ALIVE IN RUSSIA.

It may have taken almost exactly 36 hours, but I AM HERE. In Russia. В России. And yesterday, we went to see the ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was basically a life-changing experience.

midterms

ahhhhhhhhh.

midterms are upon us, and they aren't the 'midterm' every two-and-half-weeks wellesley kind of sched. they are four exams and a presentation this week kind of midterms.

so quick entry:
weekend was ridiculous. tarquinia/cerveteri/norchia on friday was all etruscans all the time. saturday i went to 'eurochocolate' in perugia with katie. ridiculous, and also a ridiculous amount of people.

most importantly, happy 21st (legal!) birthday to best friend, janna herman AND happy 19th (baby!) birthday to the indomitable miss caroline rose !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pskov and more

Today, in my 16th Century Architecture class, we talked about Russia! More specifically, EB, we talked about Pskov! And of course, because my mind does nothing if not wander during class, I thought of you and your ridiculously symmetrical two trips to Pskov. First, some background: my class is mostly a survey of 16th century architecture of Italy, but since my (ridiculous, wonderful) professor is currently also working on a book about the cross-cultural development of architectural history during the 16th century, so today, we talked about Italianate influence in eastern European architecture, i.e. about Pskov, Novgorod, Kiev, and Moscow. Also, today, I found out that 'Novgorod' and 'Nizhniy Novgorod' are not the same places. Good to know. Anyways, we looked at the cathedrals of St. Sophia and St. Theodore in Novgorod, St. Basil's and Uspensky Sobol in Moscow, and actually, as I re-consult my notes, no actual buildings in Pskov. So... I suppose I was just so excited that the institution of Pskov was mentioned in such an esoteric setting that I felt the need to write an entire post about the ultimate non-entity of Pskov in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italianate influence on Russian architecture. . .

Imbeciles. I'm Living Amongst Imbeciles.

Things That Have Actually Just Happened, or, "Overheard in the Syracuse Computer Lab."

"Is that how you spell Belgium?"
"Mussels in Brussels! Hahaha, that is so funny!!!"
"How you do you say Bruges? Broo-jes? Bru-gees?"
"The only reason why I know where Bruges is is because of that Colin Farrell movie." (And I'm pretty sure it's not because they've seen In Bruges, either)
"Oh my god, Stella Artois is Belgian, too! It's, like, my favorite beer!" Carly, that statement, and the girl whose mouth that statement came out of, would make you feel shame in calling Stella 'my lady.'

Now I don't feel quite so bad about noticeably rolling my eyes in class, every day.

ALSO: Things I've Learned From All Songs Considered: (well, really Only One Thing So Far)

• Did you know: That Paste Magazine Sampler/ Ann Arbor's 107.1 standby Jesse Sykes is also a collaborator with Sunn O))) and Boris? I most certainly did not!

podcast nation

Hi y'all. Please please please do yourself a favor and go download the September 2nd episode of the NPR podcast All Songs Considered. It's free, and I mean, if you need any encouragement, know that that it's title is "The 80's: Were They Really That Bad?" And know that Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton, and Carrie Brownstein (!!!!!) get into ridiculous arguments about the relative merits and demerits of the music of the 80's. And they play Starship. I listened to it in its entirety today, giggling the entire time and basically making a fool of myself. I've subscribed to the All Songs Considered Podcast, which has done wonders in making me feel connected with the world, especially the musical world (obviously). I love being here in Italy, but FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, thanks, Rachel) is a feeling that sometimes takes over. I guess All Songs Considered, along with the election podcast (I mean, duh), This American Life, and dilligent downloading of Gossip Girl and Pushing Daisies keeps me feeling sufficiently 'in the loop with America.'

fyi -

Do not go to a Russian Orthodox mass in a non-majority Russian Orthodox country if not actually Russian Orthodox. You will feel like a disrespectful fool.

Other things I learned this weekend:

• The Museo San Marco is free and has a lot of really good, shaded, and secluded places to sit inside.
• The flea market at Santo Spirito is probably only worth going to once. But go, that one time! And check out the candied fruit stand there; it's definitely worth it.
• L'Olandese Volant is probably overpriced, but the zenzero (ginger) truffles with marzipan are definitively delicious. Also it makes me want to have a mini refridgerator again becaue they sell aged Gouda there, too. L'Olandese --> Holland . . . !
• Jogging in Pumas is actually not good for the feet/ankles/body at all. True fact.
• The Ponte Santa Trinita is still beautiful. And the pilings are really nice to sit on on Sunday mornings - you can marvel at the sheer number of tourists they fit onto the Ponte Vecchio. Seriously, it's an engineering marvel.
• Gelateria dei Neri is as good, maybe even better than Grom. At least I know that they are my two favorite gelaterie in the city. Today, for/instead of lunch, I had cioccolato amaro (dark, dark chocolate) and cioccolato bianco. Incomparable. Of course, I had Crema di Grom on Saturday; and continued tastings will occur throughout the rest of the semester...

Finalmente, a very HAPPY (and slightly belated) BIRTHDAY to the incomparable miss KRISTINA COSTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Twenty-two yesterday, like the number of exclamation points up there. That's old. And I hope you enjoyed the New England Mobile Book Fair.

And happy NCOD, y'all. You know I love you all.

less belated fotos

from this past weekend are up on facebook (it is the public link, hi mom!)

belated photos

from two-weekends-ago in rome and lucca are up on flickr.

the weekend

Apologies that these weekend update entries are happening later and later. But in my defense, this one was relatively uneventful. Friday morning, I woke up extraordinarily early to catch a train to Rome, to retrieve my passport-hopefully-with-Russian-visa-within. And it was there. It's really happening. I am going to Russia ????!!!!!?!?!??!!!!!! Utterly ridiculous, right? But anyways, that was there, that happened, you know, no biggie. I had grand plans of walking all around Rome again like I had done two weekends prior, but fatigue set in rather quickly, and after walking down via XX Settembre to the piazza Quirnale (that's the piazza from last week that I liked, but couldn't remember the name of) I simply walked down the stairs and went to this little café for an early lunch. And the café was awesome. It's called Papyrus, and if you are ever on the via Lucchesi, on the way between the Pantheon and via XX Settembre, which is a main throughway to get back to the train station, you must stop there. It's one of those little bookstore-cum-cafés like Trident on Newbury Street or R.J. Julia in Madison. All the books they sell are in Italian, but a lot of them are literature in translation, from English to Italian. There I found a publishing company called minimum fax, which publishes anthologies (along with other things, I suspect) of contemporary American and British literature and ficition. Thus I found a poetry anthology that included work by Frank Bidart, fiction anthologies with Zadie Smith and Jonathan Safran Foer, and David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Funny Thing I'll Never Do Again. Besides the big, open atrium in the front of the store where you can stand at the counter for a cappuccino, there is also a back room, painted this really soothing shade of ochre that has bookcases all along the perimeter and tables set in a concentric circle a little bit within. That is where I sat and ate a delicious plate of gnocchi alla genovese, which is gnocchi with tomato pesto sauce instead of the usual cheese, but equally delicious. And and the waitstaff were all amazingly kind to me, and we had nearly-a-conversation in mostly-Italian, which is pretty big for me these days. After lunch, I knew that I wasn't up for much else, so I simply walked back to the train station and hopped on a slow local back to Florence, got a bowl of ramen for dinner (not bad, but Ippudo NY has nothing to worry about) and hung out with my friend Pete for a little while before going to bed.

Saturday morning I dawdled a little bit before finally leaving the house at around eleven. On the agenda was exploring the Gavinana neighbourhood of Florence, in the Oltrarno. So, a bit of backstory: a couple of weeks ago, when I first met my editor at the Florentine, Alexandra, I asked her if the Oltrarno was like the Brooklyn of Florence. She simply chuckled, a bit derisively, and said, "It wishes it was." Anyways, I went 'home,' so to speak, on Saturday, to a neighbourhood that really did sound a little bit like Brooklyn. Gavinana was pretty cool, though the consequence of arriving on a Saturday afternoon was that almost all the stores I had read about were in siesta, and I had to kill time in a piazza for nearly an hour, waiting for everything to re-open. The stores were cool, though. There is a vintage store there called 'Velvet Goldmine' (+1, duh) where I tried on this wonderful orange, 80s, suede dress that almost fit. It was one of those occasions where you try something on and instantly knew that it tragically doesn't fit you in an un-alterable way, thus it was a catastrophe. It had a scoop back, and massive shoulder pads, too. Oh, I am tearing up a little bit even thinking about it. And I also found a cute (expensive) little shoe store, where I had to resist buying Sigerson Morrison flats. Le sigh. After wandering about for a little bit longer, I climbed up to the piazzale Michelangelo and the church of San Miniato al Monte, where you can get a wonderful panorama of the city, and watched the sunset there. Wonderful.

I met Katie for dinner after climbing down from San Miniato; we went to this 'northern European' market phenomenon in piazza Santa Croce and ate macaroons, gouda, gummies, and Polish sausage with sauerkraut ??? Trust me, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And verily, my stomach didn't like me very much later that night. We sat on the steps of Santa Croce for a bit afterwards, talkin' and judgin' and good things like that; contemplated asking all the girls on our program who brought last season's Tory Burch flats if they were wearing last season's Tory Burch flats, you know. There, we also got accosted by our first oh-so-sleazy Italian man that would not take a hint. He was the kind of guy that everyone has warned us about from before. Anyways, he finally got the idea that we were in no way interested, and we left because it was getting exceedingly cold outside.

I woke up at nine on Sunday morning, and could not fall back asleep. So instead, I decided the appropriate thing to do was to go work out... I know. Thus I jogged. Up to San Miniato, again. Just for reference's sake, it's 4.6 kilometers from my house. Up an enormous hill. And you all know that I have been sedentary for the vast majority of my twenty years. Thus this morning, I woke up and I wanted to die a little bit, even more than usual on a cold Monday morning. But the jog itself was worth it. I ran/jogged/power walked all the way down via Matteoti, crossed the ponte San Niccoló and up the hill to first piazzale Michelangelo and then San Miniato. On the way down, I ran through part of the Oltrarno and re-crossed the Arno at the ponte Santa Trinita. Then I jogged down via Tornabuoni (like the Boulevard Haussmann or Champs d'Élysées of Florence), through the piazza del Duomo (tourist roulette, ick) and through piazza SS Annunziata, where a 'mercato ceramica' (ceramics market) was going on, also excellent. I might have run... nearly ten kilometers yesterday?

Wow. That got out of hand quickly. I guess even low key weekends in foreign countries are packed to the gills in terms of blog-entry volume.

Ernesto & Martina

Last night, Gabriele's (my little host brother) half-brother Ernesto, and his girlfriend Martina, came over for dinner. They are awesome. Ernesto is twenty-five and Martina is twenty-four, and both of them are currently in laurea specialistica, the last two years of Italian university, equivalent to earning their master's degress. Ernesto is studying molecular & cellular biology while Martina is completing hers in 'biotechnology.' The reason why they were over for dinner (besides being, you know, family and stuff) is because Ernesto is leaving for Wales in January, to study/complete his thesis research at the University of Cardiff, and he wanted to practice his English conversation with us (Kristin and myself) before he left. Thus, Patrizia's whole plan for dinner was to 'test things out,' to see if we all got on and if we did, us talking with him and him talking with us would make for a great language exchange. As you might be able to tell, I really liked both of them, and I think that this kind of language exchange (pretty much talking half in Italian and half in English) will really help improve my spoken Italian skills. Here's hoping, right?

Also, dinner last night was amazing. Patrizia really went all out starting with aperitifs and rosé (and we usually never have wine with dinner), then lasagna, egg-and-onion quiche, and finally a sinfully rich chocolate torte served with three (!) flavors of gelato: nocciola (hazelnut), tiramisú, and gorgonzola & pear. The gorgonzola and pear gelato, the pungency of the cheese paired with the richness of the chocolate ganache, was surprisingly tasty. If it weren't my own dinner table, I totally would have taken pictures, too.

This weekend, I have to jaunt down quickly to Rome to retrieve my passport from the Russian government, but otherwise I am going to stay and explore Florence. I actually haven't gone to any of the major sites yet, and the weather is supposed to be kind of lousy, so I can foresee afternoons spent in the museums. Also on Saturday, I think I am going to Mass at the Russian Orthodox cathedral, just because I can.