Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Update

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As you probably have noticed, my blog looks a little different now. I wasn't quite happy with the last template I used; for one, it would often truncate some of the pictures I posted. So I am at least temporarily trying out this template to see how it does. You may also notice some other small changes here and there. I will be playing around a lot with how the blog looks over the next few weeks!

There hasn't been much going on in life over the last week+ to keep you all abreast of. My classmates here have all been holed up at home studying for a test, so there hasn't been much going out. And on top of that, the weather has been ugly, so I haven't really been able to go out and see much of anything either. I've been doing a lot of catching up on tv shows and movies as of late, and also doing some research into ways I can earn a little bit of money while I'm here in Italy.

Yesterday was the big test everyone had to take. I fortunately did not have to take it because I tried it the first time around in November and passed it then. But after their test was over, I went to meet up with everyone and had some drinks. It was nice to see everyone again, as we haven't all been together in the same place for well over a month. Nothing too crazy happened, but everyone was palpably relieved to have the test over and done with.

Jo, one of the gals I was with over the Christmas holiday in Rome, put up some of her pictures of the trip. I submit them here for your enjoyment:


The dinner we had at the wonderful authentic little restaurant near the Pantheon


Me being, well, me


A pizza I had one night - nom nom nom


Us at the Trevi Fountain


Group photo in front of St. Peter's Basilica

Classes are starting again this Monday, and I am putting together some plans to make a few trips in the coming weeks, so hopefully I will have some more exciting stuff to talk about! Until then, adios!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Ferrara

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Last week, I took a little day trip to Ferrara (not to be confused with Ferrari - they're located in Maranello). It's a nice little city, about 100k people large, with ancient roots. It was the seat of the powerful Este family from the late middle ages through the Renaissance period, who were great builders and patrons of the arts. The city seems to have retained a lot of its medieval charm, with lots of old buildings and even a castle in the city center. The day I went it was overcast and raining cats and dogs for the most part, which made getting around that much tougher, but also that much more rewarding. On the upside, the rain kept most people at home, and I was practically the only soul on the streets and in the places I visited that day.

It really turned out to be a nice day, despite the weather. Ferrara is a beautiful city, much cleaner than Bologna (probably because there are about 300k less people, I imagine). One of the more striking things was how many bikes there were. I've been in other cities in Italy that were bike friendly - and even Bologna is full of bikes, with its near 80k students. But in Ferrara, EVERYONE was on a bike - and not only that, but no one bothered to use a bike lock! People would just lean their bikes up against a post or the storefront, on a corner of the building or a bench, with seemingly not a care in the world about bike theft. It was quite a refreshing sight, as here in Bologna everyone uses two locks for each bike and you can hardly walk down the street without some seedy character trying to sell you a stolen bike for twenty euro. Not surprisingly it gave me the sense that Ferrara is a law-abiding little city. No Sheriff Joes here.

I figured it was going to be a pretty nice day right from the start. I went to Bologna Central station to catch the early train to Ferrara. It's not very far, so the tickets were inexpensive, and the trains run frequently between the two cities. Bologna is the main city of the region, so it was like going in the opposite direction of rush hour - I didn't have to fight for a seat or anything. On top of that, the train was *EARLY* - real early. So early, in fact, that I was afraid to get on before the scheduled departure time. Trenitalia (the state agency that runs the train system) likes to play the ol' switcheroo a lot, and sometimes you have to run from the train platform you're supposed to depart from to another one at literally the last minute. Accordingly, I wasn't about to get on the train 20 minutes early in case it wasn't in fact the train I was waiting for - but lo and behold, it was! The trip to Ferrara didn't take more than 30 minutes, and there was one other stop between the two cities. When we had arrived at that midway spot, there was no visible sign for what station it was, so I asked another passenger sitting behind me if it was Ferrara, but she told me it was the next stop. The train started back up again and we arrived in Ferrara shortly after, and even though I knew it was the right spot, the nice lady came by to make sure I was getting off the train. Random polite encounter on a train = sign #2 it would be a good day.

The train station was a ways from the center, so of course it immediately turned from a drizzle into a real rain as I hoofed it in that direction. I knew I had arrived when this loomed up in front of me:



That's the Castello Estense, built by Ferrara's ruling family after a popular revolt in the late 14th century. It was built mainly to protect the rulers from the people, not from outside invaders, after an angry mob stormed the family's palace and demanded retribution for a generally unpleasant way of life imposed by one of the family members who was in charge of governing the city. So, they did what any sensible rich and powerful family would do - threw the scapegoat to the mob, and built a giant castle complete with moats, drawbridges, and dungeons. It's good to be the king.



Here's a view looking across the drawbridge gate and into the castle.



And that's the drawbridge mechanism, used to keep out real live angry mobs with pitchforks and torches.



A view looking over the substantial moat. Good thing Michael Phelps wasn't a pissed off peasant in the 1300's.

You can go inside the castle and even take a tour through many of its halls and dungeons. I intended to do so, but put it off until the last minute because the closing hours were later than most of my other stops I had planned for the day - unfortunately I still didn't make it back in time! Thankfully it is a short trip back. But it is still free to go in and walk around the courtyard of the castle, so here are some shots of that:



Cannonballs. Unclear as to whether they were shot into or out of the castle, but I didn't notice any unplanned architectural ventilations so they probably were from an interior cache.



A view of the courtyard.


And back outside:



A side shot of the drawbridge area. A wooden gangway drops down between the brick siderails.



That little passageway between the two buildings connects the castle to the Palazzo Communale (City Hall), which was the old residence of the ruling family before they made anti-angry-mob upgrades.



No two ways about it: that's a bigass canon.

Castles always bring me back to my days as a kid, playing with Legos. I can just imagine a bunch of yellow-headed freaks running around on top of these ramparts. Ah, childhood. But, it was time to move on.

I was heading towards the Ferrara's branch of the National Archeological Museum, but it was pretty far away, so there was some more stuff to see on the way. Just past the Castello Estense is the city's cathedral.



It's pretty darn old, built in the 11th or 12th Century - I can't quite recall. Or I could be right about both; it took an awful long time to build things back then. You can see the weathering from age on some of the reliefs:



Curiously, the cathedral's facade looks like it was decorated by Maurice Sendak:



That relief is supposed to depict hell. On the other side of the door is a relief depicting heaven, but it was way more boring.







Some more Sendak-ian looking sculptures. I couldn't find Max though.



Above the church door was a relief of St. George slaying the dragon. He's the patron saint of Ferrara.



Here's a side view of the cathedral and its unfinished belltower. The design of the columns really caught my eye:




After a lot of walking through medieval backstreets, I finally got to the museum. It's housed in an old palace (like most museums here), and I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got there. On exhibit were grave findings made of pottery and metal from ancient Greek and Etruscan settlements in the area. I was kind of hoping for something a little more exciting, but since I was probably the first person to show up that day and a student, the ticket guy let me in for free, so that was a plus. And it turned out to be fairly interesting, so the walk across town wasn't such a bad idea after all.



Some Greeks battling some Amazonians. Not really sure which are which. But all of the pots were amazingly detailed.



And you thought the mugs from the renaissance festival were cheesy...



Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. No, I don't know what it was used for. I just hope it's not any indication of what was stored inside.



A cheese grater from the 6th century BC. Guess cheese-grating technology hasn't evolved that much in 2500 years.



Apparently the Greeks knew how to do the melting robot dance. Dangit, I thought that was my move!


After the museum, I had to head back across to the OTHER side of town again for some more exhibits that I wanted to see which closed relatively early for the day. I was going to stop and see some churches on the way, but one was closed for rennovations and I got lost looking for another one - by which I actually mean Italian streets don't make any sense at all. Typical example from here in Bologna: the main street in the center, which is maybe 2 or 3 miles long at the most and runs perfectly straight, is in separate parts called Strada Maggiore, Via Ugo Bassi, and Via San Felice. Why? Why not. And you'd think after thousands of years of civilization on this peninsula they would have perfected maps to the point that they DIDN'T confuse you. But that's all part of the fun. Anyway- I did stop for a great sandwich along the way, and ate it while overlooking this nice little civic greenspace:



That's a monument to Ludovico Ariosto. He was a Renaissance Italian poet that wrote down the very old epic of an Italian born crusader. And when I say epic, I mean it. The English translation is in two books of about 1200 pages each, and we had to read it in one of my European Lit classes. It pretty much took all my willpower to not go over there and piss on the damn statue. But I digress...

Up the street was Palazzo Diamante (Diamond Palace):



The building is covered in hundreds (maybe thousands?) of little pyramids (or "diamonds") jutting out from the facade, giving the palace its name. It was designed to be view from this angle, from the street corner. The tips of the pyramids are even tilted up at the top and down at the bottom to add to the effect. The building houses three museums, two of which I was there to see: Ferrara's branch of the Pinacoteca Nazionale (National Picture Gallery - most major cities have one, and they exhibit works from local artists over the centuries), and an exhibit on Ferrara's most famous son, Giovanni Boldini, an impressionist painter. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from either one due to the presence of museum attendants. The Pinacoteca was interesting - it exhibited religious paintings from the medieval and early Renaissance period from painters of the Ferrarese school. Many of the artists in this school had the curious habit of painting figures with strange-looking eyes; some were referenced as "the school of the wide-open eyes" and others "the school of the alluring eyes". To me they just looked plain weird. But there were a lot of interesting works there, and again I was pretty much the only one there the entire time - AND they let me in for free again! Two for two on the day, not too bad so far. The place closed pretty early (it was two o'clock, I think), and they pretty much had to push me out the door. So I went over to the Boldini exhibit next door. Boldini was an impressionist painter of the late 19th century, like Monet and Degas. Generally I'm not a big fan of art past the Renaissance period, but there was a pamphlet in the hallway of our college at the University detailing this show, and it had caught my eye. I'm really glad I went, because I thoroughly enjoyed it. He had a certain style, hard to describe in words but really noticeable up close. It's almost like some of his portraits are totally out of focus, except for right where he wants you to be looking. Here are some examples from the internet:







Needless to say, pictures here can't really do the works justice.

Now, from here I had to go BACK to where I had come from earlier on the opposite side of town, plus make a detour to see the city walls before the daylight faded - it usually starts getting dark around 4:30 in the afternoon around here.

By the 1500s, the walls around the city had been extended to encircle the city and stretched to around 9km, or about 5.5 miles. Now they are a big greenspace for the city, and people jog along it, walk their dogs, etc.





And here's a view looking back into the city from atop the walls:


From here I made my way to the Palazzo Schifanoia. It was a summer palace of the Este family, and its name translates roughly to 'avoid boredom'. It was a place they would go to amuse themselves, throw lavish parties, and keep a bunch of artsy-fartsy stuff. Here I really was quite literally the only patron in the museum for the entire time, which wasn't so bad, except I think the Italian equivalent of the entire AARP was working there as attendants and they kept sniffling and shuffling about like someone had cancelled Matlock and they didn't know what else to do. It wasn't a huge museum by any means, but there were a few interesting exhibits. There were findings from a trashpile on display - yes, trash can be cool. You wouldn't believe the kind of intricate pottery they would just throw away, some of it still completely intact. Plus historians can learn all kinds of stuff from garbage, like what kind of fruits, veggies, and spices from far away lands the rich people were eating back then. Upstairs, there were some display cases with amazingly preserved illuminated books, and some ivory carvings of intricate figures and some scrimshaw-looking designs. The big room was the 'Sala dei Mesi', the Room of the Months. In it were huge frescoes keyed to the signs of the zodiac. Here you can see the capricorn's design:





After that, it was back out into the rain. I hoped to catch a few churches in the area before returning to the center. One was closed for rennovations (again! doh). Another one had some interesting frescoes based on a miracle that happened there:



Apparently at some point during a mass, blood started violently spurting from the host. I guess that counts as a miracle, but if I had been there I would never have known because I'd be out the door in about 3.5 seconds. I couldn't really see much of anything else, because at this point it was dark and the Catholic church still doesn't believe too much in electrical illumination. I was hoping the inside of the cathedral would be better, but when I got there it was too dark to see much of the works adorning the chapels. I hoped to have about 45 minutes to go through the castle, but when I got there its ticket office closed before the actual museum did, so I was SOL again. But, it had been a pretty productive day all-in-all, and I was just about ready to go home. I had hardly stopped to catch my breath the whole day, let alone eat anything but that one sandwich hours before; plus I later figured out I had walked about 7.5 miles. So you can probably guess that I was a little hungry. Thankfully, Italy has a great tradition called the aperitivo - around our dinner time (6-ish; Italians tend to eat dinner around 9pm), cafes put out a variety of light dishes to eat if you come in and buy some drinks. It's kind of like happy hour, but with traditional Italian cooking instead of fried mozzarella sticks and onion rings. So for the price of a glass of wine I filled up on lots of little finger sandwichs, potatoes, Italian meats and cheeses, and pasta. Not bad! It held me for the train ride back, after which I promptly slept for about two days, as you can imagine.

One last thing I saw before leaving Ferrara:


That's Girolamo Savonarola. He was a despised religious despot that controlled Firenze for a few years at the height of the Renaissance, riding a wave of religious reactionism to the wealth and art that spurred the movement. He was pretty much out to stop the Renaissance, and after a few years of oppression the Florentines strung him up in the town square. But, he was born in Ferrara, and you gotta pull for the hometeam, so they put up a statue for the guy.


My birthday week was fairly busy as well. I unfortunately spent much of it studying for an oral exam in an elective course that went down on the actual day of my birthday, so that was nice. The exam went fine though, even though it was pretty difficult. Afterwards I went out with a few friends for an aperitivo like I described above (which was REALLY good at the place we went to), and then some beers afterwards. Nothing too crazy, as it was a Wednesday and there still weren't many people from our class that were back from winter break.

It had also been my roommate's birthday on Monday, so on Friday we put together a little dinner party and had some friends over. By put together I mean I bought popcorn, cheesy poofs and wine, and Maria (my roommate) cooked all day. It was fun though; she made a lot of good food, our little place was pretty packed, and there was plenty of wine to go around. A classmate loaned me a book called "Dirty Italian" with all the phrases you *really* need to know to survive in Italy, but the Italians love it too because then they can figure out what it is in English. So somehow the book made its way out into the party, and needless to say it provided endless entertainment for the evening.

I guess that's a good enough segue to the next short story: Today a priest dropped by the house to bless it for the upcoming Easter season. I was home alone, and there was a buzz at the door. I answered it, and the priest explained what he was there to do. Now I'd never heard of such a thing, but it didn't seem too out of line, plus the old fella was probably in preschool with Pope John Paul II's predecessor, so I figured I could take him if he tried anything funny. So I let him in, he said a short prayer (while the movie 'Crimson Tide' was playing in the background - I hadn't shut it off when I went to answer the door) and squirted some holy water around the living room. I thanked him and he went on his way to the next place in our condominium. I was just glad our bread hadn't started spurting blood.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Capodanno 2010

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For the Capodanno (that's New Year in Italian, literally 'head of the year'), one of my friends from class invited me to go with him and his friends for a few days to a house up in the Apenine mountains just outside of Bologna. There were about 16 of us there at any given time, with some coming and going over the course of the weekend. It was freezing cold, but luckily there was no snow. The little village (and I emphasize little) was about 30 minutes from Bologna, and the scenery was spectacular; not just the natural scenery of the Apenines, with its lush green hills and valleys, and banks of clouds lazily making their way through - but also the incredible little village where the house was located. They were mostly stone block houses built into the hill, some a few hundred years old, with a few newer brick homes thrown in here and there.














We brought plenty of provisions for the nights that we were there. The ladies cooked us a nice little dinner every evening, and we had plenty of spumante, beer, and liquor for the big event. One of the guys even brought a HUGE box of fireworks, which we gladly took advantage of.

It was really interesting getting to see how they celebrated the holiday. There was a TV at the house, but it was hardly ever on. Someone brought a guitar, and they often spent the evenings playing and singing together. Of course there were playing cards as well, and Uno, and some board games too. One of the funnier things that happened was a game of Trivial Pursuit (in Italian, of course) that we played one evening... somehow my team kept getting questions about American things/places, and they would all turn and stare at me like I was an omniscient, infallible fountain of North American knowledge. But I did guess most of those questions correctly. And get this - at the end of the game, once we had all of our little Trivial Pursuit pie-piece thingies, and we were finally at the middle of the board for the win, the big question was: What river runs through the Grand Canyon? I think I laughed for about a minute before I could answer, and all the while the other team was cursing in Italian. On the 31st, we played a little game of soccer in a nearby park during the day, and in the evening we played beerpong! This was the same group of people I was hanging out with on Thanksgiving, so they had all been introduced to the game then and obviously it left quite the impression.

On the trip I even had the chance to see a little slice of Italian health care. My friend Simone was horsing around with another one of the guys while we were out watching the fireworks, and he ended up hurting his shoulder. It was worse the next day, so a few of us went with him to a hospital that was relatively close to get it X-rayed. They have socialized healthcare here in Italy, so all he had to do was show his Italian identification and that was it - no out of pocket costs or anything. Turns out he was fine, just a muscle bruising or something, so they put him in a sling and sent us on our way.

As I've said before, the Italians aren't big drinkers like we are in the states. They brought a couple cases of beer, a bunch of wine and spumante, and some bottles of liquor. It would have been enough for our group of friends to celebrate New Years, but here they stretched it out over the four days we were there and we even had enough left over at the end that everyone took home a liquor grab-bag! It was kind of like being a kid again and going to a birthday party, only like a million times cooler than a bag of candy and cheap plastic toys.

I'm sure there was some other notable stuff that happened, but enough time has passed that it's already slipped my mind. Sorry for the delay in writing about it, but I blame my parents. When I came back on the 2nd, there was a package waiting for me with the second season of Psych on DVD, and I pretty much have been sitting around the house watching that ever since. I'll close out with some pics of the big night: