeps going. Some events like the fire in Montecito register with a wider crowd... for many it's a news event but nothing personal. For those personally involved and there, I can't imagine what it's like. For others like me, watching from afar, it's a huge shock and it's hard to not stay at the computer all day and watch the news constantly.

But I'm not there in Santa Barbara even if I've been on that side of the world in my head all afternoon. I'm here in Cortona where two art history papers are calling my name (and I've been ignoring them in favor of processing the accident and the fire, packing, and spending time with people and with Cortona). And here, life goes on like it does all over the world...

The Cortona experience is a hugely significant to me and this coming Tuesday (when we leave) looms large in my mind.

But for the locals? Life goes on... we're just another group of students that comes through; just one group in the who knows how many that have come through in the past 38 years.

For me it's a very important portion of my life. I tend to divide my life into distinct categories based on where I've lived. There's the Glendale/Pasadena segment, then the Malaysia segment, then Lubbock, San Francisco, Lubbock, San Diego, Westmont, now Cortona, then a last short Westmont segment...

Maybe that's why I need so much mental processing when I'm leaving a place because in my head, another major section that I'm fully invested in is about to close. But again, life is continuous, time keeps going (as far as my finite mind needs to consider at least), and all these categories are just mental constructions in my head.

No lovely note to end and linger on. Just thoughts on the processes of goodbyes...

It's a voting post!

It was a rainy, dreary day when Fern got out of bed to vote for the very first time...


That is, last minute first time voting from Italy by fax. Oh yeah.

I did get my absentee ballot a few weeks ago but decided that I didn't want to risk mailing it. Italian post has a pretty shoddy reputation. And I figured I'd use those few weeks to research the twenty-eight freaking offices and propositions on the ballot.

As usual, everything else got in the way and, aside from a short stint of reading the information on Prop 1-4 at the very beginning, I delayed really reading everything until last night and this morning. Procrastination isn't just for schoolwork apparently.


But I'm also cheap and didn't want to pay for my fax so I had a short two hour window between 10 and noon to get my ballot faxed from the UGA offices. So, I stuffed my ballot down my shirt to keep it dry and headed down to town in the rain with Eunice.

Gasp!! FAILURE! After photocopying the long double sided ballot into 4 faxable pages and attempting to fax it twice, we had to admit defeat. The fax number was correct and it was connecting, but it refused to receive the fax. Granted, it was 2 AM in California, but really now, is it THAT difficult to leave the fax machine on before voting day!?

Rather crushed, I went and splurged on Italian leather. 30 euro of gorgeous dark red and brown Italian leather. (To make books of course!) A man at the shoe store (where we bought the leather) was reading a newspaper and commenting on it to Stefano, the shoe store owner. Eunice and I didn't understand anything until he said "Obama," at which point I got excited and peered at the newspaper (as if my eyesight is good enough to read small print from 5 feet away and as if I'd be able to understand the Italian newspaper even if my eyesight was good enough!)

The man then looked at us and asked something along the lines of whether we had voted. (My Italian vocabulary covers food, common introductions, and 'where is the bathroom?' It definitely hasn't extended into the realm of politics yet!) I responded by grinning, pointing at my ballot and saying "ahora, uh... adesso! Fax!"

Translation: Now [in spanish], uh [crap, wrong language], now [in Italian]! Fax! [Yay for crossover words!]

As we left, Stefano asked us something else and I had no idea what he said but he said a word starting with a 'v' so I figured it might have something to do with voting. So I jabbed wildly in the dark an said something like "vote. Uh, votar. Er, voto!" blank looks. Uh, [repeat v word that he had said, but said it with an o ending to conjugate for the first person form]. Blank looks and a grin at my failed attempts. Oh well... shrug, Obama, ciao!

I am such a master at communication. Hah!

After an afternoon filled with art history classes, I bundled up and headed back down to town in heavier rain and wind to find a fax machine.

To Nocentini! (The art supply store.)

I walk in to the very back and see Signora Nocentini... "Fax?" I ask her. Yes indeed there is a fax machine!

She takes my six sheets... zero zero uno. Otto cinque otto. Quattro nove cinque. Cinque uno sei sei.

I wait nervously.

She says something about humidity or rain and gestures her hands outward. Ah, the rain infiltrated my bag and made the sheets expand. Fax machines don't like humid paper...

Suddenly the fax machine sucks in all 6 pages at once even though she's holding on to the top 5. She makes exasperated noises and jerks viciously at the 5 pages.

I shift nervously. Don't rip my vote!!!

The 5 pages are saved from the jaws of the fax machine but the vicious jerking has misaligned the top page.

Suddenly she's viciously yanking the first page to make it feed straight.

No! Don't do that! That's my Oath of Voter form with my signature! I'm quite sure it's going to reach the other side looking like it just got photographed by a mac's photobooth. Oh dear.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Well, they didn't say the page couldn't be artistically distorted.

Beeping. What on earth is going on!?

Three pages through and it stops. She calls for Signor Nocentini. They proceed to talk, or yell, loudly in Italian: Did you put in 001?!?! Si!! Si!! How many pages!?!?!? Tre, tre!!! Why does it say four!?!?...

Yeah, they're an interesting old couple to be sure.

Somehow my three pages (including the page with the all important President and Vice President category) got registered as four and now my last three pages have to be sent in a second transmission.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Oh. Dear. Oh. Dear.

I snuck a picture of this momentous nail biting occasion. Here's Signor Nocentini at the fax machine. Not bad for a snuck picture where I couldn't actually see what I was taking.


Just to make conversation I said something about Obama (I'm assuming that the words I made up for "I'm faxing my ballot and voting right now" were completely off the mark.) Signora Nocentini responded in the typical expressive Italian way about ___ Obama, ___ McCain, ___ secreto____...

I think she was saying that Americans go around blabbing about who they voted for but Italian voters keep their votes a secret. I was also told earlier by Enza (the local UGA adminitrator helping me fax my ballot in the morning) that Italian voting is also different in that faxing would never be an option (though I don't know how many states in the US actually allow faxing in votes) and that in huge elections like this, only the main contest for president would be on the ballot versus our ballot where 28 things are stuffed onto a ballot. (I think I'd much prefer that.)

Finally everything went through and, according to my two Report Trasmissione, the risultati are "OK" so I'll just assume that the potentially wonkily distorted Oath of Voter page and the double transmission and the 1 ballot split into 4 pages still work out to a successful vote.


Back out in the rain, I stuffed my ballot back into my bag and skipped down the main street of Cortona singing "I voted! I voted! I voted!" Yay for the rain... it means my surge of excitement was largely unseen by local eyes! (This was to make up for the fact that I don't get one of those spiffy "I voted" stickers. Hrmph.)

I can't wait to go and snag a copy of an Italian newspaper with the election results tomorrow morning! (7 am here = 10 PM PST!)

(An addition at 12:15 AM: Several of us are watching CNN streaming through Emogene's slingbox program on her computer... the first polls are closed but they have yet to report the results. Says Drew: "This is one of the things I really wish I was home for... That and free Krispy Kremes, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A." Hear hear! Take advantage of all that election-related free stuff (Ben and Jerry's too!) all ye who are in Stati Uniti!)

Be thankful for your tvs... we're watching on a tiny screen...

And when the internet connection starts to slow down to a sluggish pace so that CNN's Campbell Brown becomes pixelated and stuttery... we do the finessing fingers to encourage the internets to speeds up!

It's the watching-the-election-progress-from-Italy version of a rain dance!

(Day after the election edit at noon: A bunch of us headed down to the newsstand and bought some Italian newspapers... I was told that la Repubblica leans more to the left while Libero is more to the right. Take a gandar!!)