Let's see... last post was Thursday. That night the people a floor below me had a party and were playing rather loud music. We were told when we arrived that Italian law requires quiet after 11pm. I should have gone down and told them to be quiet, but I didn't. My housemates and I got back to our place around midnight after wandering around for a while, and we were all awake till about 3am. I woke up at about 11 the next morning - my housemates had all left early for Rome, and under our door I found a note to each of us saying that the neighbors had called SACI and the police, complaining about loud music and unbearable noise all night long, that they'd started a petition to have us evicted, and that if we were evicted there's nothing SACI could do and we'd have to find our own housing. I was a little worried reading that, so I went to talk to the housing director and explained my side of the story. She said she'd already talked to some girls (I assume the ones who had the party) and thought she'd figured out who was responsible. She re-emphasized the law to me... I didn't want to complain too loudly that I wasn't responsible for what happened. Apparently, after I went to sleep, there was even live music. The police came by at one point, and they stopped the music, and then started it again after they left. Yikes. I haven't heard anything about it all since Friday, so I think it's safe to say I'm not going to be evicted. But next time there's noise I guess I'd better speak up about it.

Since my housemates are in Rome, I've just been relaxing and doing very little of consequence. Friday I walked around a lot. After talking to SACI, I walked south to the Ponte Vecchio, which is the oldest bridge on the Arno River. I'd been there a couple times before, but this time I walked way past it, further south than I'd previously been, and walked around some gardens (didn't actually walk in them). Then I walked back. I can't remember what else I did... I ate at the Chinese place again. It's just too easy! Two eggrolls and a big thing of vegetable spaghetti for L. 5.000! Anyway. Friday night I also walked around for a long while. I was searching for gelato all over the place and I found some. I'd done that before and been frustrated because there aren't a lot of places open late, but you just have to look in certain places.

Yesterday, I walked around some more. I got a haircut at a place I've passed by many times - I didn't really say much, just sat down in the chair and knew enough to say "abbastanza corta" (rather short), not sure if that adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun capelli - oh well. So he cut it rather short, and I'm glad because I was starting to really gross and shaggy. Feeling refreshed, I also went to an English-speaking Mass at the Duomo. What was really cool about it was that they had speakers to project what people were saying, and there was a tremendous echo throughout the church, making everything sound strange. We were only in the side chapel, but it was still very impressive. (I'd been inside once before as a tourist.)

I bought some groceries too. Isn't this exciting?

Last night some housemates and I and tried another trattoria. I had some ravioli with spinach and ricotta, and I was surprised to find it only ok. I'd had some really good spinach and ricotta panini (sandwiches) this week. I also found a really good, cheap Chinese place that's open late. It's frustrating that you can't just go out and get something to eat whenever you want, not even past about 10 o'clock. All the stores close at 8 or 9.

My next field trip is to Rome, next weekend. There's an optional trip to Rome this weekend for people who aren't in High Renaissance, and I think all my housemates are going on that one, so I guess I'll have the place to myself. I'm going to try to organize a logical way of eating meals and doing other regular functions, because it's expensive and inefficient the way I'm doing things right now. I might also check out some museums, because I haven't been to any. Also might go up to the top of the Duomo.

Having learned a little more Italian, I've realized that the title of this blog should be "a Firenze" so I'm changing it appropriately. Don't I feel silly...

I just got back from SACI, where they showed Roberto Benigni's "Johnny Stecchino." It's a funny coincidence because I caught only a little bit of it on TV last semester and wanted to see it sometime. It was hilarious tonight, of course. Apparently they'll be showing a slew of Benigni movies throughout the semester, which I'm really looking forward to. I remember seeing a preview for "Il Mostro" at the Drexel Theater back home in 1995 or 6 and wanting to see it, but I never got the chance.

It was probably stupid of me, but Topi (a SACI student from Finland) and I bought a guitar today. Neither of us could stand not having one around, so went together for one that cost L. 375.000 (about $200). It's a nice blue color, and it plays better than any guitar either of us has owned. We're figuring on selling it to someone at the end of the semester (probably). We took it to my apartment, and it turns out that I'm an even worse player than I thought I was, and Topi is quite amazing at it. Oh well... We're going to keep it at my place for the time being, since Topi visits us fairly often anyway.

More gnocchi tonight, it was excellent. I bought a kilo of it fresh at a store across from SACI where la signora was very friendly. Most people are very friendly here; there's just one guy at an art store, Zecchi, who bugs me, but I think he's moody to everyone.

Now I'm hungry again.

Oh! I went on a field trip on both Saturday and Sunday, to Vinci (and vicinities) and Ravenna, respectively. I wrote a little about it on paper while on the bus, so I'll try to get that down here in a little while. I'll just say the trips were informative and tiring.

Today I was going to try to write a little summary of a typical day here, but I haven't really had one yet. I'll try in a month, I guess.

Yesterday the sun was shining all day, a welcome break. I had my morning classes (high renaissance and italian) and that was it for the week. Lesley and I went walking to get some medicine for her friend Kate who is ill, and lives near the Arno River. We met up with Lesley's brother Jeff and his frat brother (who are here through Syracuse) by the Duomo and went down to the river. After Kate's place we had a bottle of wine at a bar, and parted ways. Those guys have been drinking a bottle of wine everyday they've been here. I haven't drunk that much wine, but it's great to just sit down and have some. The Italians don't get drunk very much because they don't drink on an empty stomach, so I've been taking the cue from them. The food is so good here, I can't tell you. I'm still thinking about dinner at Nick's place - I felt so good for hours after that, it was so oily and fulfilling.

I'm making myself really hungry... I've gotta go grab some pasta.

I've been to all my classes. Silkscreen is going to be wonderful, I'm pretty sure. Same with drawing - I switched from Intermediate to Advanced. I missed Monday, but we looked at people's slides who hadn't shown them yet, including mine. We were supposed to explain our stuff, I guess. A girl sitting in front of me, Constance, was French or something - her stuff was really amazing. When we got to mine, about the anatomy drawings, she turned around and said they were excellent, which was just great. This class is going to be cool because it's more self-motivated than the other levels, and it's cool to be among such impressive people.

I came here from dinner at Nick's place, Lesley came too. They both go to Skidmore, which is apparently a great art school. A lot of people here are from there. Naturally, they're disappointed with the tiny facilities. For my classes, it's fine - and the silkscreen studio is in a different part of town and much bigger. Nick's in silkscreen at the same time as me, Lesley has it earlier. Anyway, the dinner was great, and then some Italian friend of Nick's flatmate brought some "trees" over, so I didn't have much reason to stay. Alyssa had come by too, so we walked home, and I came into the Internet Train.

The girls in my apartment (Lesley, Maddy, Alyssa) have been complaining to varying degrees. Lesley absolutely hates the city and her classes (save for silkscreen), Maddy's not too crazy about her classes, Alyssa is (I think) very homesick. Mike hasn't complained at all. I think he likes the opportunity to go out a lot and not be very responsible right now, but he appears to be serious about his art, too. I don't have many complaints, myself. It's a little frustrating trying to buy things that are rarer here and difficult to ask for because of my limited grasp on the language. But that's a challenge I'm interested in meeting. My classes will be cool, I think - I'm glad I was able to get just what I want. I also feel like it's a time I can be a bit more free and relaxed. Nobody knows me here - well, nobody knows me too well anywhere, but here it's different because it's so foreign. I'm not sure what I think of it all, but so far I've really liked it. I've just got to tighten up on spending money a little.

I'm so removed from everything. Bush is getting inaugurated soon and I don't have to hear much about it. I get to choose with greater authority what news I hear.

è tutto.

I'm realizing that this journal is not going to be particularly coherent, so bear with me, dear reader (ha).

First day of classes today. 9.00, High Renaissance Art History. The professor talks incredibly fast, is incredibly knowledgeable, and seems to switch between a US southern and British accent, sometimes mid-sentence. She was the one who took us on a tour of the major sites in Florence on Saturday. She started a lecture on Leonardo da Vinci today that will, I guess, end on Thursday. Saturday we have a field trip to Vinci where Leonardo grew up (natch). This is going to be my killer class, probably, but since it's my only class of its kind I think I can stay on top of it. 11.00 is Beginning Italian, which will be good. I know hardly any Italian so I'm in the right level... 16.30 is Intermediate Drawing. I'm uncertain if this is the right level for me, so I'm going to look into getting into Advanced tomorrow. Half the class will be figure drawing, of which I've already had a lot, and at my school back home I'd be in drawing 6 which includes a lot of abstraction and the like, so perhaps I should move toward that while I'm here. I can draw figures anywhere. I dunno, probably our models will be Italian. I went into Silkscreen to change my hours to tomorrow and mercoledi' from 13.00-16.00. Those are all my classes.

The housing director Daniela came by today to show us our water, gas, etc. meters. I guess we'll have to keep the lights and things off as much as we can, as electricity and gas are quite expensive, especially during the day. We already had our hot water out earlier this week, but a plumber came by to fix it. There's nothing about our apartment to complain about, it's great. We've got to go to il mercato centrale again, though, to get food. We can't eat out all the time - in fact, we should do it very sparingly.

More details next time (?).

Since I'm lazy, I'll just post this e-mail to my mom, which summarizes some things:


I guess I'm starting to get fairly adjusted. I don't think it'll be hard to get into an enjoyable routine here. I've spent a lot of money already, though, because I've had to eat out for most of my meals so far. Still, one can get a lot of food for a small amount of money. Many Italians pop into these cafes for a quick caffe at the bar.
The language barrier is not incapable of being overcome. My apartmentmates are somehow amazed because I know a few useful Italian words like "vorrei" (I'd like), "questo/a" (this), "basta" (enough). We've been shopping for food and so aren't completely dependent on eating out. We're going to figure out a routine of getting the food we need as we need it, since that's the best way to do things around here. Our entire building is SACI students. We had dinner a couple nights ago with the folks a floor below us.

Our apartment is on the 2nd floor (3rd floor by American counting) in a building on Via Santa Reparata. It's about a 5-7 minute walk to SACI, which is southwest of us. On the way there is the huge mercato centrale, where they sell mostly meat and cheese on the ground floor and fruits and vegetables on the upper floor. It's open from 8am to 2pm (8-14) on most days except saturday when it reopens from 4-8. Outside the building are rows and rows of street vendors selling mostly crap. So we walk through this every time we go to SACI, but it's not unpleasant or anything.

My roommate's name is Mike. He's a nice guy, but he likes to go out to bars and such a lot. It doesn't bother me because he's not annoying or obnoxious. He is genuinely a decent guy. Our other apartmentmates live down at the other end of our hall; Alissa, Lesley, and Maddy. Mike is from Massachusetts and Maddy's from Pennsylvania, and they both go to U-mass Dartmouth. Lesley is from Long Island and goes to Skidmore. Alissa is from Oregon, but I forget which school she goes to. They're all really cool and I quite like them.

Orientation's all done with. Yesterday morning we went on a tour of the major sites around town. It was interesting, but was made very uncomfortable by bitterly cold wind. It's still a little chilly today.

I met with the Dean to adjust my schedule a little bit. I'm taking High Renaissance Art History (which counts for 2 classes or 6 credits), Intermediate Drawing (I might switch to advanced), Serigraphy (silkscreen printmaking), and Italian. That's 5 classes, the maximum I'm allowed. Classes start tomorrow. Today I'm going to go around to one or two of the art supply stores and buy some basic stuff. I hardly have any paper at all, even to write on!

There are under 200 people in the school. I've met a number of people, and it seems like everybody is really cool. Practically everyone is good-looking over here, too; I don't know why.

Thanks for giving Nick my address. If it's wrong I can always look him up at his college.

Three of my roommates and I bought a cellphone for L300.000 (about $150). It comes with a chip that lasts for a certain amount of time (I think it can be used to call the US for 83 minutes or so). When the chip is finished, it needs to be replaced. This way, we'll write down how much time we use and we can pay for the total cost according to how much we've used it. I don't expect to use it very much, but I'll call you all every so often.

Two days ago I withdrew L200.000 from my bank account. Since we bought some groceries yesterday, I'll need to get some more pretty soon, and I'll need a fair amount for art supplies, but after that I expect my expenditure to slow down. Still, it seems that things are relatively inexpensive here.

The only I really miss so far is walking on grass. It's nowhere to be found here.

Oh my, I wrote the previous post but didn't publish it earlier. All I can say is that it's extraordinary here. I'll write when I have more time, but I'm hardly even finding time to breathe. Sunday, perhaps?

Ciao.

I arrived in Florence largely without incident on Tuesday morning. I was rather disconcerted by the 7 1/2 hour flight from Boston to Milan and 1 hour from Milan to Florence. We were met by the housing coordinator, Daniela, at the airport, who stuffed the 25 or so of us from SACI into cabs toward our apartments. It was like another planet, and the cabbie almost killed a guy on a motorino. My roommate's a good guy, if a bit of a goof. We went walking around bedazzled. We stopped in a place and I accidentally bought a bottle of carbonated water.

I'm in Boston with Phil (my brother) and Teresa (his wife). I arrived yesterday afternoon, on my first ever flight. Phil and Teresa have shown me around Boston a little, which is quite an interesting city and would be even moreso if I didn't have a cold. Today Phil and I went along some of the Freedom Trail, went to the aquarium, and met up with my other brother Ted. It's been a really good time so far. My head feels like it's going to explode, but I think I'm getting better and I'll be well by Monday, when I'm flying to Milan. Tomorrow we're going to the Museum of Fine Art and I'm curious what they'll have that I'm familiar with.

I know this journal is pretty lame so far. It might get better, but I can't make any promises.