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Hummmm, where to start? I suppose I will go in cronoglogical order and recount some of the excitement of this weekend...
There was no school on Friday or Saturday on account of the Alpini. Who are the Alpini? And why would we get school off? Well, the Alpini are an important branch of the Italian military who really have more of a historical importance nowadays. There is lots more information on Wikipedia if you are interested (and it is rather interesting their role in the world wars) and if your not, I won't bore you with details. So, the weekend of the Alpini comes to a different city every year, and this year happened to be the year for Bergamo. This means that 400,000 old men in awesome little green hats invaded the city for the weekend, making transportation through the center literally impossible, and therefore all schools (and just about everything else that doesn't sell alcohol) were closed. I spent all day Friday walking about the city with friends to enjoy the festivities. The Alpini were camped on every green surface around, tents, campers, picnic tables, and kegs. Walking amongst them meant a constant stream of shouted compliments
and invitations to drink with them. At one point I was abducted onto a long trailer being pulled slowly by a quad for a picture, by an old man who literally picked me up and put me in amongst them. Then I was thankfully dragged out of the mess by a friend, though not after a bit of tug-o-war with me as the rope. The air buzzed with hearty laughter and general joy that sunny spring day. It was a cultural experience I will never forget.
That evening I took a train to Milan to stay the night with another exchange student. Our bus for Florence parted extremely early Saturday and I had no desire to get up at five in the morning to do the hour train ride in time to catch it. We had a lovely dinner with her host family and tried to quell our excitement enough to catch some shut eye. We hurried out of the house the next morning and took the very efficient Milan metro to the meeting post where we enthusiastically greeted our fellow foreigners.
The Bus carried us through red poppy dotted landscape to the fantastic city of Florence. The
first day we started our tour with a fantastic view from one of the hills that overlooks Florence, on-top of which there is (of course) a very old gorgeous church. The bit that stuck with me about this church was a little area under the alter that had a sort of low ceiling and many little pillars, making it seem a bit like a forest. The ceiling had once all been painted and they redid a part of it to show what was there, a really gorgeous sight it must have been, and the paintings must have enhanced the forest feel. We then made our way into the city itself and walked through the center of Florence. It was my second time walking around such constructions as the duomo and seeing the famous baptistry doors, but it was no less awe striking. We moved across the river quickly to get to our appointment at the Brancacci Chapel in time. This is the church in which resides Masaccio's famous "Adam and Eve". The sensation of seeing the original of something you have studied in school or only seen in art books is one that is not explained easily. I have tried
a few times in this blog which just reminds me how lucky I am to be able to experience it so many times in one year.
The next morning we went straight away to the Pitti palace, which was the last Medici residence, among other things, and which has behind it the marvelous Boboli Gardens. I and another Rotary student from South Africa split off from the group to explore the gardens in a more peaceful manner, our group of mostly american teenagers is fun, but can be overwhelming at times. It was a gorgeous spring day, fresh and sunny. We followed vine covered and picturesque paths down to the little pond that holds the only floral part of the garden as an island in the middle. It was covered with flowering or fruiting little citrus bushes whose blossoms infused the air with a sweet, serene perfume. The sculptures of slightly ugly fish creatures gaped at us with all the indifference of time and lively white butterflies danced among the fountains. It was simply fantastic. As we moved back towards the museum we came across a little market on the side of the gardens that had a little nursery
and stands selling things like hand made soaps and perfumes. I bought a little bottle of a sort of wine to put on cookies for my host mom and just enjoyed the generally cheerful atmosphere.
Next we found the costumes/textiles section of the museum. It was closed when I came with my mom and I was therefore thrilled to be able to see it this time. Other then the obvious joy of looking at beautiful things, there is an exciting glimpse of life that can be found in the clothes of a long time ago, a hint at what life was like, who those people were. I am so glad and so lucky to have seen it! The last thing I should mention about the visit to the Pitti palace would be the special show they were having, in which there was an original Botticelli. I am not sure the name of it, but it is unmistakable the face and shoulders of the woman found in his "Venus" and "La Primavera" (spring). All in all, it was an ideal morning spent in an ideal place with ideal weather.
After a delicious pizza for lunch, we loaded onto the
bus and head to Pisa to see what? The leaning tower of Pisa of course! The funny thing about our trip to Pisa was that we didn't actually see any of Pisa. We stopped a large parking lot void of anything other than tour buses and immigrants selling fake gucci bags and plastic bracelets. We walked for 10 minutes on an average not very pretty street in the flow of other tourists, crossed over some railroad tracks, then along the outside of the city walls along a pedestrian only lane lined from end to end with tourist stalls that sell things like italian flags, ciao bella T-shirts and neon colored leaning tower of Pisa figures. This continues on either side of the street right up to the city gates, and after that it continues all down the right as the leaning tower of pisa and giant white duomo rise from giant pristine, green lawns on the left. We came for long enough for everyone to take pictures of each other "holding up" the tower, everyone fighting with the hundreds of other tourists for what I assume to be one of the most cliche pictures of our time, and then left
along the same row of stalls, stopping long enough to buy little leaning tower key chains. It was a rather fascinating little detour.
And that was my weekend :D
The other day I had a volleyball practice and came home with a nice little anecdote for you all, particularly for those of you in California:
My good friend on the team had a Berkley Cal shirt on with the little bears marching across the chest. I exclaimed excitedly when I saw it that I had been there a few times and planned on at least applying. She looks at it a bit surprised and goes "oh!" obviously oblivious to what the shirt represented, I explained that the bear was on the flag of California and she says (translated) "California has a flag?" I covered a laugh with a cough and then said "yah, and with basically the same colors as the Italian flag, red, white, green, and the bear." at which point another friend breaks in and asks, "well, what color is the bear?" At this point I couldn't help it anymore and cracked up, "well, it's brown.... bear colored." We all laughed hard enough that we got yelled
at by the coach for not moving after the serve.
Last night I was out late watching my coaches volleyball game and noted a very funny cultural difference: In the States, when a volleyball game is over the guys who invade the court always play at basketball, dribbling about and shooting hoops, in Italy, they do the same sort of thing, just with a soccer ball instead. (Inter beat the Germans! woot!)
Pictures of all this coming soon!
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OLeg Harencar
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I love that Berkley t-shirt story.