so here we are. i'm home now, as you know. merry christmas, everyone. and this is the end of the blogging experiment. i thought that when i started "actually italy," describing a new environment would give me the confidence to write about myself. i've always had trouble with journaling, memoirs, etc. because of the inherently solipsistic nature of writing about yourself. it's just one of my too-many weird emotional hangups, i suppose. and that's the reason why i stopped writing here. i was afraid that my daily activities were (and they were) too mundane to be of interest to anyone, because they were too mundane to be of interest to me. paradoxically self-centered, i know. nevertheless, the end is the end and i have reached it. i'm really happy to be returning to wellesley and seeing all of my friends for second semester, especially the january visit of darling, 21-year old e.b. andersen bartels. for rory, rachel, emma, and e.b., best of luck to (the rest of) your time abroad. everyone else, thanks for listening.
25 December 2008
08 December 2008
l'arboro di natale
last night, kristin, gabriele and i decorated the christmas tree. it made me want to go home. this is ironic only if you are my parents reading this, and know that our family at home hasn't even bought trees in the past two or three years. you see? don't even remember the last year we did, though that could be due to my awful memory instead.
today is a holiday in italy, the feast of the immaculate conception. it was a long weekend, so of course a lot of people left for one last trip. i didn't, but i did finally go to the bargello, which is the national sculpture gallery, where donatello's bronze david is kept. it was actually kind of fortuitous that i procrastinated for so long, because it was under restoration until about a week ago, and when i saw it, it was bright and shiny new.
also, since this is the last week of classes, i obviously did what i always do when finals are upon me: not work. instead, i watched in the valley of elah with katie w. and her friend ashley. at least they had to watch it for film class. i had no such excuse. but it was quite good. i recommend it highly. it's dreary, but not too preachy, and that's all we can really ask for in these iraq war films. though i will say that it does not nearly have the same amount of bright, young, good-looking things as stop-loss. because i am a shallow and irreverent human being.
i'm coming home in ten days. i can't really fathom that. or how i'm going to fit everything in. i've bought eight (count them, eight) new books since i've come here. and i still haven't started infinite jest.
today is a holiday in italy, the feast of the immaculate conception. it was a long weekend, so of course a lot of people left for one last trip. i didn't, but i did finally go to the bargello, which is the national sculpture gallery, where donatello's bronze david is kept. it was actually kind of fortuitous that i procrastinated for so long, because it was under restoration until about a week ago, and when i saw it, it was bright and shiny new.
also, since this is the last week of classes, i obviously did what i always do when finals are upon me: not work. instead, i watched in the valley of elah with katie w. and her friend ashley. at least they had to watch it for film class. i had no such excuse. but it was quite good. i recommend it highly. it's dreary, but not too preachy, and that's all we can really ask for in these iraq war films. though i will say that it does not nearly have the same amount of bright, young, good-looking things as stop-loss. because i am a shallow and irreverent human being.
i'm coming home in ten days. i can't really fathom that. or how i'm going to fit everything in. i've bought eight (count them, eight) new books since i've come here. and i still haven't started infinite jest.
01 December 2008
exhausted,
thursday night, thanksgiving: the nonna (patrizia's mother, busybody and all-around annoyance) finally leaves, after staying with us for five weeks. we breathe a collective sigh of relief, most of all patrizia "i put an ocean between us." to celebrate, i go out to watch a movie at the odeon, the english-language movie palace, which was showing bird's nest: herzog and de meuron in china as part of their 'festival' of films about contemporary art. the movie was quite good-- it was in english, german and chinese with italian subtitles, or, all four of the languages i 'know' how to speak/read/write in various capacities (a generous assessment, to be sure). what was both entertaining and a bit confusing was trying to either listen to the languages while also reading both the english and italian subtitles. cognitive dissonance, certainly!
friday through sunday were spent on a hectic, wet but generally fun trip to ancient italy: ancient rome, pompeii & herculaneum along with naples (for the archaeological museum) and sorrento (just because). even though i had been to all of the aforementioned places besides herculaneum, it was wonderful to hear about roman esoterica from the mouth of charles ewell, scholar/aracheologist extraordinaire and my professor for the ancient etruscan and roman art class that this trip was part of as well. also, herculaneum was probably my favorite part of the trip, being more manageable in size than pompeii and more importantly, far less crowded. we also went to a place called villa oplontis, located halfway between pompeii and herculaneum, which was only discovered in the 1960s and thus far more well-preserved than the other two. the examples of decorative art, especially the paintings and mosaics, were breathtaking. what i really find amazing about roman decorative art is that it never was regarded as 'art for museums.' these frescoes were all simply decorating the dining rooms and bedrooms of wealthy romans. the famous alexander mosaic was found in a dining room-- as part of the floor. we saw that in the museo archaeological in naples, which other than that, doesn't have much to recommend.
friday through sunday were spent on a hectic, wet but generally fun trip to ancient italy: ancient rome, pompeii & herculaneum along with naples (for the archaeological museum) and sorrento (just because). even though i had been to all of the aforementioned places besides herculaneum, it was wonderful to hear about roman esoterica from the mouth of charles ewell, scholar/aracheologist extraordinaire and my professor for the ancient etruscan and roman art class that this trip was part of as well. also, herculaneum was probably my favorite part of the trip, being more manageable in size than pompeii and more importantly, far less crowded. we also went to a place called villa oplontis, located halfway between pompeii and herculaneum, which was only discovered in the 1960s and thus far more well-preserved than the other two. the examples of decorative art, especially the paintings and mosaics, were breathtaking. what i really find amazing about roman decorative art is that it never was regarded as 'art for museums.' these frescoes were all simply decorating the dining rooms and bedrooms of wealthy romans. the famous alexander mosaic was found in a dining room-- as part of the floor. we saw that in the museo archaeological in naples, which other than that, doesn't have much to recommend.
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