July 18th (England) - London II

We just had lunch with Lucia, the Argentinian girl, at a trendy Asian restaurant around the corner. Our stuff is packed and sitting at the hostel ready to go, and we'll grab a bus this afternoon to go back to the train station and return to Alton this evening.

Last night we met up with Anna and her boyfriend Joe, old friends of Emilie's from Ohio, and had pizza at the Italian restaurant around the corner. I was thrilled to have a menu in Italian, and return to the foods that I love -- but the best part was that our server was a friendly 21-year-old girl from central Italy who we made casual conversation with over the course of the meal. She told us she came to London to find work to better her English, and that she had a few friends in town but she was still lonely and bored a lot of the time. We made plans to meet up with her after her shift ended, but she never called, which we assume means she was just too tired. After all, it was 1 a.m. on a Thursday night, so no one blamed her..... But it was still nice to get to talk to an Italian again.

Now we return to Paul's for three days, and I go home to the States on Monday. I don't know if I'll have time to update again before then, but I'll certainly catch up when I get back. And add pictures.

More soon,
-Al

July 17th (England) - London

I am on a public connection at the youth hostel. How much can I cover in 15 minutes?....

Em and I have been in London for the past three days, and we leave tomorrow afternoon. In this time we have done a lot. Generally, we wake up in the morning, have breakfast at the hostel, and buy an underground (subway) day pass so that we can do whatever we want around town. We are staying in a room with four other girls -- one Argentinian named Lucia, who we've built up a friendly acquaintance with, and the others an assortment of nationalities who are mostly in-and-out and we haven't really talked to. The first day, there was a tiny Japanese woman living in the bed next to mine. We tried to have a conversation, but her English was so terrible that after three minutes we could understand only "neighbor" and "America."

Tuesday we arrived a little before noon, and explored the British Museum and Covent Garden for the afternoon. In Covent Garden, there were some various live performers, one being a slightly loony middle-aged woman singing opera. We arrived just in time to see her grab the staircase railing dramatically and launch into a rendition of Carabino's first aria from, coincidentally, "The Marriage of Figaro" -- the opera I'd just performed at the program in Italy.

Yesterday we saw Buckingham Palace in the morning, and stayed for the changing of the guard, complete with some tunes from the royal band and a parade of horses on their way to Whitehall. Then that afternoon (the highlight of my visit so far) we got cheap tickets to see "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at Shakespeare's Globe. The play was fantastic; although cheap tickets entailed standing room only, it was totally worth it. In the evening we took the tube to Trafalgar Square, and sat and had a snack while watching the end of the Royal Opera's live broadcast of, you guessed it, "The Marriage of Figaro." (I'm getting really sick of this show.) Hundreds of people had gathered to see it on the huge screen, resting on the steps of the art museum and around the fountain at the bottom.

Hurrying before my time runs out -- more later,
-Allie

July 13th (England) - Relaxing

For the last five weeks, I’ve thought Italy had the most laid-back people in the world. I was wrong.

In the time since I’ve been here we’ve had tea numerous times, usually in the kitchen or out in the breakfast nook. Paul takes his time with nearly everything he does, including eating and drinking. I’ve learned that when he says “hurry up” in the morning, it means “be done with your fussing upstairs so we can spend a calm hour on breakfast.” He enjoys nothing more than sitting down to tea with friends, or even just with Emilie and me, and discussing the weather. Or yesterday's fete. Or his family. Or nothing at all. Many times the house has been so completely silent and relaxed that all I can hear is the ticking of the cuckoo clock on the wall; rather than enjoying the quiet, it actually makes me quite nervous. This type of environment doesn’t suit me well.

Anyway, I guess the Italians aren’t the only ones who enjoy life at a slower pace.

Regardless of my aversion to quiet, it is nice to be able to finally relax; the last few weeks in Italy haven’t been a true vacation, just work and performances with some sightseeing in-between. (Although when this adventure is over, I will probably still feel more comfortable in the noise and bustle of the States.)

Later,

-Al

p.s. Heading back to the house today after church, I stopped to pet the noses of two equine friends I made yesterday shortly after arrival (picture above). One of them is speckled grey and pretty tranquil, the other chocolate brown and a little more high-strung. They trot up to the fence when they see us coming to talk to them. Needless to say, I am very happy to have horses available for petting within walking distance from the house….

July 12th (England) - Settling in

Paul greeted us coming into the house last night. Paul is a family friend of the friend that I am visiting (both of us are staying at his house now due to changing circumstances the last couple of weeks). He is also a 94-year-old man in perfect health except for his eyesight and hearing, which are only negligibly worse than the rest of him. But he still reads, talks on the telephone, drives, and works on his “tapestry” every day. He’s thrilled to have both Emilie and I here with him for the time being, and brags to everyone how he has two girls from Ohio to do his work for him.

The house itself is small, but cozy. Em and I sleep upstairs in the guest room, adjacent to a hallway overlooking the beautiful yard (pictured above). On the side of the house is a small sitting room where Paul allows me to practice violin. Downstairs is the kitchen and tea room, which opens out to the breakfast nook, a small cozy sun porch that overlooks the blossoming backyard. Stepping outside from the nook to the yard, I am swept up in the gentle scents of roses, lavender, honeysuckle, and sweet pea.

I thought when Paul mentioned two girls “working” for him it was a joke, but the first thing yesterday morning after breakfast he decided to send us out to pick berries in the garden. It was quite pleasant for a first experience in this new country – out in the comfort of a calm English backyard, picking fresh fruits – until I had my first experience with the stinging nettles, which I couldn’t seem to avoid…. In the end, Em and I picked nearly three pitchers-full of raspberries and currants, which are still sitting in the fridge waiting for us to do something with. Most likely we’ll make some currant jam one of these days… or just continue snacking on them raw.

Yesterday afternoon we attended the fete, a type of English fair that every town holds annually. Paul’s town’s fete was out on the green just across the street from his home, so we popped over for the afternoon. There were booths set up with food, games, and items to sell, mostly hand-crafted jewelry. At 4:00 a young group of guys in a rock band put on a set, so Paul went home and we girls stayed to hear the band. They did mostly covers, including (ironically) “Sweet Home Alabama” and one of our friends’ favorites, “500 Miles” by the Proclaimers.

Well, I guess I could have detailed everything in a little more structured way in this post, but my mind’s a bit fuzzy from the long couple of days of travel, and getting settled in. Tomorrow Emilie and I will travel to Winchester for the day, then from Tuesday-Friday we’ll be in London. Hopefully I’ll be able to have internet access sometime before the weekend, but in the meantime I'm just catching up on posting the last few days' writings as well as I can.

Till next time,
-Allie

July 11th - Travel

So, bracing myself for a long day, I headed for the station. (And it was a long day, so if you don’t have time to read a lengthy entry then stop here.)

As mentioned before, needing to stay in Rome was annoying, even though I knew it was necessary in order to catch the train. Obviously the first thought was to get a hotel, but this was just too expensive (from what I could find that night, prices ran from about €80-130 a room), so I decided to stay the night in the airport. Taking the 10:00 train from Arezzo left me arriving in Rome at about 12:30. When the security guard kicked me out of the station at 1, I knew I would be in for a long night – since now I didn’t have anywhere to stay, and seemingly no way to get to the airport, I didn’t exactly want to try to sleep on the street in a sketchy part of the city with a violin, purse, and suitcase around me. So I settled outside the station sitting on my luggage, and tried to think of ways to occupy myself until 5 a.m., when the next train would run to the airport.

Soon an old Indian taxi driver approached, asking if I needed a ride. When I told him no, I had already bought a train ticket for the next morning, he snapped out of business mode for a minute to advise me against staying where I was for the night. “Take a bus,” he said, switching to weak English, “there are many people drink tonight, dangerous for you.” He helped me find the bus times across the street, and left me there to wait for a shuttle bus to the airport that ran at 2:30 a.m. Even though I had already bought a ticket, I trusted both my gut instinct and a helpful stranger’s warning words and took the bus. Two separate fees was a small price to pay to ensure safety for the night.

The bus ride was mostly uneventful, and I had reached the point where I was beginning to be tired, so I started to doze off while driving across town. Suddenly I started awake seeing something out of the corner of my eye, and turned out the window to see the giant form of the Colosseum looming over the bus. It was lit up for nighttime, and since the curvature of the road wrapped closely around its borders, I was able to fully take in the view while we followed it for a good minute or two. As I gawked at the enormous stone structure, I didn’t have enough wits about me to pull out my camera... but I think this makes it more mysterious and fascinating to me as I will remember only its monstrous size sneaking up on me in the middle of the night.

I reached Fiumicino at about 3:30 a.m., and the place was almost totally deserted. Or so I thought, until I walked up the stairs looking for someplace to rest: there in front of me were probably 50 people stretched out on the couches, wrapped in blankets, luggage in piles on the floor next to them, no one awake. It was quiet and a little bit eerie, almost like an airport graveyard. I settled down for a nap, but only slept an hour or so until the place’s energy picked up again as passengers began to arrive to catch early-morning flights.

Going down to the gate around 7 a.m., I met a white-haired couple on my flight who were returning to Virginia from their 50th wedding anniversary trip to Italy. On seeing the violin, the husband said they had five children, all musical, one of them a pastor and one a missionary in Romania. We kept together while waiting, and they thanked me for “watching over” them while changing gates, even though the only thing I had done was to check the flight itinerary for the change.

The violin has become quite a conversation piece for travel. The next gate I met another couple who had been eyeing the case for several minutes before the man spoke up, asking if it was a violin or a viola. He is the director of music at a school in Hartford, and on further conversation I learned that their son is a singer and former member of Chanticleer, an internationally-known singing group who visited Oberlin last year and of which I own several CDs. I plan to read more about him when I have time.

The flight was uneventful, but quite scenic. The plane followed the Italian coast for most of the way (pictured above), and below the clouds, so I snapped pictures while traveling over the famed Isle of Elba and the beautiful Alps.

And then came customs.

I was stopped at the border getting into England for about two hours, where the workers held me as the desk as a traveler “under inspection.” The woman I talked to, an irritated-looking person with her hair pulled back in a tight bun and shiny pink lipstick that looked terrible, was entirely convinced that I was planning on doing something fishy while in the country. The problems she saw included:

-Me not having an address for where I was staying (of course I don’t have an address, I’m staying with a friend of my friend and my friend is the one taking me there)

-My friend being an American girl working with a family in England (this is probably the most legitimate, seeing as American nannies are illegal in this country without a visa, and the border control is wary… however, this is not the case with Emilie), and

-My “limited” cash supply (I told her I had 50 euro on my person and a couple thousand American dollars in credit).

To top things off, she decided to search every bit of my luggage. When she found my journal, she deliberately read as much of it as she could in the space of five minutes, and found one unfortunate sentence in my writing: “Now I don’t want to go to England.” The funny part of this (and what I explained to her, but in vain) is that if she had read the context, she would have seen that the implication was not that I didn’t want to go to England, but that I didn’t want to leave Italy. After two hours of interrogation, searching through my belongings, and making phone calls to the States, she pursed her bright pink lips up into a fake smile and reluctantly let me through. “But if I were you, I would strongly advise your nanny friend,” she added.

After nearly 24 straight hours of travel, Emilie finally picked me up, and I arrived at the house in Alton, about an hour south of London.

To be continued,
-Allie

July 10th - Leaving already?!

A few friends and I recently discovered a basement pizzeria near the convent, run by a high-energy, suntanned, middle-aged man who loves music. We were enjoying pizza and pasta there two nights ago when “Hotel California” came over the speakers, much to our delight. When he saw our reaction, he turned up the volume to fill the entire little restaurant, we being the only customers at the early hour of 8:00. Whenever he passed the table he played air guitar and sang along – I have to give him credit for knowing most of the words, even if they came out in a very thick Italian accent.

The picture above is the pizza margherita I ordered there. I swear, I'm never having Papa John's again.

I was met with a rude awakening yesterday when I found out I would have to leave Italy earlier than expected. The trains didn’t run early enough in the morning for me to make the airport in time for my flight if I took the group bus with the other students, which meant I would have to leave the previous evening and somehow stay in Rome overnight. So I quickly gathered myself, packed in about 20 minutes flat, and began to say my goodbyes. The students I wasn’t worried about – most of them I would see in Oberlin in a month anyhow – but I absolutely couldn’t leave without seeing a few people from the town.

Unfortunately, with this short notice change of plans there was no time to find so many of the locals that I had gotten to know. I don’t know if I’m disappointed about this, or if I’m glad – maybe too many goodbyes would have been too depressing. I knew I still had a long day of travel ahead and wanted to keep my spirits up as much as was possible under the circumstances. Maybe it’s also better to remember all the times I had talking with them, instead of my last memory being that of saying goodbye…. But there was one place that I had to go.

Going into Carlo’s shop, I approached with an unintentionally sad look on my face. Carlo frowned back at me as I walked in and asked what the matter was, and when I told him I had to leave that day instead of tomorrow, his face turned sad as well. As a formal goodbye, we exchanged home and email addresses, and Barbara gave me a thin cardboard tulip from the shop as a parting gift. Daniele, who I had texted to meet up there one last time, looked pretty shaken when he found out that I had to go so soon, which he quickly remedied with a cigarette. Then we all wandered outside and chatted for a few minutes; I asked Carlo if he would still be at the shop in a year, and with the customary accompanying hand gesture he answered, “Magari,” I hope so. I promised that if I were ever in town again I would come visit, and then left the two men standing by the rail smoking – just the way I first met them five weeks ago.

Later that night I passed by the cozy little shop one last time getting to the train station, but didn’t stop to go in, just waved to Carlo and yelled “ciao” in passing. I knew if I had gone in to say a final final goodbye I might not have gotten away without a few tears.

Closing the chapter on Italy,
-Allie

July 8th: People

Im posting from the internet cafe for the first time. Only 1.50 euro per hour to use the computers here - the downside is, the keyboard keys are different, and they feel funny. So excuse any typing errors for now, until I can go home and fix them on my laptop with AMERICAN keys.

Recently I was introduced to the "Kebap place" down the street from the Convent... Normally Iàm not a fan of Middle >Eastern food, but this place is great. Evidently other students have been eating there for a while, and built up a nice chat history with the women who work there. Itàs two Turkish women, a son, and a man who looks like a husband-owner of the place. So I went a few times, or enough for one of the women to recognize me. One day this week I heard that they were going on vacation, and wouldnàt be returning until after we leave Italy. Once the news spread, all the Oberlin students flocked there on Saturday for the final day of kebaps (a type of lamb meat sandwich on pita bread -- I usually get mine with ketchup-mayo spread and lettuce, and onions, although they also offer French fries as toppings, among others.) While there, I spoke with one of the women and asked where they were going on vacation, to which she responded, her home country of Turkey. Then she added, "If you students are ever back in town, just let us know -- say youàre the Americans who were here studying music in 2008 and we,ll surely remember you." I wished her a good vacation, ordered my sandwich, and said goodbye to the little boy behind the counter, who had been staring at me with a confused expression on his face.

Marco, the young Italian actor, has become good friends with Caroline, an oboeist friend here who knows my sister from school in Michigan. After hearing her talk about the concerts, he decided to come see Figaro for our final performance, and judging by the grin on his face I saw when I had a chance to look up, he seemed to like it.

We returned to Blu Bar, Marcoàs parents place, again today for lunch. They are always happy to see us, and chat about our classes and upcoming concerts. While eating, it dawned on me that I would only be here for three more days, and that there were many people to say goodbye to, including Marcoàs family.

After a bad day last week where I couldnàt speak hardly a word of Italian for lack of sleep, I recharged at home and returned that evening to Carloàs bar with slightly greater success. Intending only to buy a drink and leave, I heard a frantic voice as I walked out the door: "Allie! English!" I reentered the store to find a petite British woman at the counter unsuccessfully trying to order one scoop of mascarpone in a cone. After helping her out, I asked what she was doing in Italy, and found out that she and her husband were vacationing. I then told her that I was heading to England in a few days, and we chatted about that for a few minutes. Once she left, I turned back to Carlo, who had been listening and trying to understand our conversation. He asked how much longer we were here, and when I told him, he made a sad face and mimed a letter: "You will write me?" I,ll send him and Barbara a postcard when I return to the States.

The trains are running for the first time in a couple of days, due to a transportation strike (affecting buses as well, from what Iàve heard). When asked about it in class, the Italian teachers seemed not to mind, saying that it happens every two or three months here, especially during the summer.

Ok, typing errors fixed and pics uploaded later.

-Allie

p.s. I am adding the picture above several days later, as I didn't have access to my album while in the internet cafe -- it's a shot I took of the antique market that took place last weekend. (I didn't buy anything.)

July 6th: Fourth of July??

One funny thing I forgot to mention was the lack of an Independence Day here.

Well, duh, we're not in America. But it was still strange not to celebrate. Many of us had forgotten altogether (myself included), until a quiet ripple began to spread among the students: "hey guys, it's the Fourth of July." Oh yeah, right. Now the question was: what do we do?

The obvious answer was to go to Bloom, the self-proclaimed "foreign bar," order some American drinks, and have our own celebration off in the corner. However, seeing as the opera let out so late, that wasn't a possibility. Or at least not a smart one.

So, on the ride to Cortona that evening, someone started singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," and we half-heartedly joined in. That was it. No fireworks, no more patriotic songs, and no red-white-and-blue. Having never been out of the country before, it was the first big American holiday that I've missed, and it felt strange.

Oh well. Maybe we'll make up for it this Labor Day. I know I'm buying fireworks, at least.

Ciao,

-Al

p.s. (the picture above isn't mine)

July 6th: Catching up

It's getting harder and harder to update as we get closer to the end of the program. Things are pretty busy.

We're full-on into the opera right now, and it's pretty intense. There are four performances total -- tonight is our last -- with two casts in three different locations near Arezzo (Cortona, Sansepolcro, and Castiglion Fiorentino). We have large charter buses that shuttle everyone back and forth from Arezzo to the concert venues, which are great except that the overhead bins don't hold violins. Anyway, since the Italian people take their time with every aspect of life, it makes sense that evening concerts wouldn't start until 9 pm. And that's a lazy 9 pm -- it's usually more like 9:15 or 9:30. So do the math -- if the opera is four hours long, we're not getting home and in bed until well after 2 a.m. every night. Fortunately, the Italian teachers are gracious and allowed us to set back our class time until the afternoon, for the duration of the opera performances.

That said, many of the language classes have been cancelled altogether. They understand that music is our main focus here, so they allowed us to take a few days' break last week. Now that means not only is our test on Thursday (help!), but we've also had time to forget everything we learned in the past couple of weeks. And forget studying -- it's been hard enough just to stay awake with the crazy time schedule everyone's been on. Saturday "morning" I woke up and was shocked to find that it was actually 3 in the afternoon.... but, I guess I needed it.

Some of the kids' parents are visiting Italy to see the performances, and I'm a little jealous. I wish my family could be here too.

Going back to the Italians taking their time with life... that's one thing I really like about it here. Remember how I've said that the locals find it strange that we eat on the run? I actually am beginning to understand that. When I grab a ham and mozzarella panino per portare via, for takout, I find myself wondering whether it's actually necessary that I get it to go. And a lot of the time, the answer is no. Yesterday, for example -- I was in such a habit of getting food fast that I didn't stop to think that I didn't really need to be anywhere in a hurry. So rather than running with it, I sat down outside the cafe with a few friends and had a nice conversation while eating my freshly-made panino. It was a very pleasant change.

I haven't even seen anyone here eating while walking, let alone eating while working or driving. Even to go for a caffe', they deliberately stand at the counter and sip it slowly, making conversation with the bar owner or other customers. It's a nice change of pace.

Also, the time schedule of this culture is really different. For the first couple of weeks we were here, no one could figure out why stores seemed to close at random at strange times of the day. It was actually a little frustrating, since the afternoon is often the only time that we have free to do shopping, get groceries, etc.Then someone informed us that the town takes a break from 1-4 every afternoon, which we call their siesta time (although that's probably not really what it is). For these few hours, most stores shut down, and there are fewer people out on the streets. Everything re-opens late afternoon and the restaurants start preparing for dinner, which actually doesn't happen until 8 or 9. Then, naturally, everyone is out until 1 or 2 in the morning -- even on weeknights -- which is why it's not unusual to them for the opera to end at 1:30. It's as if they have their quiet time in the afternoon to allow them to stay out as late as they want. Who knows, maybe that's actually the point. Either way, I kind of like it. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an Italian in a hurry -- these people just have a natural sense of taking it easy that makes everything around here really leisurely and enjoyable.

So while my dining habits probably won't be any different when I return to the States, it's really nice to enjoy here while I can.

(The picture above is the sign hanging outside the theater where we performed in Cortona.)

More later,
-Allie