March 30, 2009
"When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life. I see so much magic though I missed it at the time." - Jaime Cullum
Where have I been?! Not only have I seemingly forgotten about my blog-writing, but apparently I have fallen off of the face of the earth as we know it; not emailing my family, uploading pictures...nothing!
The truth is, I’ve been having some ‘me time’. In fact, I’ve been laying in bed all day (it’s just about 2pm here in Firenze) sleeping and allowing my mind to wander. Let’s see…where did I
last leave off in this journal of mine? Ah, well, I suppose I shouldn’t begin where I left off, but begin where I feel I have left off significant amounts of information, no?
I’ve been traveling a great amount since I last wrote…I feel that every place was just as beautiful as the last, opening before me like a new book and, with each page turn, revealing to me the wonders of its culture, people, history.
Venice was especially beautiful, dispite its immense crowds gathered to witness the commencement of Carnivale. The winding canals of the town and its narrow walkways made one feel as if the times of mask-wearing Venetians were here and now. The costumes of the festival, while brilliant in color and in elaborate detail, drew ones eye upward and onward in the crowd, desperate for that next surprise. Giant puppets roamed the squares – raptors with sound effects and ten-foot-tall features delighted the people…and scared the children (which, of course, fed my own personal amusement). The descending of the angel, which signals the actual commencement of the festival, was truly a sight to behold. Granted, the point from which this traveler viewed the spectacle was from behind a crowd of about thirty to fifty people…and through building scaffolding. Nonetheless, the music and regality with which the whole weekend played out was astonishing. Even on Murano and Burano, the islands visited by tourists for glass blowing and painted houses, the excitement of Carnivale could be felt.
Brighton…ohhh Brighton. My first trip to the land of the Queen could not have been a better experience. After just walking around the ocean-front town on the afternoon of my arrival, confirmed was my desire to pack up and move to England. The weather was perfect: a faint breeze, sunshine to bathe in, and light, fluffy clouds to gaze at when one was tired of observing the runners, bikers, and walkers all drawn to the seafront path and Brighton Pier. The beach, itself, is a detail of the town that especially caught my attention – a stone beach! No sand at all! If there was ever a better idea in the world other than to have NO sand at a beach, I have yet to hear it! The stones, baked in the sun, served as my seat for a great part of both days that I was in Brighton. The other part was spent in celebration of a friend’s birthday, and let me tell you – the Brits know how to party. When our train was cancelled due to a passenger committing suicide by throwing themselves from it, my fellow traveler Katie and I opted for a ocean-side bus ride to Eastbourn. Eastbourne itself seemed a quiet town, and actually reminded me a lot of my own hometown. We hadn’t spent much time there, however, when my friend Dean and his buddy Darren came to pick us up from the bus station. One winding holy-crap-we’re-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car-and-we’re-all-going-to-die car ride later, we were at a clubhouse being ushered inside and onto a couch to meet the rest of the ‘gang’ (Not a literal gang, no worries. I keep my gang dealings in the States, yo.). The group was great; a bunch of working kids my age and up, some still in Uni (university) and others already part of the working force of Great Britain. Their fascination with our accents threw me off completely – Katie could hardly understand theirs, and I have always thought that to get rid of my own would be a fantastic thing. The night passed in a blur of limo-rides and clubs – this was, actually, my first clubbing experience – and lasted until the small hours of the morning when the majority of the group found themselves at a late-night grub hub after much intoxicated wandering. Food had never tasted so good. The next morning was a sad one. But I knew I’d be back.
My next adventure came in the form of a quickly planned – and even more quickly executed – trip to Sicily with three of my surrogate family here in Firenze, Courtney, Nick, and Jen. Sicily was beautiful. As the plane approached the island, the water glowed a deep sapphire blue, the mountains an emerald green, and the rooftops an ancient terra cotta red. The sun shone down its approving light upon the scene as if to welcome us to this beautiful land: come on in, have a look. We were all thrilled just for the simple sunshine after a week of straight rain and gloom in Firenze. The markets I wandered in my first hours in Palermo, Sicily, were fascinating, but it was when we ventured forth from them that I found a really startling side of this beautiful island: its poverty. Our only intention was to find a way to kill a few hours before we could check into our hostel, but in our wanderings we found a run-down Sicily; filthy streets and dilapidated buildings; churches that, for all of the brilliance in their domes, looked as if completely out of place in the scene.
The place looked as if no prayer could reach it. I had not expected this, and I think that is why it is my favorite thing about having traveled to Sicily. So often people travel simply for pleasure – and don’t misunderstand me, I was also traveling for pleasure – but in their traveling see only a veiled interpretation of the place they are supposed to be exploring. So often we see only what we want to in a foreign place. We see only the stereotypes of Italians: warm, family-oriented, easy-going, enjoying the pleasures of the land and of life in general, that we forget that these are real people, too. Americans don’t fit every stereotype formed about us, so why should anyone else in the world? The poverty-stricken Palermo that I discovered that day in the sun set the mood for the trip. The whole weekend my eyes were opened to what I was really seeing as opposed to the fun and excellent food that awaits Palermo’s visitors. I walked down the street, saw a gypsy, and thought about how she probably lives just north of the city in the part that no tourists’ eyes see. I look back on that trip and still wonder just how badly the fall of the world’s economies effected the poor of Palermo. Were they better off before the most recent economic struggles? Have they always been this way? Could they look through the haze of misfortune at the beauty surrounding them and still say at the end of the day htat at least there was sunshine and blue waters and Sicilian cannoli to enjoy? Could they even afford a cannolo? That trip to Palermo is seared into my memory. It reminds me to constantly be aware of my surroundings. To look out from behind the tourist veil and to see what everyday life means to the natives of the places I visit. The train ride to Trapani, and my flight back to continental Italy, lifted my spirits ever so slightly. Our path wound delicately along the coast, lit by the sunshine reflecting off of the still sapphire-blue ocean, through olive groves and fields of green with spatters of small houses and herds of animals. An excited dog chased our train at full-speed, the thrill of life emanating from its sun-drenched fur. That dog made my trip. I have never seen so much freedom and happiness and thrill for life as I did in that canine’s unrelenting sprint. What a happy animal. Perhaps it is truly something we all should learn: to find happiness and joy in the little things in life…sunshine, green grass, the ability to be free even though chains of some sort of oppression may hinder us. That dog brought a sense of hope to the sadness that I had seen in Palermo.
After such mind-clarifying trips as the one to Palermo, it is nice to come home to Firenze. In fact, my wanderings of my still-foreign home still enlighten me and fill me with wonder of its past. On a field trip with my travel-writing class I visited Santa Croce here in Firenze. That day it was raining…no, pouring. We set off at a brisk pace, dodging cars and puddles as we tried our best to find an open path between people on the one-foot-wide ‘sidewalks’ that line the narrow streets. The rain was relentless. So much so, that upon arrival to the church, the majority of the class, myself included, had soaked-through shoes and pants wet up to the knees. Never had I wanted wellies (Wellington Boots) (rain boots) more than that day. The church itself was enough to make me forget about my soaked apparel, however. I entered the sacred place with awe of its artwork and architecture. The ceiling, composed of wood beams, was beautifully accented by painting and etching in the wood in a fashion that made the ceiling look almost as if it were a weaved basket. It is what that ceiling covers that really caught my attention, though.
A look at the end of the left-hand side of the building, after just turning right at the entrance, reveals to the observer that this place is not only magnificent, but it houses the magnificent as well. Michelangelo is buried here along with Galileo. I imagined their two great minds swelling upward from their tombs in this immense space, and in their expansion holding up the very ceiling which I admired. Other great minds find their resting place there in Santa Croce. One monument, which shares the wall with Michelangelo’s tomb, is in honor of Dante Alighieri, author of ‘The Inferno’. After his great success post-mortem because his literary works, Dante Alighieri was sought after by the Florentine’s in order to bolster their growing collection of famous corpses. The exiled writer, however, had found sanctuary in a near-by town, and resides there still to this day. The Florentine’s settled on a monument to Alighieri which looks like it could very well be his tomb (the naive visitor to Santa Croce believes this to be true).
To the East and South of Firenze lay the towns of Arezzo, Cortona (see previous post), Pienza, and Montepulciano. These were the next Italian towns to which I journeyed. The trip was through Lorenzo De Medici, the school at which I am studying, and these sorts of trips always make me a bit nervous. It always waits to be seen whether or not the group of students will be carted around like cattle from place to place on a coach bus or actually allowed to soak up the culture in what little time we have to spend at each destination. This trip was fantastic. Having the chance to get in a car and to see the Italian countryside speeding past you is something I would recommend to anyone who can afford to do so. Never can you get a sense of a country by simply visiting its most rural areas, never can you see it by traveling by the straight-shot of a train track. The bus climbed through the mountains and hills and curved through small towns and back roads until we reached the first town of Arezzo. The town itself is known because of the scenes shot there for the movie La Vita E Bella, but personally I think that its churches hold much more esteem to the people who live there. In our guided tour of the town by a local woman with fantastic English skills – no doubt the result of her many years of teaching – we saw church after church after church…after the third one I began to wonder if all that the town had to offer were churches. During the brief free-time that we were granted between church viewings, I discovered my favorite part of Arezzo: the view. Arezzo sits upon a peak hill which borders four valleys. That being said, the wind was incredible! I sat staring out over the green valleys, admiring the houses that I would never see any closer than where I then sat and wondering at the lives of the people who lived there, and then walked back to the group’s meeting spot – my ten minutes were up. How frustrating, the time-limits given for soaking up a culture, a place, a history, when traveling in with a group! I have been asked by my own mother why I ‘insist on traveling alone’ and I suppose that this is one very big reason as to why I prefer to see a place on my own. It takes a very special relationship between people to be able to travel well with each other. Even my friends with whom I have traveled around Europe with will agree, sometimes people get on the nerves of their fellow travelers and such…I think the true test to see whether someone could ever handle being married to me is to see how we work as traveling partners.
Arezzo passed in a type of blur, its light beige stone and beautiful churches blending together in all of their similarities and time-constrictions. On to Cortona my trip commenced, the bus climbing ever higher to reach this hill-top town where, no matter your location, your destination is almost always uphill. Cortona was amazing. Its outer walls overlooked the valleys, just as Arezzo’s had, but this time it was as if , when looking down past its stone walls, the whole thing could just tip off of the top of the hill and over the steep precipice. I wandered with the group through the town, taking in its medieval aspects and, inevitably, the churches we passed. By the end of the day we found ourselves at the very top of Cortona, looking out over what no doubt was once thought of as the entire world. I could see forever…and as the sun set over that forever, I sat on a rock and imagined the stars preparing for their nightly show, the sun glad for a few hours of rest. The colors were breathtaking...
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