Socks with sandals: Just another Myers Family Vacation

Between exam season, Italian earthquakes, and hoards of directionally-challenged tourists, the Myers family managed to survive their Italian adventure. Back in August (as my mom likes to fondly reflect on), my dad was sticking to his "there's no way we're all going to Italy, that's ridiculous" story. Who would have thought that I'd be meeting my parents and sisters for the first time in ten months at the Mcdonalds in Termini Station in Rome.
Between my mom's determination to interview every single gelato shop we went into and my dad's insistence that no meal can be enjoyed unless it's eaten outside, I'll admit it was a little stressful. Traveling family style is pretty different from the 10 euro hostel and bread and cheese dinners I was used too. But, in the end, I am so grateful that I was able to share this experience with them. We started in Rome, then hit Florence, Cinque Terre, Bologna and ended in Venice. I'll relate some details using a few of the gajillion photos that my mom insisted on taking:

Good ol' Ricky Poo. Rick Steves (travel guide extraordinaire) was our sixth travel buddy. There's only so much I know about the Forum and and Michelangelo's David. Occasionally, we would pause for mini-lessons with Rick. My sisters would pretend to listen while they took ridiculous photos of themselves, my dad would make "that's nifty!" comment, and it would all be followed by my mom's ever-inquisitive "so this must be how it relates to everything else you've ever learned" spiel.

 Second night in Rome and there were already problems. We showed up at a restaurant where I had made reservations buuuuut they gave us an inside table. My sisters and I all tried to hide awkwardly in the back as my dad proceeded to insist on an outdoor table, threaten to leave, then get people who were halfway through their meal to move over and make room for us. To be fair, dad, the meal was actually better outside.

So, yeah, many of these pictures focus on food. We ate very well in Italy. Who knew! Here Lilly and I are enjoying a Florentine steak. They season it with just salt and cook it for about 30 seconds on each side. It was big enough to feed five and is the only steak that I can truly say has melted in my mouth.

One of our best meals was in a restaurant on the cliff side in Cinque Terre. Here we have our waiter, Paolo, cleaning the fish of the day. Highlight of this meal: the gelato with caramelized strawberries on top. My dad would probably say the view.

The start of our Cinque Terre hike. Parts of the trail were closed do to the mudslide so we ending up walking about four kilometers actually up into the mountains. Olivia's Urban Outfitter sneakers were not prepared for that. Lilly and I ended up stripping out of our leggings around a corner in front of as sanctuary to the virgin Mary. I did the last stretch by myself while everyone else took the train.

 Dinner with the Longo's. This was an experience. They wanted my family to try all the bolognese food. It was a four hour meal consisting of tagliatelle bolognese followed by lasagna. At this point we're all full and actually have to take a break from the table to get air. Then came the tortelloni in broth followed by a meat plate with prosciutto and mortadella. I thought Olivia was going to just drop her head into her plate and sleep. Then came a big bowl of fresh cherries and a cookie cake thing that you dip in dessert wine. There was (of course) new wine for every course and special fizzy water to help with digestion. We all left vowing to not eat for three days (which is a huge lie).
The above photo is of me with the family: Antonello, Letizia and Pietro Longo. My family brought Pietro a Sporting KC shirt and he didn't take it off all night. Letizia cried when I left and they've downloaded Skype just so that they can talk with me. I would never have guessed that I could have hit it off with a little kid!

I left my family in Venice with an extra bag full of my things, a couple of blisters, and absurdly full stomachs. I think we can successfully say that the Myers family vacation was bellisima! Lilly and Olivia, I expect you to be able to translate that by now.

Lions and tigers and worms...Oh my!

I have been studying worms. And cranes, salamanders, starlings, wasps and eagles. This is not, in fact, something that my veterinarian roommates have thrust upon me, but rather my syllabus for a literature course. And not just any Italian literature. I have been studying worms in the greatest Italian poem of all time: Dante's Divine Comedy.
As some of you may know, Dante is actually the person who got me started on this crazy adventure.  We became good friends in high school, then, after seeing the Sistine Chapel for the first time the following summer, I knew I would have to come back. So when the opportunity to take Filologia Dantesca this semester at the University of Bologna came up, I jumped on it like the dolphins from Circle VIII, Bolgia V of Inferno.
Here's a brief overview on Dante. He lived in Florence in the late Middle Ages and then was exiled when his political party lost power. As part of his punishment, he banned many of his enemies to burn in the most beautifully detailed hell ever written. He then went on for 100 cantos imagining the first full-fledged Purgatory and then topping it off with his journey toward an indescribable divine realization in Heaven. 

It's quite a bit to chew on. So a five week course on man's pilgrimage through eternity needs to be pretty focused. Professor Ledda (a short bald Italian man who wears Converse, jeans and a tie/jacket combo to class) decided to focus on animal similes in Dante. The idea is that animals in the Middle Ages had very specific habits and diverse meanings. Meanings that today have been long lost or proven completely ridiculous.

For example, the stork, know for it's motherly and familial instincts, also tended to get pissed off at the whiny chicky-poos; so, she would go ahead and kill them. The dad stork was then known to come along, cut himself open and feed his dead babies his blood, bringing them back to life. It's pretty gross, but it works wonderfully as a metaphor for Christ.

Then there's the dove image. Peace and happiness right? Not really. Doves were actually more connected to the pagan tradition describing them as birds of Venus. They were lustful, always kissing each other and they couldn't wait more than five minutes before they felt the urge to race back to their nest and make sweet bird love. They're Latin name actually means "cult of the loins".


From ants to otters, we covered new animals everyday. Sometimes five lines would take up the entire two hour class period. Sometimes we'd read passages from medieval bestiaries in Latin and I would nod along like I understood. I loved every second of it.
Dante in English has nothing on Dante in Italian. It's incredible to me that a poet, who was one of the first to really move away from the Latin tradition, provided a basis for the entire language that I am now learning today. And he still has something to say. Even if you're not religiously or spiritually inclined, Dante captures in beautifully crafted poetry the world's thoughts on what it means to be human.

What does it mean to be on a "journey" through life?
How can we reconcile rationality in the face of the incomprehensible?
How can we really go about learning or even teaching for that matter?
When verbal communication fails us, how can we go about truly sharing our experiences with others?
And one of my favorite themes, what does it mean to truly love in the best way that we possibly can?
Giving my oral exam for this course was one of the most rewarding things I've done here so far. Sure I waited three hours for my turn nervously chewing off my fingernails, but it didn't even feel like an exam in the end. Professor Ledda and I spent just as much time talking about my own interests in Dante as we did on the test material. He asked me about what KU is like. I told him about my Shakespeare research. He told me about the guest lecture on Dante happening the following Thursday. I received a wonderful score and left his office with a personalized syllabus for the independent study I'm be doing with him over the next two months. As Dante would say...I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was.
Who knew studying worms could be so inspiring!

The Fine Land of the French

It's only natural that in a predominantly catholic country, the secular concept Spring break is replaced by Easter or "Pasqua". For Easter break, we get classes cancelled and everyone either goes home or goes on vacation. I decided to spend my week and a half break in France. I'll admit, I went into this trip with a strong bias toward the French. They were going to be mean, they were going to be snobby, and they would probably pee in their fancy French food because I'm not able to pronounce the items on the menu. But, I decided to go anyway. It's not very often that your boyfriend has an apartment in Paris.
So I packed my bags, took my first ever RyanAir flight (which will also be my last) and found myself in a strange land where people make weird nasal sounds when they're communicating which I tend to stumble over and then swallow like three-day old baguette chunks.
Honestly though, I was impressed and I have now added French to my growing list of languages to learn before I'm thirty (this list also includes Latin, German, to reteach myself Spanish, and Russian)

Here are some nice (and not so nice) things I learned about France:

1. When they laugh at you, it's actually more encouraging than demeaning
You would think that the guy working at Subway would at least speak a little English. That's incorrect. When we went in the first time, my friend Kelly tried asking for a six inch sub using her fingers to demonstrate. The guy looked confused, then started laying out six napkins to make six sandwiches. We've lived in Europe for seven months now and we still can't remember that they don't use inches. Thankfully, he found our attempts to communicate enjoyable (not pathetic as we obviously sounded). He even helped with the pronunciation of words like "oignon" or "laitue". I can now count to ten and successfully pronounce the word for "twenty" which is "vingt". Trust me, it doesn't sound like it looks.


2. Sometimes there are lines....(It is a tourist destination)
We spent one entire day moving from one tourist hot spot to the next hoping that there wouldn't be a two hour line (d'Orsay, Catacombs, Tim Burton exhibit all were a bust).
3. French is absolutely beautiful
If you've ever heard a native French person speak, you know what I mean. There's no snobbery about it. Just pure butter. (Although, Italian will always be my number one).


4. The Louvre is the worst museum in the world.
I cannot imagine a worse way to spend a day than in this museum. I like museums. I went to some unbelievably wonderful museums while in Paris. But, the Louvre was not one of them. It's disgustingly gigantic. Our tour guide said if you looked at everything for only ten seconds without eating or sleeping it would take you more than 6 months to get through the place. It's crowded. Overwhelming. Claustrophobic. And the crowd of a hundred people bunched around a tiny Mona Lisa really isn't worth it. The reputation of French snobbery must have originated amongst the tourists at this cultural Mecca.

Kelly and I in front of the Invisible Pyramid outside of the Louvre

5. Goat cheese is France's way of saying it loves you.

6. The Paris metro is better than Disney Paris.
Full of accordion players, violinist, puppet shows and bleeding drunk men, the Paris metro is full of surprises. And the best part is it's free! Well, sort of... The two for one deal is quite common. For me, this means staying close to Kyle as we use his metro card to go through the turnstile at the same time. For some other stray Parisians who just don't feel like paying, it means grabbing onto to my friend Kelly's waist when her back is turned as she's walking through.

Kyle and Joel goofing around in the metro

7. A good Parisian waiter can make make (or break) your night. 
We ate only one meal in an actual French restaurant (Paris is expensive!). After watching him scold another American woman for accidentally ordering rose wine when she had really wanted red, I was afraid of even ordering at all. The moment our waiter looked down his skinny nose at my pointing and gesturing to a dish on the menu, I was almost sure he'd be the one to pee on my food. Thankfully, we came at the end of the night, and as soon as the clock struck "almost time to get the hell out of here" our nightmare waiter became helpful and jolly. By the end of the night, he had brought us complementary postcards from the restaurant and joked with Kelly as she tried to pronounce the phrase "it was delicious!".

8. And finally, the Eiffel Tour sparkles!

I spent my last two days in Nice, France on the Côte d'Azur. The weather was perfect and I have two square sunburns on each ankle to prove it. In the end, I think France was rather good to me. Soon I will master their elegant "unh"-ing and "oui-ing". Then I will return to eat all their goat cheese and lecture them on the negative consequences of peeing in tourists' food. They will love me.

Bidet: The "Butt" of All the Jokes

 I can't remember where I've heard this joke before, but I'm going to start my post off with it:

President Bush is winding up a tour of Europe. When he gets to Italy, the bidet in his hotel confuses him. "Why is the drinking fountain in the bathroom so low to the ground?" 

Oh, Bidets.
Americans can't understand them. Italians can't live without.
I hadn't given much thought to the bidet in my own bathroom until the other night after dinner.
"Can I ask you something a little strange?" asked my roommate's girlfriend.
"Go ahead," I replied (not knowing what I was getting myself into).
"Are there really no bidets in America?"
No, there really aren't, which is precisely why most Americans, when they come to Europe have a moment of confusion when they enter the bathroom. A bidet is a sink like fixture meant for washing yourself after using the toilet. Set right next to the toilet in nearly all Italian apartments and hotels, it's a staple of daily hygiene. I just like to pretend it's not there.
For Americans, the bidet is a comical and confusing object. Most jokes are centered around the misconception that Europeans are in fact unhygienic because they use this "spot-washing" to take the place of daily showers. When I tried to express my disgust for it, I was quickly shot down.

     "How can America not have bidets? They're so nice!"
     "I'll tell you why not, they already have them built in. The water is so high in the toilets that it just splashes up when you drop something in."
(This was an observation from Alessandro who has been to the US)
     "Eeeeeewwwww"
     "Do you know why it's called a bidet?" Alessandro asked.
     "No, why?"
     "Bidet in French means little horse. It's because you have to sit on it like your straddling a horse to use it."
     "Oh, come on. Don't you think that's totally weird and unnecessary."
     "You just don't know how to use it right."
     "Yeah, did you know that it used to be weird for Italian southerners too. When they came to the north, they would use bidets for cultivating tomatoes plants."
     "Can you use it to wash your feet?"
     "Of course!"
     "How about washing clothes?"
     "Sure"
     "Oh, I don't know. They just seem so silly."
     "No, they're really nice. I really like using it!"
     "Yeah, I shower every day and I still use the bidet!"
     "How often do you shower, Berny?"
     "Uuuuhhhh, not every day..."
     "And you still don't use a bidet?"
     "Well...no...but..."
     "Gross! Americans are so unhygienic!"

Oh, how the discussion had turned.

     "Have you ever even tried it?"
     "No!"
     "Don't you want to?!"
     "Not really..."
     "But it's nice! You have to try it! How can you live in Italy for a year and not even try the bidet. It's a real cultural experience."

My study abroad experience had been reduced to the fine art of bathroom hygiene. But there was some truth in the cultural relevance of the bidet. Italians are actually very fond of them and don't understand the disgust and confusion found in the foreigner's point of view. So with the threat that my roommates were all going to wait outside the bathroom for me until I'd given them my verdict, I decided I'd have to try it out.
The thing is, I still don't really understand how it's supposed to work.
Sitting or squatting? Which direction are you supposed to sit? Do you use your hands? A towel? A special bidet cloth? Soap or no soap? How do you dry off? More toilet paper? Another towel? That's quite a few towels. Isn't that kind of wasteful?
My hesitations, I realized, all stem from preconceived notions and stereotypes I had of Italian hygiene that I'd brought with me from America. In the end, judging a bidet is just a manifestation of our fear of the unknown, of something new and strange that makes us uncomfortable.  And the bathroom, let's be honest, is the last place where anyone wants to feel uncomfortable.
I have given in to the roommate pressure and tried the bidet. Just once. For the details of such an experience, I recommend trying it yourselves one day. It was, well....wet. The main point is, though, nothing actually came out of the faucet to bite me or give me hives. It's a completely harmless contraception that actually makes some sense, if you care about personal hygiene. I think I'll probably stick with my normal hygiene routine, which, for those of you who know me well, is preeeeetty simple. The complexities of bidet usage and cleanliness, I'll leave to the "dirty" Italians.

Gol!!!!

There are many things about Italian culture that I love. Gelato. Espresso. Pasta. (Ok, maybe lots of food related things that I love). But, one thing I'll never been able to understand is soccer.
For some reason (and I am very thankful for it), I managed to find the one apartment in Bologna that contains not a single soccer fan. But, as I've been informed by my roommates, they're not normal.
This quickly became apparent when I watched my first game with Pietro (the boy I teach English to) and his family.
One night after dinner, they asked me if I would like to stay to watch the game. Bologna versus Naples. It was supposed to be a big deal. I said yes. I had never seen a game before and I thought it would be a good cultural experience.
For two hours, Pietro sat next to me narrating every move. He knew every player for Bologna for Naples, the referee names, the brand of shoes they were wearing, the color of the filling on the captain's back molar. This kid is 6-years-old! He won't tell me what time it is in English, but he'll tell me anything and everything about the world of "calcio".
He now is the proud owner of a collector's book. All the players, team photos, coaches and flags of Series A, B, and C are in this book and he must collect the playing cards to match up with the right empty spaces. Lately, my lessons with him have started with a thirty minute list of names that he's still missing and of the players he's just bartered for with his duplicates.
What I find the most confusing about soccer is that people will start yelling when it looks like nothing has happened at all. A player passes the ball and shouts of "Awh c'mon!" and arm-waving accompany it.  The ball goes out and everyone starts clapping and cheering. Someone kicks it far and everyone begins cursing. Then there is of course the elusive off-sides rule. One minute people are dribbling and the next a whistle blew and the other team has the ball. Everyone grumbles about that forward who was way to far up there and I still think we're the team with the possession.
Last weekend, I went to my very first game at the Bologna stadium with Pietro and his family. I was told we were playing Novara and that if we didn't win that would do bad things to our ranking.  Despite my hesitation, I still really wanted Bologna to win. Otherwise Pietro would probably consider their lose my fault since I was the new person at the game with them. That would make our relationship a little complicated
After the captain of Bologna missed that one type of kick where it's just him and the goalie, Pietro shut up for the entire first half. I thought he was about to cry. I thought his parents would try to cheer him up but one look at them and I saw his dad's face buried in his hands and his mom slouched down in the chair leaning against his shoulder. It was as if they were witnessing the drowning of innocent puppies.
Later in the game, something happened near the goal and everyone jumped up screaming. Apparently we scored. I hadn't seen but I jumped up too as Pietro's dad grabbed me and pulled me into an air-born hug. I was confused. As usual. But Pietro cheered up a ton.
The last ten minutes of the game kind of dragged after that (kind of like the first hour and a half). And then at dinner the complicated ranking conversation left me less than enthralled. But at least I tried it right?
I think I just miss KU basketball too much and that's why I'm trying to find a replacement in my life. Did you know that Italy is the only European country where ESPN360 doesn't stream? I had to hear about the Mizzou game from facebook and the highlight video.
Soccer just doesn't compare.

Shall we?

Along with teaching that almost-lovable little monster from my previous post, I've moved right along with my lessons at the middle school. My first day back I decided that after three months with the same group, I should probably learn their names. They've been working on the present-progressive tense so I played the Icebreaker game where you attach an action to the front of your name (i.e. Bouncing Bernadette) and call on people throughout the room. They have a pretty limited range of verbs so the results were pretty interesting. We had a Finding Federico, Taking Tomaso, Noticing Nicola, Voting Valerio, and my favorite: Nursing Natali. I half expected her to lift up her shirt and start "nursing" her pencil bag. Apparently, they teach it as the equivalent to "taking care of". Sure that is part of its definition, but not the first one that comes to mind.
Since most English teachers here in Italy are not native speakers, many things like this go unnoticed. In my roommate's middle school, everyone was taught that "apple" is pronounced "ehpple". Since I found that out, I have been very clear with my classroom on vowel pronunciation.
After the gerund lesson, the teacher of my class showed me the chapter they were working on and what I should focus my lesson on for next time. It was the future tense. But, she pointed out a very specific conversation printed at the front of the chapter in the textbook.
It went like this:

Mary: Hello John.
John: Hello Mary.
Mary: Shall we go to the store?
John: Yes, let's go to the store.
Mary: Shall we invite Susan?
John: Yes! Let's invite Susan.
Mary: Will she meet us there.
John: Yes, she will meet us there. Shall we go?
Mary: Yes, let's go!

The teacher of my classroom: If we could focus on shall for next time that would be great. The kids really have a hard time understanding when to use it.

They have a hard time? I don't think I ever learned it! And I speak English as my first language! Maybe I use it as a joke every once in a while (Shall we stop at the loo? [fake British accent]) but I thought it was considered archaic. In fact, according to Wikipedia, "shall" is considered an archaic term and it is grammatically correct to use will and shall interchangeably in both the US and the UK.
As much as I wanted to go in and blow their tiny little minds with my awesome native language skills, I couldn't exactly go into a lesson and discredit the teacher, their text book and completely confuse the poor kids.
I spent a good hour going over game scenarios in my head, but the thought of little Nursing Natali asking "Shall we buy some tomatoes?" and Voting Valerio responding, "Let's buy tomatoes!" was too hysterical.
I eventually decided to avoid shall all together and make fortune tellers with the class instead. Unfortunately, they're covering the future tense for the next two weeks. What in the world shall I teach them...?

The BF

I am in a very serious relationship. I'm not talking about my boyfriend, Kyle. Nor am I talking about my relationship with gelato (which is starting to get a little clingy). I'm in a very committed relationship with a 6-year-old Italian boy.
In case you've forgotten, Pietro and I have been moving right along with our English lessons. I still kick the soccer ball around. He still kicks it back at the mirror/picture frames/fragile centerpiece.
But I guess I didn't realize just how attached he was getting. Over Christmas break, Kyle came to eat dinner with me at the Longo's (Pietro's family). Everyone was really excited to meet him. Except for Pietro. He spent most of the night under the dinner table and ended it with a screaming tantrum that carried him into his room. Apparently, he was a little bit jealous. Their only interaction occurred during a foosball game, which I told Kyle to lose on purpose. My next lesson with Pietro, I asked him what he thought of Kyle.
"I'm way better than him at foosball. He lost 10 to 2."
Yup, he was a little jealous.

I now have this photo posted on my wall right next to the family photo from a camping trip.

This past week, I brought my friend Chloe to the lessons. Little did she know, I'd be blatantly using her for physical labor during her visit from Berlin. We spent most of the the time playing games that got pretty competitive. One such game, a favorite of ours, is meant to help practice the verb "to like". I made my own food flashcards,  all perfectly clear and realistic (Pietro said my picture of chocolate looked like poop). I then place the cards in the living and come back to sit on his bed. Then the game proceeds like so:

Pietro: D-d-d-o yoou like milk?

Me: No, I don't like milk?

Pietro: Do you like like apples?

Me: Only, one like Pietro.

Pietro: Do youuu like apples?

Me: No, I don't like apples.

Pietro: Do you like cake?

Me: Yes! I like cake!

He then races to the next room, grabs the flashcard with cake on it, races it back and watches as I happily "devour" my cake. Sometimes we switch off and he sits on the bed while I run back and forth (not my favorite).
But when it was time for Chloe and I to guess and race each other to the food images, I got a pleasant surprise. I let Chloe grab the flashcard the first time only to turn around and find Pietro standing there grinning. He grabbed the card of of Chloe's hand and shoved it into mine, racing back to his spot on the bed so I could bring him his food.
He wanted me to win.
I never thought the day would come when a kid would actually like me. Let alone that I would feel good about it. He won't be getting English anytime soon, but there are moments when we really get each other: marveling over the fact that "ph" makes the sound "f", teaching each other how to say "burp" in our respective languages, quietly coloring elephant pictures florescent pink because none of the grey markers work.
It's still hard to get myself motivated to go every week but, every time I leave now, I feel like we got something done.
And then I get this warm fuzzy feeling around my heart...
Haha gotcha! There is, at the least, a warm fuzzy picture on my wall. Who knows how much closer he can get.

Carnevale

I'll give you three guesses as to what the image above is all about.
No, it's not Halloween.
It's also not a toga party.
And no, this is not how Italians dress every day...
This is Carnevale. Or what we like to call it in the States, Mardi Gras. However, unlike in the States, Carnevale season is the entire month of February. A whole month dedicated to nonsense. Most people have probably heard of Carnevale in Venice. There are also some less touristy in other smaller cities. I chose to celebrate Carnevale in good old Bologna. Above we have all the residents and friends of Zamboni 18. As a group, we decided to dress as Roman gods and goddesses (we are in Italy after all). I'm standing third from the right with a gold helmet on. Since Americans are clearly wise and have a tendency for warfare, I went dressed as Athena.
We have almost everyone. Except for Zeus. Zamboni 18 runs more like free people's commune than a dictatorship. He didn't really seem to fit in.
We also have the pope. He's there to bring Christianity to the pagans.
Costumes and masks have a long history in Carnevale. Much longer than dressing up for Halloween. The concept of using a mask to create a equal social and economic plan, to break down class barriers and to escape reality has been discussed by poets, semioticians, and play-writers etc... And it all centers around this one holiday.
Celebrating Carnevale with other Italians was just another reminder of how open everyone here is. If you forget to "cheers" before you take a sip of your drink. You're considered strange and anti-social. Everyone dresses up. And there are no lame costumes like "nudist on strike". Last night, I talked with an aborigine, four songs, and some pasta. People get creative.
I also never tire of the "where are you from?" game. They can hear my accent but never can quite place it. I had people thinking I was from the UK, France, Canada, and South Africa. Though when I finally stated that I was from "gli Stati Uniti" everyone gets excited. With all the American students that I know are studying in this city, I am still shocked by the reaction of genuine excitement and intrigue when I say where I'm from.
Another great thing about all of this is that I understood what people were saying to me! I wrote a blog near the beginning of the year about a different party in which I really struggled with the language barrier.
Well guess what! I'm fluent! Hahahaha, no not really....
But, I am very content that I understood better when people spoke in Italian than in their broken, thickly accented English. Who wants to speak English at a party anyway. Italian is so much more lively!
I'd like to dedicate this post to my roommate Laura, whose idea it was to go as the entire company of Mount Olympus. Zamboni 18 won the costume contest thanks to this one:

Snow Days

 
It's still snowing in Bologna. This is unnatural. No one knows how to deal with it. And as a result, classes are cancelled for days in a row. I'm almost positive that I won't have school tomorrow. In which case, my last exam, the one that is the most difficult and that I've been working so hard to prepare for, will be postponed.
So what have I been doing with all this free time? The trains are cancelled. It's cold outside. And every time I leave the house it takes three times as long to walk anywhere. In order to keep this blog up to date I have to write about something. So here we have some of my recent activities.

-Throwing snowballs at people on the street from my window: I have not yet succeeded in hitting someone directly on the head. I'm trying to perfect my angling.

-Drinking hot chocolate: In Europe, hot chocolate isn't anything like that warm brown water from the States. Here they drink actual melted chocolate in a cup. Last week, one of my roommates braved the blizzard to buy Ciobar, the fabulous mix that when heated with milk in the microwave produces a cup full of heaven. That was a really nice night.

-Playing Settlers of Catan: I have finally taught my Italian roommates this game and they're now addicted. In the game, you have to collect different resources and the first night we played I was in desperate need of sheep, "pecora" in Italian. I used the word "pecorina" throughout the game, thinking I was asking for a cute, little sheep. "-Ina" usually when placed on the end of the word adds that connotation. They only told me I was wrong the next day when we were looking through my Dirty Italian Dictionary. Moral of the story is, definitely don't go around saying that you want "pecorina".

-Learning to talk with my hands: In Italian, gesturing is probably just as important as the tone of your voice. There actually are gestures that can completely take the place of words or phrases. My roommate Cristina gave me a lesson the other day on how Italians use their hands. I can know say, "Let's go, I'm hungry. He's crazy and stole all the food. There's no more." all without using words. It's quite the art.


-Studying: I put this one on here just to make my parents feel better.


-Ordering pizza: Bologna, as a city filled with college students, has a wonderful Web site called Pizzabo.it where you can go to order a pizza online and have it delivered. Since my hibernation began about a week ago, I've run out of groceries. Instead, I can get an onion pizza for only 4 euro brought right to my door! I always feel a little bad for the delivery guy...You don't have to tip here.

-Watching movies: Dubbing is much more popular in Italy that using subtitles. So when I watched The Matrix with my roommates, I was a little upset. In the Italian version, Neo is "l'eletto" or the Elect, not "the one". That totally messes with the connection between his name and his destiny! Also all Disney films are dubbed over in Italian. Even the songs. In the Italian version of "Aristocats" the song "Everybody wants to be a cat" is changed to "Everybody wants to sing jazz". That's just wrong.

 Hopefully, the snow will stop soon and I can leave my house again. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to get back to "studying."

R.I.P.

It wasn't there. I stared at the spot where I had locked up my bike, trying to find the outlines of white against the the dark pavement. Did I have too much to drink? Maybe I put it somewhere else? I wandered among the other bikes locked against the fence nearby. Nope, it had definitely been there. Chained to a pole that I thought could handle the job.
Apparently, bike thieves in Bologna are known to remove the signs from poles so they can lift the chained up bike up over the top. I learned this after my thirty minute trudge home in the cold.
Bike theft in Bologna is about as common as that annoying itch to use the bathroom when you know that there isn't one nearby. It's a nuisance. Rather unpleasant. But we can't stop it from happening.
Almost everyone in Bologna buys a stolen bike. They know it, in turn, will eventually get stolen. Then they'll buy a new stolen one. It's almost like you're paying a fee to rent it for a while.
I thought I would start off with clean karma and pay for a used bike. 50 Euro. It lasted me a full semester and I really thought for a while there I could make it through the year. But apparently leaving it outside a two room bar/casual dance party under a bridge in the north of the city doesn't factor in to karma. So here's to my hideous bike that creaks and has faulty breaks! I hope your next owner falls off your wobbly seat!
On the other hand, having something stolen from you once puts you on alert for the next attempt. And it wasn't that far behind.
In case you haven't seen the snow in Bologna, I'll post the picture from my Facebook below:

Bologna is ill-equipped for such weather (as seen by the fact that my classes have been cancelled for four days). When I decided to venture out to buy much-needed groceries, I was concentrating hard on not slipping on the completely iced-over stonework of the cities streets.
I was almost to my front door about to drop the five groceries bags filled with nutella, milk and other unnecessarily heavy items when a woman approached me in the middle of the sidewalk asking me for money. I swerved to walk around here since the bags we getting unbearably heavy, but I took the side heading toward the building. She mirrored my action, ending up cornering me against the wall still asking for coins. As I swung my arms to move around her yet again, I saw her shift the blanket she had in her arm. I checked my purse, which had been hanging on my front right hip.
My wallet was gone.
I briefly panicked about leaving it at the grocery store. I didn't want to believe that, in broad daylight  this 30-something woman had reached into my purse, successfully found my wallet and was about to walk away with it.
But as she shifted to move around me in the opposite direction, I abruptly turned to face her.
"Dammi il mio portfoglio!" (Give me my wallet)
In a moment of adrenaline mixed with fear and anger, only English swear words came to mind.
She continued to bow her head down asking for money while backing away. I took another step forward. Afraid of losing her or ending in some kind of all-out chase. She looked straight at me then and I grabbed at the blanket in her arms, out from which fell my precious wallet (home to credit cards, various documentation, as well as a hundred euro).
This is not a very scary story. No one was almost killed or mugged or even really threatened. I've just never had it happen to me before. I keep running it over in my head. What if she hadn't given me my wallet back? What if she tried to run away? What if I went upstairs, only to realize a minute later she had taken it? Would I unleash my male roommates on her?
It's better that it happened to me this way. I still have my wallet, but I also have a much more heightened sense of my surroundings. I think, however, I should definitely throw away my purse.

But I thought foreign students didn't have to read that book....

What have I been doing in the month of January? Well, classes don’t start until February/March (once again, a very indefinite time frame), so have been preparing myself for the one thing I’ve been dreading most since my arrival.

The oral exam.

My very first exam with the University of Bologna was on Wednesday. The topic: Contemporary Italian Literature. A class I finished at the beginning of November, so I was definitely nervous.           

At 9 am, I was outside Professor Bazzochi’s office shoved into the hallway with 80 other students signed up to take the exam. I was not actually able to sign up online because I only took his course for half credit. So as he went through the list calling each name to see who showed up, I waited anxiously to shove my way to the front and sign a piece of paper for the “fuori lista” (off the list) students.

“For those the last forty names I called please come back around noon. For those students off the list, we’re going to try to put you in the empty spaces of the students who don’t show up so please stay in this area.”

Great, I was going to sit in a hallway with 80 other panicking Italian students as I await my doom.

The exam took place inside Bazzochi’s tiny office. He also had three other assistants give exams with him. Not only would I have to speak thoughtfully and slowly. But some Italian kid would be sitting next to me doing the same thing. Talk about having trouble concentrating.

The first hour went by relatively fast. I spent it with my head bent down devouring my typed up notes. Some of the really enlightening information I managed to take down for the course included sentences like…

“ It is easier to understand a work from long ago than one that is piu vicino” (translation: closer)

“The passage is important because….what did he just say????” 

 "Finestissiasi????" (Not a real word in any language)

And…

“Egg metaphor: We are the yolk. Tradition is the shell.”

I was not feeling very confident.

My second hour in the hallway I decided to go to the bathroom. It was locked.

Third hour: I started to watch student reactions as they left the office. Some left without a word, others had very detailed discussions with their friends about the questions they were asked. This is completely normal for an Italian exam. Professors tend to rotate through the same 10 questions, so it’s very likely that your friends could help you out.

Every once in a while someone would burst out and shriek “Trenta!” to his/her friends. This means 30 or full points. For the American grading system, 30 and 29 are A’s, 28 is an A-, 27 is a B+, and 26 is a B. I had decided I would refuse anything under a 26 and just try it again at the end of February.

Hours 4 and 5, I took a lunch break. They were only on number 40 and it was starting to look like they were saving all the off the list students until the very end.

Those last few hours before they called my name were the worst. My palms were so clamy, I probably could have washed my hair in the sweat.

By the time they called my name, there were only 4 other people in the hallway. I had waited 7 hours. And it was finally my turn to fail.

I sat down across from one of the assistants. The girl. I heard she was nicer.

“Why don’t we start with a question that’s a little more complicated.”

(Nervous laugh) “Uh, ok.”

“Compare the two books Cristo si e’ fermato a Eboli and Sud e Magia.”

I froze.

“Foreign students didn’t have to read Sud e Magia…”

“Oh,  I know. Just tell me what you know from lecture.”

“Ummmm. Well….The author of Sud e Magia is De Martino. It’s about magic. That’s really it. Magic is also really important in Cristo.”

It went on like that for a while. I was struggling. But, she didn’t really seem to be listening. She cut me off several times to describe some things to me and kept looking around at her colleagues. I think she was just bored.

She also asked me about the sottoproletariato in Pasolini. I don’t know what that word means. Have you ever heard of the under-proletariat? So, I fudged through that one as well. When she asked me to describe a poem by Pasolini I simply said…

“In L’Appennino, Pasolini describes Italy from Lucca to Napoli…”

(Completely interuptting me) “Good, good that’s all I need.”

We finished the exam before I was really done talking. She smiled at me saying, you clearly read the books and speak very good Italian so I’m going to go ahead and give you full points.

A 30! I couldn’t believe I scraped a 30 out of that mess of nerves and what I thought was my worst Italian ever.

The moral of this story is that Italian exams make no sense. They make you wait all day, feeling like jumping off the building might be more productive, for an exam that only lasts five minutes. I was just lucky to go last. We’ll see how lucky I am next time.  

Le Vacanze

Two and a half years ago, I went on a trip that probably changed my life. 2 weeks in Italy. That was the culmination of my senior year of high school and also my initial studies of one of the most influential men in my life, Dante Alighieri. With the "Dante Club", I traveled to Rome, Siena, Florence, and Milan. I remember very vividly crying at the top of the Spanish steps with the overwhelming thought that I might never be able to come back.
Well, that was a silly thought wasn't it.
I went back to Rome over New Year's and I got to do it all again.
Look up into the Pantheon.
Walk through the Roman Forum.
Throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain.
How strange to think that the last time I did all these things, I was a journalism major studying Spanish with really long hair.
When I first started my search for a study abroad program, Rome was the place I had to be. I ultimately settled on Bologna because I couldn't find a program that fit what I was looking for. After going back, I am very happy with my decision.
Rome will always have a place in my heart, but between the tourists, the overly-theatrical Italian salesmen and the price, I don't think I have a place there.
I didn't speak a word of Italian the entire weekend. In every store, they would blatantly ignore my very clearly worded Italian and responded only in English. My meals there were not nearly as memorable as the delectable Spaccanapoli in Bologna. And the tourist attraction after attraction just felt fake. My jaw will always drop as I turn the corner to see the Pantheon in the midst of gelato shops and a Mcdonalds, but when a million other people are taking the exact same photo as you, it doesn't really feel special anymore.

 Me at the Coliseum. Making fun of other people's photos.

 Jumping in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

On the other hand, New Years was probably the most authentic thing I did there. My group parked ourselves just off the steps of the Vittorio Emmanuele monument and watched as people poured into Piazza Venezia. After midnight, we followed the crowd in a parade down Via Nazionale. Some girl grabbed my hand and wove me through the lines of people following her friends. When I asked her where we were going she just laughed and then shushed me. I decided it would be better if I let go...

Celebrating!

I spent the rest of my break traveling in Austria with Kyle. And unfortunately, I did a terrible job of documenting it. We spent time in Salzburg and Vienna, with one day of skiing. An interesting decision since Kyle had never ever skied before and we refused to pay for the pricey lessons. He spent most of the day on his butt....

I discovered that Austrians all speak English. A trend I'm starting to find in so many other places in Europe that aren't Italy. Once you get out of Rome and Florence, Italians have a very poor practical knowledge of the language. But then again, how can they really learn how to speak it when they sit in lecture halls with 300 other students and every American movie or show is dubbed instead of subtitled. Either the system isn't working, or some people just don't want to learn it or are intimidated by it.  Sometimes I don't blame them. When my roommate tries to imitate my American accent, she makes me sound like a cave-man who has rocks in his mouth. I love speaking Italian. It's such a beautiful language in such a beautiful country, I think everyone should come here and try it for themselves. Maybe even skipping over the cheesy photos of the Coliseum and the over-priced tourist menu.

The New Digs

After a full month of awkwardly avoiding the roommates in my old apartment, I can finally announce that I have a brand new place to call home!! The move over here though definitely doesn't deserve any exclamation points. Since I'm too cheap for a cab, I decided that one trip on the bus should do it. Between me and Kyle we attempted to load three rolly suitcases, three backpacks, a duffel bag, a grocery bag full of hangers and a precariously positioned bag of textbooks onto public transportation. I'm surprised we got off at all. When the bus abruptly halted to its first stop, the bag full of hangers spilled onto the floor. The second stop a suitcase rolled away down the bus as we were trying to pick up the hangers. And at our stop, the bag of books ripped and fell into the street. I guess it's better than having half of them fall in the bus as it drives away.
Despite the harrowing move, my new apartment makes my old apartment look like the hole that Voldemort crawled out of. I moved from an apartment with five other Italians to basically the same situation. In my new place we have Francesco, Alessandro, Laura, Marco, and Cristina who I will be sharing a room with. She's in her second year studying Geography and she has curly hair like me! There are five rooms in the apartment and ours is the only double.

Here we have my room. I would like to point out that there is actually space for two normal sides beds! I am convinced that the mattress for my last bed came from someone's childhood crib. My bed is the red one. I made an effort to decorate this time around. I think it's a sign that I'm meant to be here.

 Here, we have a desk. Normally, this would not be that exciting, but at my old place, we didn't have two desks until the beginning of December. Now I actually have a place to sit that isn't my bed! And it's a rolly chair!

 This armoire is twice the size of my last one. And it also isn't about to collapse. What a plus!

 Here we have the main entrance hallway. There are several other hallways in the apartment that I figured no one wants to look at that badly. This one is especially impressive though because of it's size. Most Italian apartments don't even have a living room. I, on the other had have a hallway big enough to house a family of three!

 Ta-dah! The gigantic living room. Probably three times the size of my last one and about as big as a decent size two person apartment. The room also features a fire place, a futon, an actual bed, an extra desk, and a dinner table big enough for all my extended family.

 While this bathroom picture isn't all that impressive, there are several things to note here. 1. There is no mold. 2. The toilet works. 3. There is actually a full bath tub in here as well as a separate shower. 4. This isn't the only bathroom in the apartment!
I went from one six person apartment to another and having a second bathroom makes all the difference.

 Here we have an actual pantry, with two extra refrigerators and a freezer. I have a cupboard and shelves in the fridge. Food just kind of sat everywhere in my old place. On the counters, in the sink, on the floor, in the bathroom....

Here we have the kitchen. If you check out the picture from my kitchen two posts ago you will clearly be able to see that this new kitchen was built for grown-ups and not for a Kitchen Little set.

Look at that! We have a dishwasher! It actually washes the dishes for you! I have yet to see a real dishwasher in Italy. Even the family I babysit for doesn't have one. How one of these far too unappreciated appliances ended up in a student house I will never know.

 I have a balcony! Not the best view, but I can sit out there any time I want.

 The view from my window. I have no idea what church that is, but isn't it pretty? My location is fabulous. I went from living outside of the city walls to Via Zamboni, the main university street in the center of the city. Along with this comes the sweet lulling sounds of student life. My room is right above a rowdy Irish Pub. Last night, I fell asleep with the soft serenade of drunk Italians who had somehow gotten a hold of a megaphone. This may be the only downside to the apartment. I like to see it as I'll never be bored on a Saturday night.

My final image is a picture of my keys. I am only posting this because when I showed them to my sisters, all I heard of Skype was, "OMYGOSHTHOSEARESOOOCOOOL!" It's only appropriate that my cool new apartment should have a cool set of keys.  They're opening the door (literally) to a much cooler semester.