Day Tripper

I haven’t written in ages for good reason…I’ve been too busy to sit down. I have had two weekends of Tuscan adventures and I finally have a moment’s rest to write about them. I apologize, but I’ll have to go backwards, because today is more vivid to me than last weekend.

This weekend I played artist. For painting class we have to do at least 2 sketches a week; I may have over-reached a bit, but I’m happy with the outcome. Yesterday I sat by the Siena Duomo to try my hand at pastels. I’ve never tried to draw in public, and it is certainly an easy way to get a lot of attention. Not as much in Siena, but in Florence (below), people went behind me, as if watching my inexperienced lines would unlock something about the site before them (do they see that I’m looking at the same thing too?)

Today’s daytrip was to Florence. Apart from one night in an a-bit-too-hip-for-me-bar (will explain later), I have yet to go to Florence. It’s amazing, I’ve been in Italy for over a month and I have only now explored one of the biggies--Rome, Venice, Florence. Today wasn’t a fair day to judge the city…the rain was intense. Luckily my main stop was not outside. I wanted to soak in the Renaissance at a site I won’t visit with Art History -- David at the Accademia. As the books say, I think it’s impossible to go and not be impressed. Probably a little overambitious I decided that this was the place to try the sketch book. I heard the David-keepers of the museum say often to harshly “no cameras;” when you can’t bust out a camera….(buy a postcard?)


After my hours in the Accademia (I’m not a fast sketcher, especially since I’ve never really done it before in my spare time), I took my own version of Rick Steve’s Renaissance Walk, stopping for some gnocchi along the way. I hit the Duomo and the fake Gates of Paradise. One day I’ll go when I can see the real ones. I tromped through the puddles up to the Piazza Michaelangelo--wow what a view. I’ve decided that without the rain, Florence might be one of my favorite cities. With the rain, it’s not quite there yet.

I also realized today that I may never be one of those amazing Italian girls (we have them in the states too) who can walk gracefully through a crowded airport wearing heals and toting matching suitcases without sweat on their brows….but I can make it from the Piazza Michaelangelo to the Duomo piazza (name? sorry) then to the train station in 30 minutes holding a backpack, large sketchbook, open umbrella, and a cup of gelato, all without getting chocolate all over myself…maybe I’m learning something real here.

This weekend was relatively slow compared to the last week. Last Saturday, I wanted to get out of Siena on my own. I had to give a presentation on some aspect of Tuscany (in Italian), so I chose wine, and decided I needed a field trip to do a little research. I took a train to Montepulciano, one of the highest hill towns in Siena. I chose the town primarily for one picture in my eyewitness Italy book of the nearby Tempio di S. Biagio. A hike down a Cyprus path led me to the temple. This place is perfect. I ate a snack by the entrance as I watched a group of French teens smoke and kick around a soccer ball. Back up the path (I don’t think I’ve ever been in a city where a 20 minute walk makes me literally pant), I stopped in a tratorria for bruschetta, a warm pasta di formaggio and of course Vino Nobile of Montepulciano. It took some guts to want to speak italian, but I wound up in a little cantina, where I asked Adamo, an old man who has been making wine for 50 years, what mix of grapes he uses for classic vino nobile. I found my way by bus then by train back to Carla’s apartment…my first solo daytrip in Italy complete.

Montepulciano

It really was a hike.

The next day (last Sunday) I took a break from solo travel to go to Viareggio with several of my friends for Carnivale. This was the 3rd of 5 Carnivale days. This celebration is INCREDIBLE. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I didn’t even make it to Venice. Viareggio is a beach town in Northwest Tuscany. It reminded me of the boardwalk in Santa Cruz-- still whimsical but a little worn with time. We strolled the beach (this part reminded me more of TJ for trash reasons) and then into the carnival area. To get in, I paid 15 euros, and got a pass into a huge fenced-in boardwalk along the beach. My friends and I gawked at the resting floats, laughed at the hilarious Italian rappers in the background, and sometimes essentially squealed at the families. Carnival is Halloween gone nuts, and without the scary-stuff influence. Many of the families dressed alike. I loved the pink bunny family--Mom, Dad, and their 4 year old all dressed up in fuzzy pink bunny costumes. I have never seen so many adults wearing large furry outfits! I felt out of place because I only had a mask. The best was yet to come. The floats were kind of indescribable, but I’ll attempt to describe them anyways. They were huge, Italian artistic (ie. more creative and out of the box than anything we’d have at home I think), and all had moving parts, at least a hundred people dancing on each, and DJs playing either euro techno or ridiculous American songs (I heard Macho Man and YMCA several times). Everyone throws confetti, and the kids go after one another (and sometimes came after us!) with cans of silly string and spray stuff much like shaving cream. Maybe the pictures will do more justice to the scene:

One of many ridiculous DJs

The pink bunny family!

That's what love is in Italy

Too perfect an image to pass up from Viareggio

As if my senses were not assaulted enough, my day was not over after Viareggio. I told my young, hip Italian professor that I take tango at school. She does too, and invited me to Florence that night to go to a milonga. Imagine the condition of my feet after a day of carnival! I left my friends and got onto a train to Florence. I was horrified that there were no seats left. I thought I would have to stand for 1.5 hours. I was at that point when you can no longer have weight on both feet, but have to balance on something else to take off the pressure. The prospect of a night of dancing in a new Italian city and having to speak Italian the whole time made me almost start to cry…I think one woman must have seen my nearly breakdown face (ladies, you know what it is), and she offered to hold her daughter so that I could sit. Wow! How I will always remember that woman. I met my professor and her friend in the Florence train station, where she took me to what seemed an artist-and 30-something only bar (we were supposed to dance afterwards). I was definitely out of my element. Eventually we walked down a tiny winding staircase to a cavelike basement, where there was a little stage set up with a piano, bass and drums…more my scene. The trio began to play and for one of few times, I actually liked the jazz original compositions (usually I’m more of a standard girl, and am surprised when I really get into modern stuff).

A vocalist went up and I could tell she wasn’t really a part of the group, just a guest. At this point my Dad-light went off in my head…”Leelee, you should ask them to sing, go, go” (vai, vai). I am not sure why…this group was goooood…maybe it was the whole foreign country go outside my comfort zone thing….but I started a conversation with the vocalist when she took a break. When I told her I liked to sing, she said she wanted to hear me, and that the guys would let me sing with them. Of course I was without music. The group was good enough to play just about anything. I decided on a whim to sing something I’ve never performed or practiced before, Georgia on My Mind. I think it was because I knew the only thing I offered musically for this group was maybe, scuse my phrase, some soul. The vocalist was good, but very much a modern one, who sang more for interesting ideas than for getting the feeling out. As I planned the song in my head, I really thought I might throw up. On stage, somehow I didn’t and in this little hip cave in Florence, I think I came out with the best song of my limited singing career. When I got to the second run-through of the chorus, I just belted. Maybe it was the feeling of totally gutsiness of the day, but I was loud and perhaps not so white for a few moments. The pianist was certainly surprised. I went from the fish-out-of-water American to someone people came up to say “complementi.” After this I found out that tango was cancelled; I was not disappointed and I think, had I gone, my feet might have fallen off.

In case you are somehow still reading this monster blog entry, I will mention that this week I did get to a tango lesson--all in Italian. It’s interesting and probably great language practice to have an old man say you’re doing it wrong and try to correct you in Italian. Here, one of the most interesting things to me (apart from daytrips!) is the combination of languages I’m surrounded by. What was once my intermediate Spanish is now in a sad state; I say I speak spanish, but then I can’t think of a single word. People also tend to think I’m from Spain (it’s better here than the U.S., so I can’t complain). Since tango steps have Spanish names, regardless of location, taking an argentine tango lesson in Italy is not so impossible…interpreting Italian-Spanish accents can be. I met a new friend from France and together we speak an odd combo of English, Italian, Spanish, and French (not me on the last) to communicate. It’s really hard to understand Italian with a French twist! I wish I could come up with some poetic way to complete the thought…my friend’s joking “my life is a constant translation” from one of the last blogs comes to mind.



Until I procrastinate my actual creative writing assignment again with a blog entry, Ciao!