Copious Consumption of Cheese and Chocolate

Last weekend I went to Parma with my Comedy in Italy class. We visited this beautiful Farnese theater.

They used to fill up the bottom with water for re-enactments of sea battles, like at the Coliseum.

We ate the most amazing tortellini with pumpkin and Parmesan cheese. When Ariel and I went to eat, the waiter seated us in our own room. On an empty floor of the restaurant. I guess we looked like trouble makers and he didn't want us to disturb their other diners. But the food was delicious and we managed to behave ourselves.

Then we went to the puppet museum. Totally as great as it sounds, but a little creepy.
These are the Italian version of Muppets:

And here's a somewhat frightening wall of puppets:

The Duomo in Parma is really beautiful. This marble decoration on the baptistery is rare; it still has it's original paint from the 12th century.

After dinner on Saturday, Ashley and I decided that it would be a good idea to check out the Serial Killer museum, because the puppets didn't provide enough creepy fodder for the day. The "museum" is totally a tourist trap. It consists of about 15 life-size dioramas of famous serial killers interspersed with information about forensic techniques and a segment on different ways people are put to death. The mannequins are super-creepy. And in this once section, about John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who acted as a clown at charity events and buried his victims under his home, they released a scent meant to resemble the stench of rotting flesh.
Ashley slept with the lights on.

I also saw Mamma Mia! in Italian. All of the dialogue was dubbed, but the songs were left in English. It seemed like everyone in the theater was singing along to them. Also, there is a 5 minute intermission in every movie here. They just stop the film approximately in the middle. It's very abrupt. Probably a good idea, though. Intermissions would be really helpful in films like Sex and the City and The Dark Knight when you either have stop drinking liquids two hours beforehand, or see the movie twice so you can go the bathroom at a different part.

Here's a chalk artist in Florence.

And a totally awesome cab. The lady who drives it wears a costume. I think she also does kids' birthdays.

This is the Odeon, an opera house that was converted into a movie theater. It's beautiful. And they show "original language films" (read: English) Monday-Thursday. I saw Burn After Reading here and ate disappointing popcorn.

Yesterday I went to the EuroChocolate Festival in Perugia. It was huge. And ridiculous. And crowded. But very tasty. They had giant chocolate chess that people controlled from these two little ladder-things on the side, Harry Potter style.

This inflatable cabin housed a life-sized chocolate cow.

Perugia is in the middle of Umbria. It's really pretty, but if you can only visit one Umbrian town, I would definitely choose Assisi over Perugia.

Surprisingly lifelike duck balloons.

And meringues bigger than my head.

Perugian Pooh.

Graffiti, Gladiators, and Gummy Bears

Here's some of the more modern art to be found in Florence, along with my friends Ariel and Ashley. That's an angry starfish on the outside of an elementary school.

The lady in the student life office claimed that this Gelateria is the best in Florence. She might be right. It's not really close to anything, but it was so worth the trip. (Actually, it's not too far from the train station. Mom & Dad: we are coming directly here after I meet you when you arrive).

They have fruit filled with gelato. Check out the photographic proof (you'll have to venture here to garner evidence of a more gustatory variety). And they make the gelato there everyday.

This is me eating coconut and chocolate pear gelato.

This week I bought a ticket for the overnight train to Paris for fall break. I'm almost as excited about the train trip as I am about going to Paris. Overnight trains sound so exciting; we'll have a sleeper and we can eat in the dining car. It's very Some Like It Hot.

I finally went to the Uffizi with my art history class. While we were putting our bags through the x-ray thing, they stopped the conveyor belt and called over the kid whose bag was in the machine and Paola, our TA, and showed them a bag with a gun in it. Paola very calmly announced to us that whomever had carried a gun into the Uffizi would have to drop her class immediately. Everyone denied it, and she started to get upset, and then the security guards busted out laughing. It was a joke. Paola was relieved, but I don't think she thought it was very funny.

I went to Rome on Friday. It was incredible. We saw so much! We got on the subway after arriving and as soon as we ascended the steps, we were right outside of the Coliseum. It was unreal.

We went to the Church of Saint Clement, which is so cool. It's actually 3 layers of buildings. The top is a 12 century church, which was built on a 4th century basilica next to a 3rd century Mithraic temple, which is on top of a 1st century Roman road and building.

This is me in front of the Arch of Constantine by the Coliseum.

And that's the Roman Republican forum in the background of Emily and I.

Constantine was super-popular on account of his having legalized Christianity and everything. This also means that after the fall of the Roman empire, the Christians kept around a lot of art depicting him since they perceived him as being a pretty good non-pagan guy. Below you'll see Megan, Rita, and I standing near his head that once sat atop a gargantuan statue of him.

I love this piece below. Supposedly twin brothers Romulus and Remus were found and raised by a she-wolf. Then they grew up and Romulus killed Remus and founded Rome. I don't know what happened to the wolf, but since Romulus killed his twin brother, I wouldn't have expected him to care to much about her well-being. Anyway, this wolf was made by an Etruscan artist way before she became an icon of Rome. And the twins beneath her weren't made until the Renaissance. This piece is just really interestingly composed by different people at different times who probably interpreted the work in completely different ways.

And we went to the Pantheon. Where you can see one of the most impressive feats of the ancient world and enjoy the comforts of the modern one simultaneously.

The dome is basically impossible to photograph in anyway that conveys its grandeur. My art history professor said that there are two types of people in the world: those that come to the Pantheon and stand right in the middle, in the light, and those that will remain along the edges, in the darkness.

This weekend being the first in October, we had kind of a mini-Ocktoberfest right in Piazza di Santa Croce. There was weiner-schnitzel and pretzels and tulips and over-priced strudel. It was wonderful. And there were gummies. So many gummies. My breath (and a significant amount of my money) were taken away by their chewy, fruity goodness.

It's a really good thing that said festival is now over. I just don't think my wallet or my waistline could have taken much more.

Mosaics and Modern Art

Though you can't tell from the photo, we're in front of Santa Croce. The church and piazza are beautiful. Last weekend, we saw a puppet show there (there's a video clip of said show at the bottom of the page).


Last Friday I went to Ravenna and looked at early Christian mosaics and ate amazing pasta with gorgonzola cheese and hazelnuts. It was as good as it sounds.

This was in the dome of a baptistery and it was completed somewhere in the early-mid 400s. Baptisteries were especially significant in early Christian times since a person couldn't enter the church until they converted.

I love this mosaic because the story behind it is so intriguing. Ravenna was the seat of Theodoric the Great who triumphed Arian Christianity, which stated that Jesus was not fully divine. This mosaic used to depict Arian bishops, but when the council of Nicea decided on modern Christianity and declared Arians heretics, they needed to alter earlier contradictory art. They covered up the bishops with the curtains, but decided it was too much work to redo the columns, leaving these odd disembodied hands.

Dante was exiled from Florence as a result of him choosing the losing side of a political power struggle. While in exile, he wrote The Divine Comedy which is considered to be the greatest literary work composed in Italian. Ever. Since then, he's become Florence's favorite son. There ae statues of him all over and a giant tomb waiting for his remains at Santa Croce where Galileo and Michelangelo are buried. However, he continues to rest in Ravenna, where he died.

This is the outside of the St. Francis's Basilica in Ravenna.

This past Friday, I went to the Gori Sculpture Garden. Basically, Giuliano Gori, a filthy rich art collector, bought a seventeenth-century villa in Tuscany and turned the area and farmland into a huge open-air museum. He invited artists to come in the early 80s and do site-specific work. Apparently, this was a huge success and since then artists have been invited and commissioned to do bunches and bunches of works. It takes about 4 hours to walk the park, and to see it you have to first write and let them know why you want to see it. It was amazing. The place is filled with large-scale modern sculpture and installations. This is a view from the villa.

This is a teahouse that was originally part of the property. Inside, there's a room that has a giant tea-leaf pyramid. And bathrooms.

This is me walking around a piece called "The Rings of Time." The artist planted the flora of Tuscany, from the prehistoric to the modern, in concentric circles. Those bronzed branches next to me are meant to signify extinct plant life.

This is Ariel and I in front of some grapes and olive trees. The entire place smelled delicious. The air was so fragrant, I wanted to bottle it.

This is a piece called Daphne (the nymph who turned into a tree- except here she's returning to earth in a more rudimentary form).

Yesterday, we happened upon a parade. I have no idea what it was for. Sweet outfits, though.

I had no idea eggplant was so tasty.

Here are some leftover pictures from Assisi:

This is the fortress at Assisi called Rocca Maggiore.

The view from up there is unreal. Umbria looks like a patchwork of olive orchards and wheat fields.

And I wanted to move into this storefront. Those meringues were bigger than my head.

Ami and I went to this awesome flea market at the Piazza outside of San Spirito where I procured the pictured hat. That's the Ponte Vecchio in the background.

Anna taught Kristen and I how to make gnocchi. Anna can roll the little pieces of potato-dough into these shell-type things super quickly and amazingly uniformly. Unfortunately, Kristen and I weren't quite as adept. Our gnocchi was a little deformed, but still delicious.

This is Fiesole, an Etruscan town just above Florence. It has one of the oldest Roman theaters in Italy.

My professor is showing us what a senex (old man stock character) comedic mask would have looked like.

Right around the theater are the ruins of some Roman baths and these ancient arches.

It's starting to get really chilly here. The weird thing is that it's colder at 11 am than it is at 11 pm. Tights are crazy popular here. I'm obviously thrilled by this. There are bunches of stores that sell hosiery almost exclusively. And the leather jackets in the storefronts are completely buttery-looking. I'm seriously coveting one.
Everything here is so entrenched in history that it's a little overwhelming. I went to this really swank hotel with my art history class that used to be a women's prison in the 13th century. And in the basement there are remains of Roman baths! And it's not even like they advertise this; my TA just knew about it and went in and asked at the front desk if we could go downstairs and check it out. So cool.
Yesterday I consumed one of the best sandwiches I have ever had. It was Gorgonzola cheese and grilled eggplant and I think I might go get another one. Right now. Seriously, this sandwich in itself provides a reason to come to Florence if the fact that the entire city is practically dripping with Renaissance art and architecture and history isn't enough.