Sunday, November 27 - Last day in Florence

Well here we are - the day we knew would come, without knowing exactly how we'd feel about it. I would say that we both are experiencing mixed feelings; on the one hand, we have lives that have been placed on "pause" in order to come, and we are anxious to get back to them. On the other hand, we've made a lot of friends, and breaking ties to the city we've called home for the last three months is far more difficult than I would have imagined. Some students talked about ways in which the experience has changed them for the better, and expressed fears about whether they would be able to maintain these new feelings/perceptions/habits. I can relate. For me, it's been an eye-opener in a different sense; I get to a new place where people speak another language, and it's easy to focus on small but annoying differences in customs and creature comforts. Then, after I've been around long enough, I begin to realize - even though I've known this all along - that the people around me are motivated by many of the same concerns and hopes that I am, and the differences between us are really just superficial. I realize that's not exactly a major newsflash, and I suppose that's the purpose of these kinds of programs to begin with, but it seems that once you go through it, it doesn't seem as trite as it sounds.

Meanwhile, though, I'm typing away, trying to capture a few events and thoughts in writing before I crash. First event was one that I missed in my last blog... last Tuesday, I actually got a chance to play! There's a jazz club here in Florence, and on Tuesday nights they hold an open jam session with the house band. Now, "open" in the world of jazz jams is somewhat ambiguous - although it might suggest that anyone is invited to join in, the welcome mat is generally extended mostly to folks who a) have some clue as to what they're doing, and, b) aren't so hopelessly out of their league in the venue that others get frustrated and want to throw things at them. I'd been to this club a few times before, and most nights I was perfectly happy to sit and watch, as many of the players were really, really good - one trumpet player, for example, was a New York guy who was smoking hot, and no way in hell would I have set foot on that stage that night. Last week things had slowed down to the point where I might have given it a try, but I didn't have a horn with me and we left early anyway. This week, I came prepared, and since I'd gotten to know (okay, well, at least we might recognize each other if we met on the street) the other musicians, I decided to give it a try. Only had time for one tune - St. Thomas - but it was fun, and I'm anxious to get home and get back to the horns.

By the way, we just lost power here. The weather has been strange all of a sudden; last week we had this major cold snap (below freezing several days), and for the last couple of days it's been raining. Tonight, we've got lightning, thunder, and wet snow. I don't know if this is normal in cold climates, but it's the weirdest thing I've seen in a long while. Thank heavens for laptops!

Today - our last full day in Florence - also turned out to be the day of the Florentine Marathon, and since we were awakened at about 7:00 by race organizers who were starting people at the Piazalle Michelangelo, we decided to get out and have a look. The route seemed to wind itself all over town, and ended up at the Santa Croce church, about a half mile away, where we walked out to see what was happening. At the time they were running a kids' junior marathon, so I hung around taking pictures while the kids finished. Man, there's nothing like events like that to provide photo-ops. It seemed that everywhere I pointed the camera, there was some image that compelled me to press the shutter. You don't even have to be good to get these, I don't think - you just have to keep your eyes open.

After the kids' race we walked over to the Duomo, and caught a few glimpses of the wheelchair competitors and the leaders of the main event. They ran by and we were appropriately impressed, but what really stuck with me was this one guy who hobbled by on crutches. I don't know what time he must have started, but this was 26 kilometers into the race (a little over sixteen miles), and he was plugging along. People cheered - it was impossible not to - but then we had to run over to the train station for an extra suitcase, so we left the route, thinking we'd hurry up and catch some lunch before it got too late.

After picking up the suitcase and dropping it off at home, we decided to walk back by the finish line at Santa Croce and have another look. By this time the leaders had long since finished and rain was threatening, and when we finally got there it was actually hailing on the runners who were crossing the line at the four-hour mark. This compelled me to find a spot along the barrier and cheer for the people coming in, and so we spent a few minutes taking pictures of these guys who were going for it in such miserable weather. Just when we were ready to take off for lunch, though, we heard a round of cheers from the rest of the crowd, and so we stopped to see what was happening. Turns out that the guy on crutches - the one we saw at the 26 km mark - was rounding the corner and finishing the race. All I could think was, man... that's hardcore. We all have our crosses to bear, but if that guy can do 42 km on crutches, then he has my profound respect.

Pretty soon, though, it was time to grab lunch, go back to the apartment and finish some last-minute packing and clean up, get dinner with Judith and Amy, and get ready to leave. One minute we're here, and now we're almost gone. Seems now like there's so much more I would have liked to do, but I suppose that's all the more reason to come back. It was a drag to say goodbye to the people we've befriended, but we'll have to make sure we see them all again.

Next stop, Los Angeles. Hope the weather isn't too bad to fly out tomorrow...

Arrivederci!
-Leanne

Friday, November 25th - Florence

Well, with the exception of our one day in Venice, we've been hanging around Florence since the Rome trip, which - I think - is the longest unbroken streak since we left for Scotland last September. Wow. It's been nice to have a break from non-stop travel, but it's sort of weird to be spending so much time in one place. Like, hmm... what do we do now?

What I do, of course, is catch up on work, not the least of which includes working on getting a job. Doing that involves getting my resume whipped into shape, of course, and also writing cover letters for whatever academic institutions I apply to. Unlike other times I've been job hunting in the past, though, this time it's nice to have a clear sense of what I want to do. Now, it's just a matter of where I do it.

Other projects include getting survey groups set up for another project I'm working on, and also looking over my study guide for the math portion of the GMAT. I know, I know... since I've already got the MBA, what on earth do I want to torture myself with all that again? It's because I'm such a masochist that I'm going to see if I can endure just one last gauntlet, ending this time with a change in title from Ms. To Doctor. Or, en Italiano, it would be Dotoressa. Either way, it requires a better math score on that God-forsaken test than I was able to get by walking in cold like I did the last time, so I have to study. That's okay, though... if I get into my first choice, UCLA, I'll need to go back and take a refresher or two in calculus, so I might as well get a jump on it all now.

Being in Florence for a while has also given us a chance to get to a few tourist-type places we haven't really gotten around to yet. One such place was an art exhibit at the Palazzo Pitti. It was billed as "Mythologica Erotica," which is provocative enough all by itself to have us clamoring at the door to get in. But what I actually thought was even more compelling than the exhibit itself was the part of the Palace it was being displayed in. The Pitti Palace was the home of the Medici family, and it was lavishly - as in, jaw-dropping, oh-my-look-at-that-ceiling - decorated. It's also been recently restored, so the paintings on the walls and ceiling in these particular rooms were magnificent - just swimming in color and detail. Unfortunately the exhibit was closing and we didn't have as much time in there as I would have liked, but I was still very glad we checked it out.

We also made it to the Boboli Gardens, which are just off the Palazzo Pitti. The gardens are much along the same lines as, say, Descanzo Gardens, except that these particular gardens are filled with Renaissance sculptures modeled after pieces from Greek antiquity. The day happened to be sunny and brisk, and that made for a gorgeous hike through the grounds, finally ending when it got a little too chilly to stay out there any longer. Interestingly enough, one thing that really struck me about the site was the half-dozen or so cats I saw hanging around the exit gates. I immediately launched into the same frame of mind I had in Greece - like, oh no, another bunch of homeless cats - but after realizing most of them bordered on obese and then seeing them trot after a woman carrying a grocery bag, I realized that the folks at the museum must be maintaining these guys. How cool is that?

Another must-see site in Florence is the Uffizi Gallery, and that was our stop for today. This is the home of a lot of the world's most important art, with paintings by Botticelli, Ruben, Michelangelo, Raphael, hundreds of sculptures that include a number of hugely famous pieces, and a gorgeous collection of Catholic sacred paintings. The class had already visited this museum, but I happened to be on day-two of the cold I picked up on the trip home from Amsterdam, so I just couldn't drag myself out to go. I didn't mind going another time, but wouldn't you know it: the day we set aside to visit this gallery is the day a general national strike takes place in protest of proposed government cuts in cultural funding. We managed to get in for an hour and a half, but sadly, the rooms where most of the blockbuster pieces were had been closed. Argh!

(Of course I recognize that this leaves me with an imperative to visit Florence again, but I'm going to throw the appropriate tantrum now, and I trust that all my readers will note my apparent chagrin.)

Backing up a bit here... on Thursday, all the classes combined to give their final presentations, and I have to say they did a great job. The mandate was to draw from all of the classes each student was enrolled in - humanities, music, film, or the literature classes - and relate that in some creative way to their experiences on the trip. The presentations ranged from a couple readings of students' original stories, to short plays based on the life of American students in Italy (with pratfalls we could all relate to), to at least one short film that a group put together. It's neat to see that, in spite of what we might have thought they were doing these twelve weeks, the students have really learned a lot from their classes and the opportunity to travel. The high spirits carried over into Thursday night's farewell dinner, and we all had a lot of fun. The restaurant, knowing we were all American and it was Thanksgiving Day, served up a spread of turkey, gravy, potatoes, and a few Italian favorites, which was good even though it wasn't home. Perhaps a bit surprised at how nostalgic we were suddenly feeling, we all toasted the friendships made and the mind-expanding that had taken place over the last three months. It was a nice end to the formal portion of the experience for all of us.

So now, we just have to do a bit more shopping, pack up, and get ourselves back on the plane home. Only three more days... wow.

Good night,
-Leanne

November 13 - The Holy See

Back to the Vatican this morning, this time because I had been told that the Pope gives a public blessing to the pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, and I wanted to see what the vibe was like there. I had also heard that there was going to be a canonization of a new saint this morning, and although one student who was Catholic doubted it, given that it hadn't been publicized much, we figured we'd go anyway and if the place was too crowded to tolerate, we could turn back.

We took the subway out to the Vatican station, and it didn't seem too busy so we guessed we had been wrong about the canonization. No matter - it would be interesting to watch the goings-on at St. Peter's, so we braved the gauntlet of trinket vendors as we walked up to the Vatican gates. Upon arriving inside, we joined the hordes of visitors, and I noticed a procession of cardinals entering the basilica from the west (I think) side. There were two giant video screens - much like you'd see at a ballgame - and they showed an enormous ceremony beginning inside. Three banners with photographs - two women and a man - hung outside, suggesting to me that we were right, except that there would be not one canonization, but three. As it turned out, that was the very event we were witnessing - these were people recommended for consecration by John Paul, but he died before he could bring it about. So, in about fifteen minutes, all three had been proclaimed saints by his successor. Guess I found myself in Rome on just the right day.

With all this going on, we thought perhaps the Pope wouldn't be giving the usual Sunday blessing, but the crowd amassed in the square wasn't budging, so I kept the camera handy and continued to watch. Soon, a window opened several floors over the plaza, and after about five minutes of preparation the Pope appeared, first explaining the significance of the event in Italian, and then greeting people of various nations in Spanish, English, Polish, French, and German, before going back to Italian to complete his address. While I can't claim to be religious myself, it was clear that people in the square were moved by the experience, so I was glad we'd made the extra trip.

After the Pope concluded his greeting, the pilgrims gradually dispersed. While this was going on, however, an impromptu celebration broke out right behind us. This involved a handful of musicians strumming guitars and singing, and others forming a circle around them and dancing. It must have been a well-known Italian folk song, because complete strangers would join the circle, sing a couple of verses, and then continue on their way. Pretty cool.

Making our way out of the city now, we walked north toward the river and then on another mile or two to the Spanish Steps. There, we were hungry and running short on time, so we grabbed a burger at McDonald's (our first of the trip, thankyouverymuch), and headed back to the hotel to meet our bus. The trip home was uneventful, and by 8pm or so we had arrived back at Santa Maria Novella station in Florence. That gave us just enough time to walk back to the apartment before collapsing. No late night dinners tonight!

Ciao,
Leanne

Saturday, November 12 - The Holy See

The next stop on the travel itinerary was the Vatican, and due to the sheer vastness of the place and the quantity of its treasures, we had a show-up-late-and-die call time of 7:30 Saturday morning. Those of you who have had the misfortune of dealing with me any time before 9:00am know that I'm just not at my best at that hour, particularly when I'm still getting over the effects of a cold. Well, never one to disappoint, I hauled myself out of the hotel in a grumpy mood, completely unfit for the holy site we were about to visit. It was early, I was tired even beyond my usual level at that hour, and I had managed to knock my camera battery charger off the Kleenex dispenser in the bathroom (the only available outlet in the room) into the toilet. Sometimes, I'd have to confess that I'm probably not good for international relations.

But we pressed on into the daylight. As the world's second-smallest independent nation, the Holy See nevertheless receives staggering numbers of tourists-some 10 million last year-and nowhere is this more evident than in the morning queue for the Vatican museums. On this morning, the line snaked out the museum doors, the remaining length of the north walls, and about three-quarters the distance to the east wall's opening at the mouth of St. Peter's Square. Apparently this line is particularly long in the mornings because the museums aren't yet open, so we optimistically took our place in the queue and waited for our local guide. After she arrived and gave a brief introduction to the site the museum opened, and-to my surprise-the line began to move. Before long we were at a security checkpoint, and with a wave of the officer's hand, we were in. Surprise!

Unfortunately, my feelings of rapture were to be somewhat short-lived. The Vatican museums are impossibly vast, and today they were brimming with all the tourists I had observed earlier while waiting in line. These both make the site somewhat difficult to take in, and although I walked that day among some of the world's finest masterpieces of devotional art, I came away with precious little that I could say about them. Our tour began at the Cortile della Pigna (Pinecone courtyard), proceeded through the tapestry collection, the Gallery of Maps and the Raphael rooms, and concluded at the Sistine Chapel. This testament to Michelangelo's genius is truly awe-inspiring, but was packed so tightly with visitors that it's nearly impossible to fully appreciate on a normal visit. Still, we doggedly made our way through, but after getting completely separated I spent the last 45 minutes of the tour trying to locate the rest of our group among the throng of tourists and pilgrims. Although I eventually found our party, they were leaving the museum and I would be unable to go back on this visit. Dang.

Needless to say this didn't do my already-glum disposition any help, and I moped along, now feeling especially sorry for myself. I briefly protested as we got in another frightfully long queue to enter St. Peter's Basilica, but more optimistic heads prevailed and we went anyway. By this time my moping had just given way to full-scale pouting, and I resigned myself to another dreary visit to another boring site I wouldn't even be able to see for the crowds. So I stood thus, waiting... for death or some similar fate to overcome me.

Upon entering the sanctuary, I immediately realized that death might well be the only human spiritual experience comparable to that which inspired St. Peter's Basilica. The interior, which houses hundreds of enormous and incredibly gorgeous works of art, is built to such an impossible scale that-as author Bill Bryson attests to in his book Neither Here Nor There-you have to be standing right next to a column or some other part of the physical structure to get any idea of just how huge it is. I walked around the Baldacchino and the papal altar to the south, dragging my jaw along the floor as I went, until I arrived at the back of the shrine directly under the dome. There, a Saturday afternoon service was in progress, and after listening to the choir and the magnificent organ, I collected myself and made my way dumbly back to the exit, taking pictures as I went. Thousands of other visitors were probably in the Basilica at the same time, and I never once noticed. The overall effect was just far too overwhelming.

After leaving St. Peter's, we stopped for a few moments in the Vatican bookstore to look around a buy a couple of stamps. Later that afternoon we toured the interior of the Colosseum, stopped to hunt down a geocache, and got a bite to eat, but those activities went by in a blur. Soon, it was time to head back to the hotel and digest what I'd seen. I tried for a while to read through a visitor's guide we picked up at the bookstore, but I just got overwhelmed all over again and had to go to sleep. I'll sort through it at a later date, I guess.

Good night,
Leanne

Friday, November 11 – Rome

So this is actually my fourth time in Rome, with the first two visits being very ho-hum trips through the city by train on our way to the airport, and the third being the disaster last week. Given these previous experiences, I was perhaps understandably reluctant to get on a bus and go back, but one of the realities of exploring Europe the way I have is that I don't always get a vote on how we get around... I just have to be glad I get to go at all. And this time around, Rome was to be our destination, not just a stopping point on a trip someplace else, so it seemed there was only so much that could go wrong.

Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised in this case by how smooth the trip actually went. It seemed that in no time at all we had arrived in the city, checked into a hotel, grabbed a quick lunch, and were on our way to meet our guide for the afternoon walking tour at the Colosseum. This legacy to ancient Rome manages to stand despite being bathed in automobile exhaust 24/7 and also having been looted time and again for material to build other structures. Commissioned by Emperor Vespasian and built in 72, the Colosseum was inaugurated in 80 with a series of gladiatorial battles between men and thousands of wild beasts. One of the most popular legends about the site - that Christians were fed to lions - seems to have been discredited by today's historians. However, the Colosseum's popularity as a tourist attraction experienced an unprecedented surge as a result of the recent Russell Crowe film, The Gladiator, which seems to indicate that historical accuracy isn't nearly as effective in drawing visitors as a good, thrilling story. Glad I don't have to tell that to the anthropologists.

After spending some time looking at the Colosseum's exterior, we moved on to immediately adjacent Roman Forum. Walking from one site to the other, you pass through the Arch of Septimius Severus, erected in 203 to commerate the 10th anniversary of the Emperor's accession. Then, proceeding past the Temple of Saturn and the Rostra, we arrived at the impressive Basilica Julia, erected by Julius Cesar in 54 B.C. This temple, which has been restored and used as a church, was the seat of the civil magistrates court.

Moving on from the temple, we walked through a small meadow, finding ourselves at the House of the Vestal Virgins. The priestesses who lived here were selected for this duty at between six and ten years old, and were expected - on pain of death - to preserve their virginity until their 30-year term was served. They were also whipped if the sacred flame died out, as this was their primary duty. For this they enjoyed status, financial security, and the power to pardon condemned criminals. Was it worth it? I supposed that's anybody's guess. Opposite the House of the Vestal Virgins was the Basilica of Constantine, upon which construction began in 308 by Maxentius and was completed by Constantine in 312. Finally, as we followed the path out of the site, we ascended Palatine Hill to get an overview of the entire forum, before continuing on the rest of our walk.

At this point we left the forum and proceeded north to the Piazza del Campidoglio. This Piazza's geometric paving and building facades were designed by Michelangelo and added as a "facelift" to the existing buildings in 1536. From that piazza, one descends a long staircase to arrive at the side of the Victor Emmanuel Monument, inaugurated in 1911 in honor of the first king of the unified Italy. This building is particularly immense, and it's guarded by the fiercest traffic imaginable. Since there are few traffic signals in this part of town, crosswalks are negotiated by getting together in a very tight herd and crossing as one single unit. Lone pedestrians rarely survive a crossing unscathed.

Although we still had three major sites to visit, it was beginning to get dark by this time and I was unable to get much else in the way of pictures. Still, we got to visit the Pantheon (completed in 125), the Fontana de Trevi (famous as a result of the film, Three Coins in the Fountain), and then our tour ended at dusk at the Piazza de Spagna and Trinita dei Monti, better known to English-speaking tourists as simply the "Spanish Steps." Here, among the rest of the sightseeing horde, we decided to call it a day and give our feet a rest, heading back to the hotel via a very crowded subway.

That put us in bed by 10:00. A rare occurance, but we had a 7:30 date with the Vatican, so it made sense to turn in early. Can't keep the Pope waiting, you know.

Buona sera,

Leanne

Sunday November 6 - The good, the bad, and the ugly

Today was a travel day, headed back to Italy. As usual, that meant an early morning, but this time we were able to arrange a flight back to Florence - rare, but cool, since it meant we wouldn't have to endure some hellacious transfer from Pisa like we typically do.

So we walk to Amsterdam Central Station, catch a train to Schiphol, and board our flight on time. So far, so good, and it was an uneventful trip to Rome, where we were to change planes. I didn't quite get why they made us go through security all over again in Rome (did they think perhaps the Dutch authorities smoked dope while they screened passengers or something?), but I was too preoccupied to care much as I had spotted something on the tarmac that I'd been hoping to see the entire trip: a Russian jet, this one being a Tupolev TU-154. We just don't see these in the U.S. anymore (not that they were ever common on our shores), and I was bound and determined to get a photo of this one, regardless of how much I hate shooting through terminal windows. Fortunately, we exited the security checkpoint at exactly the right place to get a reasonably clear shot of the Tupolev, and although it's certainly not stock photo quality, it will always occupy a special place in my collection.

All good things must come to an end, I suppose, and of course this applies to good days, too. However, it's always preferable if good days end as the clock strikes twelve, rather than turning miserably, horrendously BAD, and I had no way of knowing how wrong our day was about to go until we got to our departing gate in Rome and were informed that our connecting flight was cancelled. This pronouncement is enough to strike terror in the heart of even the most intrepid traveler, but it's worse when you're in Italy and are flying We-Don't-Care-What-Happens-to-You-as-Long-as-You-Go-Away Airlines. When I asked what they were going to do with us, they let us know that they would take us to Florence by bus. That's right... a BUS. Florence to Rome is, under perfect conditions and no stops, a 3-1/2 hour bus ride, and perfect conditions rarely happen on Sunday nights. Normal people make this trip by train unless they're flying someplace entirely different and are connecting through Rome. And we certainly didn't intend to be in Rome in the first place - our outgoing flight had connected through Milan, and for some inexplicable reason this trip took us south. But a BUS? Wasn't there something else we could do?

As it turns out, were thoroughly and royally stuck. When we asked about the possibility of getting back by train, Alitalia refused to give us a reimbursement that would come close to covering the cost, and we had no way of knowing whether seats would be available on the Eurostar to Florence anyway until we had foregone the bus ride back and gotten ourselves to Rome Central Station. Frustrated by this time but having no other viable options, we trooped miserably downstairs, collected our bags, and then trooped back upstairs to the ticket counter where our boarding passes would be traded for bus vouchers. By this time an angry mob had assembled in front of the counter, and the mob didn't get any happier as an hour went by after we had been told the bus would depart and still... nothing. At about two-thirty we were finally herded outside and put on our coach home, but the nightmare wasn't over yet. As the bus drove on north, clouds that had looked pretty threatening for the last hour gave way to rain, slowing things down until road construction could deliver the final coup de grace, bringing traffic to a virtual standstill for over an hour and a half. Nothing anyone could do and no amount of muttered-under-the-breath oaths could change the fact that about 50 people who purchased and paid for plane tickets so they could get home from their weekend trips at a decent hour were stuck on a bus that wasn't going ANYWHERE.

And for me, insult would soon be added to injury. While the mob in the bus got on each others' nerves and plotted bloody revenge against anyone associated with the airline that had put us in this situation, some combination of being over-tired and trapped in confined places with coughing, sniffling people finally took its toll on my own constitution. Occasionally, a head cold can take over my system with remarkable speed, and after leaving Rome in what I considered to be a normal, healthy state, I was actually surprised by how crappy I felt when we finally hit the pavement in Florence, over five hours later. Unbelievable.

The rest of the ordeal has faded to a bad, blurry memory now, and I think I prefer to leave it that way. Eventually, I'll get healthy again. But one souvenir will remain...



God I love Russian jets!

Cheers,
Leanne

Saturday, November 5 - Amsterdam

A quick note to readers: if airplane-geek stuff bores you, you might want to skip today's blog and move right on to tomorrow's. You've been warned.

Today was my chance to do one thing that I secretly hoped for since this whole journey became reality: visit Schiphol airport with a camera. Amsterdam's KLM hub is a Mecca for aviation enthusiasts: interesting traffic, and VERY spotter-friendly. Fortunately for me, the European contingent of my airliners.net friends is easily manipulated into a meet, and this event just worked itself together a couple of months ago.

So off I went on a train to the airport. I arrived at about 8:45, located a few of the group who had already assembled in the arrivals lounge, and once we'd met everyone (most of them came from the U.K.), we trooped off to the panorama terrace, probably one of the best of its kind anywhere in the world. We hung out there for a while, watching the action on the ramp, while our Dutch host, Erwin, took groups of four at a time to the spotting location known as "Polderbaan," which was where the rest of the day's events would take place. A popular hangout for local airplane nuts, the Polderbaan is a grassy strip next to a rural road that is separated from one of the runways and the Martinair cargo facility by only a narrow canal. In practical terms, that means a perfect shot of departing aircraft with no fences to get in the way. Plus, when the cargo planes depart, they taxi right past the far end of this strip - coming within 20 yards - and wait there if there is traffic on the runway they have to cross. Needless to say we had a good time, and in the six or so hours I was there I shot about a gigabyte of photos. Wow.

All too soon, however, we were shivering and it was time for the U.K. crew to catch their flights back home. I made my way back to the airport train station and was soon back at Amsterdam Central. Since we enjoyed our first nights' dinner so much and knew it would be a while before we had the chance to have it again, we decided to return to the Indonesian restaurant where we'd had that amazing rijstaffel. It didn't disappoint.

Back then to the hotel to prepare for an early morning flight back to Italy. I can't wait to return someday...

-Leanne