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Published: October 20th 2010
I have a gigantic headache, and the only part of my body that is warm is my pelvis, and that's only because my computer is sitting on it. Even my big rainbow blanket and my hooded white eskimo sweatshirt aren't helping to solve this stupid Italian problem with interior heating. It is against the law to turn on the heat until November 1st here. Also, not even once in the course of a day does the sun touch the building that my school is in. It's like they designed it purposely to be an ideal place for natural refrigerators.
And hey, come to find out, Italy's even colder when you live in the mountains of Tuscany. I know this because I just passed a weekend there. On Friday afternoon, Filippo (art restoration professor, the smoking heavily-accented one who makes us draw lines) picked me up with the 3 other students from our class to bring us to his house (slash beautiful medieval cave-home) for a weekend stay, because we would be making a fresco there. I'm talking a real fresco here - same shit that famous artist did in the Sistine Chapel, with plaster and tempera paint. That means actually sifting the rocks and dirt and concrete, adding the gesso, scraping the walls, applying and soaking the plaster, smelling like B.O., the works. Well, we arrived at around 6:00pm and went upstairs to drop off our crap, and what do we find? Nothing other than two four-year-old, adorable little children by the names of Tabatha and (brace yourself for this one) Michelangelo. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Lisa-Ray and I stayed upstairs with the kids while the boys moved some furniture downstairs to prepare for fresco-ing (which is just the first of many fine examples of natural, sexist, Italian-family role delegation from this weekend, to which I have absolutely no problem adhering, especially considering it was a choice between lifting furniture and playing hide-and-seek with a piccolo Zorro). Also, remember that these 4-year-olds are 4-year-old Italians, which means they speak better Italian than I do. This is a fact that fascinated me for a large part of the weekend, because being around Michi (pronounced 'Mickey', Michelangelo's nickname) means hearing the phrasing and communication skills of a native-in-training. He has been learning his language skills in order of their communicative value. As a kid, you slowly you work your way up, with words and body language and intonation all developing contemporarily. It's just so incredible to watch from a foreigner's perspective. I've been taught according to a proper educational order, based on memorizing formulas of conjugation and other rules, and I use that 'cheat-sheet', so to speak, to make my lingual decisions. It's the intellectual approach: Here are reasons, now use them to help you. Compare this to the infancy approach: Monkey see, monkey do. It's not important as a child that you know why we conjugate verbs this way in this situation, or how that colloquial phrase came about; you just go straight for the direct result. If I say this, I get this reaction. Boom, done. If you communicate it right the first time, you can get what you need.
At the very least, if none of that holds your interest, I can tell you that there is nothing more adorable in the whole world than Michi tip-toeing around the room advising us to be "piano piano" because the giant battles of the GORMITI monsters make "distrutto tutto", or hearing a scampering down the stairs and all of a sudden there's a 'thump' of landing and a little voice goes, "Eccomi!"
My mommy ache was on overdrive all weekend.
In other news, I would like to share that I visited the hot springs on Saturday, and gave myself a bonafide mud mask treatment. Yes, that does in fact mean that I took the smelly, rotten egg, sulfur-stinking mud from the bottom of the river and covered my entire face with it. I also witnessed nudity here, and evident drug use, and an overall disregard for modesty. Apparently there's a hippie culture living in the obscurity of the Tuscan countryside, and they like to go to the hot springs on the weekends. I'm not complaining, either. Their self-assurance was enviable. I wish I were secure enough to walk around with a disgusting, infected, yellow and purple skin disease glaring from my stomach and remain completely unfazed, too. But hey, maybe it will come with age.
Hmm, let's see.... I've been spending the past 2 weeks with basically the same consistent activities. For one, my health has been determinedly poor, which is just awesome in itself. For two, I've been travel planning. It takes a lot of research to organize just weekend plans, nevermind my vacation week in Dublin, and then a three-week, end-of-semester European sojourn on top of it all. But the exciting news that came about this past fortnight is that Steve is now coming to travel with me during the holidays. After I finish this journal entry, I will be booking all of our hostels online, to secure our place. Itinerary: Rome, Vienna (for Christmas), Paris, Amsterdam (for New Years), London, and back to Rome for our flight home. Bsadllkajhdfasdluysafklsjbcmvxzliuyerwajklsdafasdf. And if that doesn't convey my emotions, I can't help you.
For three (returning to my consistent activities), there's always the emotional roller coaster that comes with.... well, I was going to say 'being abroad' here, but it really just comes with life, doesn't it? I have discovered a new affinity for churches, as a result, although unfortunately they don't seem to share the sentiment. Just two Sundays ago, I actually got kicked out of one. So much for pleading sanctuary - it appears that sympathy is no longer in their repertoire. But did I just suggest that the Catholic church used to be sympathetic? Perhaps I should
inquire into the validity of that statement.
Another fun fact about this past week is that I began my Italian literature class. The classroom is in the old Psychiatric Hospital of Siena. That means that I now spend 6 hours per week of my life at the asylum. How ironic. In regard to the class itself though, I definitely have my work cut out for me. There are about 30-40 people in the class, and it's set up like a normal American high school classroom, with rows of desks, and no slanted auditorium setting. It's also very intimidating to find yourself as the foreign kid; I am so blatantly American over here, from my light brown hair and slightly freckly skin to my complete failing in the fashion department (not that I dress badly at all, because I have seriously stepped it up since I've been here, way too many skirts and leggings for my liking, but even that doesn't compare to Italian women... it's ridiculous how much stock they put in fashion). Anyway, I could hardly understand a word the professor was saying on the first and second days. The third day, I braved the 2nd row, where I could hear him much better, and that helped, but it still takes every strand of conscious focus in my brain to string together the basics of what he's talking about. Thankfully I have some experience with literature, so when we go through a poem and try to decipher to meter and rhyme scheme and syntax, etc, I have been able to follow along. And I've gotten some really good stuff out of it: We read poems by Palazzeschi, Gozzano, Sbarbaro, and Capana, and talked about various philosophical concepts, including existentialism, futurism, the subconscious, oscurità, etc, you all know I could go on for hours about this stuff. I'm also now reading for this class a book called La Coscienza di Zeno, a classic Italian read by Italo Svevo. It is very, very hard. I have to read paragraphs over and over again just to make sure I at least have the gist of it before continuing to the next. And it's also very unfortunate, because I have the sensation that there is a lot of great, juicy cynicism in this book that is going straight over my head, and that's thoroughly disappointing to me. But we'll see. Maybe if I really commit myself, I'll start picking up on it for real.
Class updates: Italian conjunctive is very annoying. I am in the process of deciding on a research topic for Art History. I got to see a medieval library today in culture class that had 800-year-old copies of Ovid and Homer. In my drawing project, the ideas are there, I just need to actually commit to some dedicated work. And the art restoration frescos are really good, pictures to come. Filippo was very happy.
Other news: I like to incorporate Disney into my life on a regular basis, and this past week, Prince Ali was involved. Unfortunately, no Italian dub can ever live up to Robin Williams, so the movie was seriously lacking. Also, Italian lyrical translations are some of the stupidest and funniest things I've ever heard. But it really is sad. Maybe my career can be writing better movie soundtrack translations, because even I can do better than "A world... for only one of us, for me and for you, only for us, only for us, for me and for you."
And speaking of music (because I'm blatantly grasping at straws for a transition right now), I discovered a brand new hobby just two Saturdays ago, and it's called Discoteca.
A discoteca is an Italian club, popular for ages 15-30, although they usually draw a crowd closer to the 20-25 age group. I went to my first discoteca with four of my friends here: Fabio, Sarah, Zac, and Lisa-Ray. We arrived at 8:30pm, because for 15 euro we were able to get a dinner buffet - all you can eat, and all the wine you can drink - and then party until 4:00am. For the first half hour, we were standing outside, waiting for the bouncers to let us in. Bouncers. And there were so many people. Does anybody remember Teens Night Out? That's what this reminded me of, except Italian and older, and there were so many MEN. I don't know what the hell is wrong with the United States, but everyone knows that it's women that go out dancing, and men are always in the minority. Well, Italy is absolutely the opposite. This place was easily 70%!m(MISSING)en. And so many of them were gorgeous. It was like the anti-Brandeis.
When we got in, they had the buffet tables loaded with pasta, bread, salad, wine, so much stuff. Also, the tables were all taken, because the place was packed, so my little group stood around the end of one of the buffet tables and ate there. The discoteca was huge, and lit with blue and purple neon lights, with a central raised station in the middle of the floor for the DJ, and stairs lining the walls like some kind of visual-trip-painting by M. C. Escher, and there was a red-and-orange-lit Smoking Room upstairs that had a wall of windows. It kinda looked like the tube crawls at Chuck E Cheese, except that there were a bunch of kids in their 20s smoking and dancing instead of 5-year-olds crawling and listening to jungle sound recordings of elephants trumpeting and lions roaring. Anyway, we drank a LOT of wine, since it was free, and at like 10:00pm, the party starts. People start dancing. And for the most part, people were just rocking out. What I mean to say is, none of the raunchy grinding that has come to be completely normal in the US. It was amazing. And they played the Beatles and the Beach Boys and everyone was going nuts (especially my group, we're belting them out because we actually know the words, unlike everyone else), and Fabio was trying to translate all the Italian song lyrics for us, which was such a giant fail, because we were all wasted and didn't honestly care and just screamed out nonsense anyways. Then Fabio's friend Jacopo took my hand and went to buy me a drink. And while we're waiting there for a drink, this other guy next to us starts looking at me, and then he's talking to me and asking, "Do you like Italian boys?" I couldn't believe he was serious; what an awkward question! I just laughed, but he asked again. So I just said yeah, sure I do. And then he was asking me to choose, Jacopo, or him. I laughed and tried to ignore the question, but that wasn't good enough, so I said, "Well, HE's the one buying me a drink." This didn't deter him much, and he tried for another few minutes to 'lure' me, until finally he gives up, and asks, "A kiss, for the road?" I shook my head, and then he kissed me anyways. Then he left, and Jacopo (who I believe witnessed the whole thing) gave me my drink, and then I drank it, and then HE kissed me, and then I returned to my friends. Oh, Europeans.
Well, while we're dancing, Zac is making us laugh with imitations of some really bad dance moves, and overall we're just being idiots and dancing to ourselves, except that I'm kind of flirting with a very good-looking guy in a white shirt who has been dancing nearby... we keep making eye contact. Well, 5 minutes go by, 10, and then I spin, and suddenly I'm facing him. And we start to dance.
The dancing was amazing. He takes my hands and spins me around, and then our noses are touching, and suddenly he's holding my waist with one arm and leading me, holding my right hand with his left. And it is just the cutest thing in the world, because no one dances like this anymore in the US. And then Lady Gaga comes on, and he puts his hands up, and so do I, and we dance like idiots with the rest of the crowd, and he spins me again... And the rest of the night is a glorious blur of those disco lights and eskimo kisses and dancing, and being led in an adventure around the Discoteca, until finally it's 3:30am, and Fabio finds me and tells me it's time to go, and I must meet him at the entrance. So I tell my temporary lover, my Italian Discoteca boyfriend, with whom I had just spent 4 1/2 hours with, and he takes out his phone, and tells me that he is only 10 minutes away from Siena, and he asks me to add my number, and then my name. And then he says that he will call me, and I nod. And a kiss-- and we part. And I meander out of the Discoteca, and link arms with Lisa-Ray and Zac, and Fabio's carrying Sarah like a little tipsy princess, and we get to Fabio's car and drive away.
Fation texted me on Tuesday night, 3 days later. Very simple: "Buonanotte Alyssa, sono Fation." I didn't get it until the morning, but by that time he had already sent me a new message. "Alyssa. I love you. Risp."
Hmm. He already loves me. Things really do work differently over here.
Later he told me that it was the only thing that he knew how to say in English, but "tu mi piaci molto". And then it was "tvb" - Ti voglio bene. And then it was (in Italian) "From 1 to 10 how much do you like me". And then it was "You, Saturday night, what are you doing". And then "I need to see you", "Ti voglio bene", and "Ti sono mancato questo weekend".
I'm still not really sure if he's actually Italian, considering Fation is more French-sounding. I also haven't decided yet if he is desperate or weird. Or both. Which is truly unfortunate, because he wasn't either of those things at the Discoteca. Or hey, maybe I'm truly irresistible, and he actually did fall in love with me in the course of an evening at the club. It could happen, right?
Still, maybe I'll have him come hang out with my friends this weekend, for the hell of it. It might be worth the story.
In the meantime, I will be spending my time catching up with schoolwork, organizing trips, healing my achilles tendon, and trying to stay warm. But perhaps there'll be some surprises mixed in, too. After all, it seems that there almost always are. 😊
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Sarah
non-member comment
oh ya
"DJ got us fallin' in LOVE!" YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!