La Mia Stanza: the desk, closet, and window
La Mia Stanza: the daybed (its pretty comfortable)
La Cucina
Le case tuscane sono bellisime (Tuscan houses are incredibly beautiful)
Il SalottoThursday, September 25, 2008
Welcome to My Home
La Mia Stanza: the desk, closet, and windowLa Mia Stanza: the daybed (its pretty comfortable)La CucinaLe case tuscane sono bellisime (Tuscan houses are incredibly beautiful)
Il SalottoGelato Survey: First Entry
I think I've found my first good gelateria. Kelly and I were wandering the streets on the southern side of the Arno yesterday, using our lunch our to explore a new street and get a feel for the whole lunch scenario outside of the touristy parts of town. Successful in our lunch pursuit, we found a decent pannino for only 2.50 euro, which is almost half what places in the touristy part of town sell it for. Anyway, continuing our wandering, were crossing the Ponte Santa Trinita, the bridge just one to the west of Ponte Vechio, when we spotted this Gelateria on the corner, aptly named "Gelateria Santa Trinita."
Unlike the cafes with a tiny comercial gelato freezer that holds the standard six flavours, this gelateria had a room devoted to gelato, with the gelato freezer stretching the entire length and holding in it's deliciously frozen depths a couple dozen flavours. It was quite difficult to decide which kind to get. I know the translations for most of the flavours (gelato flavours are definitely high up on the list of important Italian words to know) but there were easily five or six flavours that I had no clue about. After agonzing moments of decision while we waited for our turn to order, Kelly and I finally selected one flavour each to try - Kelly tried the yogurt flavour, to see if it really was the same as her american favorite, and I tried "Santa Trinita." A swirl of colors from cream to brown looked very promising, and the name told me that it was the house specialty, but other than that I have no idea what it was that I ate. Very good though. I think somewhere in the concoction was some sort of nut flavour.
In summation, Kelly came away with a double scoop of Yogurt in a cone, a dependable reproduction of the flavour some know here in America. I ordered one scoop Santa Trinita and one Chocolate in a cup. The chocolate wasn't overly sweet, but it went very well with the other flavour, and I thoroughly enjoyed my choice. We both ordered the 2 euro size and agreed that they gave generous portions - in the future we might get the 1.50 euro size which is the smallest possible.
Results: Gelateria Santa Trinita was excellent. Definitely going to go back for more of those flavours.
Unlike the cafes with a tiny comercial gelato freezer that holds the standard six flavours, this gelateria had a room devoted to gelato, with the gelato freezer stretching the entire length and holding in it's deliciously frozen depths a couple dozen flavours. It was quite difficult to decide which kind to get. I know the translations for most of the flavours (gelato flavours are definitely high up on the list of important Italian words to know) but there were easily five or six flavours that I had no clue about. After agonzing moments of decision while we waited for our turn to order, Kelly and I finally selected one flavour each to try - Kelly tried the yogurt flavour, to see if it really was the same as her american favorite, and I tried "Santa Trinita." A swirl of colors from cream to brown looked very promising, and the name told me that it was the house specialty, but other than that I have no idea what it was that I ate. Very good though. I think somewhere in the concoction was some sort of nut flavour.
In summation, Kelly came away with a double scoop of Yogurt in a cone, a dependable reproduction of the flavour some know here in America. I ordered one scoop Santa Trinita and one Chocolate in a cup. The chocolate wasn't overly sweet, but it went very well with the other flavour, and I thoroughly enjoyed my choice. We both ordered the 2 euro size and agreed that they gave generous portions - in the future we might get the 1.50 euro size which is the smallest possible.
Results: Gelateria Santa Trinita was excellent. Definitely going to go back for more of those flavours.
Settling In: An Art Show
On Monday my host mom asked me if I would be interested in going with them to an art show of their daughter’s. “Si, si, certo!” I grabbed my favorite winter coat, which happens to go nicely with the new scarf that I love, and headed for the door. Of course, by winter coat, I mean San Diego winter, which means that the cream-colored knit sweater is perfect for a fall evening in Tuscany. We left just after five, leaving ourselves enough time to pick up my host mom’s elderly mother and drive out into the hills around Florence to the Medici’s Villa where the art show starts at six. My host mom eagerly points out all sorts of landmarks during our drive – a museum, the building where she works, and as we drive further through the suburbs, the various villas where other colleges have programs. She explains that her friend works at one of them, and I only sort of understand her Italian explanation of what exactly it is that her friend does for the college.
It is interesting to see more of the city. My host family lives very close to the center, and I’ve walked through the narrow cobblestone streets around the city center enough times to be confident that I can always find my way around well enough to get back to my house or the Stanford Center (granted, I still keep a map in my purse whenever I go out). However past that simple walking distance, which currently has a radius of a few miles, I haven’t seen anything of the city. So I keep my eyes on the buildings and, as we get farther outside the city, the beautiful green hills and villas that are rapidly passing by my window. Angelica (my host mom) points out the famous beauty of Fiesole, a hill outside the city dotted with picturesque villas and capped with some sort of religious building, I think she said a Franciscan monastery, which I will definitely visit one of these days. And the seemingly never-ending property of a gigantic villa with a foreign sounding name, which my host grandmother (I suppose that’s what I would call her) tells both Angelica and me is Russian. Angelica mentions that in the extensive grounds of this villa there is a famous statue which I can’t remember the name of, but she says something about it being the biggest statue in all of Tuscany, and I promise her I’ll go see it one of these days and walk around, since she assures me it is beautiful and a great place for a picnic.
We arrive at the Medici Villa just before six, and park on the grass under a pine tree. Hurriedly I pull the coat out of my large purse, as it is much colder up here in the hills than it was in the city. Bundled up, we make our way towards the villa, very slowly so that the tiny and delicate Italian grandmother can keep up with us across the uneven cobblestones. W
e mingle with the others in the courtyard for a moment before Angelica curiously pokes her nose through a door, looking for her daughter. She finds her, but is quickly shooed away since the show isn’t to be seen yet. As we walk towards the main entrance of the Villa, I learn that where we were, and where the paintings are all hanging, is actually just the old stables of the villa. The main building seems formidable, going up, straight up, before me for several stories. It’s immense, with the proud and almost haughty reserve of a building that has been important in the past. Although no longer endowed with the same importance in the daily activity that has long ceased to bustle around its grounds, it rests on the laurels of its history, and still manages to hold its own.
There is not actually much of the villa to see, as the grounds past the front yard (if I can use such an ordinary phrase for it) are fenced off, and the rooms past the front entrance are currently closed off to the crowds milling in that gigantic stone hall. There are a few pieces of modern art hung on the walls, which might seem like an anachronism there, but somehow their dark gray forms with interesting but somewhat stark lines do not clash with the mood of the building. The show is running late, and there is not that much to do besides try to fit in and socialize with this Italian family that I am part of. When they let us into the rooms of the villa set up for the reception, I look around at the painted ceilings depicting famous peoples and the coat of arms for all the towns in Tuscany. Being in a villa like this is interesting, but it’s not actually set up to be a historical landmark, and besides the ceilings there is not much to see.
We wait an hour through the long and late speeches of introduction and thanks to the benefactors of the show. I meet the 25 year old artist whose room I am now living in, very beautiful in a gauzy lavender dress. Also Angelica’s ex-husband, who I know right off since he looks so much like the 17 year old son who I’ve eaten several dinners with. The family is still very much a unit, although ex-husband and wife don’t say very much to each other, and the wife’s boyfriend is incredibly quiet. But Angelica still asks where her ex-mother-in-law is and chats with her, and smiles to see her son and daughter talking with their father. It’s interesting to see how the relatively new phenomenon of divorce here in Italy is encountering the long tradition of the importance of the family.
When the talking is done they finally serve the champagne and appetizers that I’ve been eyeing – I ate lunch a long time ago and I’m starving. However, not only do I manage to make my way through the thick crowds to grab a drink and small crostini and sit down right next to another table loaded with slices of cheese and Italian sausage, but Angelica and her friends all make it their mission to go and get samples of all the food for everyone else, which they all of course refuse from each other, leaving me and the 17-year-old, Cico they call him (short for Francisco I think), to share the bounty from all these kind women.
My stomach no longer rumbling at me, we make our way back over to the stables for the show. The daughter is working the reception desk as we come in, and although I don’t actually hear it, I can tell Angelica asked her daughter where her paintings were so she could go straight to them and admire them, and the daughter retorted that she should go look through the art and find them. Her bit of impatience is understandable, since Angelica has come in support of the show several times already and knows exactly what they look like. I enjoy myself looking around at all the modern art. Many of Tuscan landscapes hang on the walls, covering a range from realistic to very abstract. The rest of the art covers all sorts of subjects, and a few catch my eye. A couple of very large canvases, dark and dim, with large feminine faces almost covered over and obscured. They remind me of frescoes painted long ago and covered with the grime of the ages. The expressions demand my empathy, and seem so forlorn at being stuck there, immobile on those canvases forever. I also like a series of smaller paintings, all with gray backgrounds and warm brown hens painted with differing degrees of abstraction. I finish looking through the show I go back to ask Angelica, chatting with her ex-husband, which are her daughter’s work. They are two large works which caught my eye as I went around – images of Tuscan homes, but not idealized. They pictures back yards with cheap plastic chairs, snake-like emerald hoses, and old tables covered under an overhang outside. It is easy to tell what they depict, but the lines are abstract and stray from the laws of perspective. They are interesting. Apparently the daughter has been told that her work is the most “American” of all the paintings there. I have no clue what that means.
We don’t stay too long. As we walk back to the car, I am remembering how much I really do like art. Maybe I will sign up for that modern art in Tuscany class. I haven’t drawn or painted in many years, and I’m kind of intimidated by the class, but I know that it is full of first-time artists. And when else will I ever study painting like this, in the heart of the Renaissance and the opportunity to start from the beginning, with no expectations as to my skill level? I like creativity. I should take the class. I’ll sign up tomorrow.
It is interesting to see more of the city. My host family lives very close to the center, and I’ve walked through the narrow cobblestone streets around the city center enough times to be confident that I can always find my way around well enough to get back to my house or the Stanford Center (granted, I still keep a map in my purse whenever I go out). However past that simple walking distance, which currently has a radius of a few miles, I haven’t seen anything of the city. So I keep my eyes on the buildings and, as we get farther outside the city, the beautiful green hills and villas that are rapidly passing by my window. Angelica (my host mom) points out the famous beauty of Fiesole, a hill outside the city dotted with picturesque villas and capped with some sort of religious building, I think she said a Franciscan monastery, which I will definitely visit one of these days. And the seemingly never-ending property of a gigantic villa with a foreign sounding name, which my host grandmother (I suppose that’s what I would call her) tells both Angelica and me is Russian. Angelica mentions that in the extensive grounds of this villa there is a famous statue which I can’t remember the name of, but she says something about it being the biggest statue in all of Tuscany, and I promise her I’ll go see it one of these days and walk around, since she assures me it is beautiful and a great place for a picnic.
We arrive at the Medici Villa just before six, and park on the grass under a pine tree. Hurriedly I pull the coat out of my large purse, as it is much colder up here in the hills than it was in the city. Bundled up, we make our way towards the villa, very slowly so that the tiny and delicate Italian grandmother can keep up with us across the uneven cobblestones. W
e mingle with the others in the courtyard for a moment before Angelica curiously pokes her nose through a door, looking for her daughter. She finds her, but is quickly shooed away since the show isn’t to be seen yet. As we walk towards the main entrance of the Villa, I learn that where we were, and where the paintings are all hanging, is actually just the old stables of the villa. The main building seems formidable, going up, straight up, before me for several stories. It’s immense, with the proud and almost haughty reserve of a building that has been important in the past. Although no longer endowed with the same importance in the daily activity that has long ceased to bustle around its grounds, it rests on the laurels of its history, and still manages to hold its own. There is not actually much of the villa to see, as the grounds past the front yard (if I can use such an ordinary phrase for it) are fenced off, and the rooms past the front entrance are currently closed off to the crowds milling in that gigantic stone hall. There are a few pieces of modern art hung on the walls, which might seem like an anachronism there, but somehow their dark gray forms with interesting but somewhat stark lines do not clash with the mood of the building. The show is running late, and there is not that much to do besides try to fit in and socialize with this Italian family that I am part of. When they let us into the rooms of the villa set up for the reception, I look around at the painted ceilings depicting famous peoples and the coat of arms for all the towns in Tuscany. Being in a villa like this is interesting, but it’s not actually set up to be a historical landmark, and besides the ceilings there is not much to see.
We wait an hour through the long and late speeches of introduction and thanks to the benefactors of the show. I meet the 25 year old artist whose room I am now living in, very beautiful in a gauzy lavender dress. Also Angelica’s ex-husband, who I know right off since he looks so much like the 17 year old son who I’ve eaten several dinners with. The family is still very much a unit, although ex-husband and wife don’t say very much to each other, and the wife’s boyfriend is incredibly quiet. But Angelica still asks where her ex-mother-in-law is and chats with her, and smiles to see her son and daughter talking with their father. It’s interesting to see how the relatively new phenomenon of divorce here in Italy is encountering the long tradition of the importance of the family.
When the talking is done they finally serve the champagne and appetizers that I’ve been eyeing – I ate lunch a long time ago and I’m starving. However, not only do I manage to make my way through the thick crowds to grab a drink and small crostini and sit down right next to another table loaded with slices of cheese and Italian sausage, but Angelica and her friends all make it their mission to go and get samples of all the food for everyone else, which they all of course refuse from each other, leaving me and the 17-year-old, Cico they call him (short for Francisco I think), to share the bounty from all these kind women.
My stomach no longer rumbling at me, we make our way back over to the stables for the show. The daughter is working the reception desk as we come in, and although I don’t actually hear it, I can tell Angelica asked her daughter where her paintings were so she could go straight to them and admire them, and the daughter retorted that she should go look through the art and find them. Her bit of impatience is understandable, since Angelica has come in support of the show several times already and knows exactly what they look like. I enjoy myself looking around at all the modern art. Many of Tuscan landscapes hang on the walls, covering a range from realistic to very abstract. The rest of the art covers all sorts of subjects, and a few catch my eye. A couple of very large canvases, dark and dim, with large feminine faces almost covered over and obscured. They remind me of frescoes painted long ago and covered with the grime of the ages. The expressions demand my empathy, and seem so forlorn at being stuck there, immobile on those canvases forever. I also like a series of smaller paintings, all with gray backgrounds and warm brown hens painted with differing degrees of abstraction. I finish looking through the show I go back to ask Angelica, chatting with her ex-husband, which are her daughter’s work. They are two large works which caught my eye as I went around – images of Tuscan homes, but not idealized. They pictures back yards with cheap plastic chairs, snake-like emerald hoses, and old tables covered under an overhang outside. It is easy to tell what they depict, but the lines are abstract and stray from the laws of perspective. They are interesting. Apparently the daughter has been told that her work is the most “American” of all the paintings there. I have no clue what that means.
We don’t stay too long. As we walk back to the car, I am remembering how much I really do like art. Maybe I will sign up for that modern art in Tuscany class. I haven’t drawn or painted in many years, and I’m kind of intimidated by the class, but I know that it is full of first-time artists. And when else will I ever study painting like this, in the heart of the Renaissance and the opportunity to start from the beginning, with no expectations as to my skill level? I like creativity. I should take the class. I’ll sign up tomorrow.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
First Day In Photos
It was drizzling my first morning waking up in Firenze. On my way to school, I walked to past Santa Croce and stopped to admire it for a few minutes (I was jet lagged, so I had woken up early and had some minutes to spare.)
Santa Croce
I crossed the Arno and walked along it, to the the building where the Stanford Center is. It is just about directly across the Arno from the Uffizi.
Uffizi
For lunch, some other students and I bought a panino (proscuitto and mozarella, my favorite) and walked across the Ponte Vechio to eat it in the Piazza della Signoria. We watched the tourists from under the shelter of our umbrellas, admired Michelangelo's David and the other statues in the square, and walked around (and of course, we bought a gelato during our walk).
Il Palazzo in the Piazza della Signoria (David at the bottom)
After an hour and half, we returned for the second part of our orientation for the Stanford Program in Florence and heard about all the possible classes. At the end of the day the sun finally came out, and as I walked home, I looked down the Arno at the Ponte Vechio in the evening light.
Ponte Vechio
After a lovely walk, I returned to my room and opened the window to the last of the day's sunshine.
The View from My Room
Santa CroceI crossed the Arno and walked along it, to the the building where the Stanford Center is. It is just about directly across the Arno from the Uffizi.
Uffizi
Il Palazzo in the Piazza della Signoria (David at the bottom)After an hour and half, we returned for the second part of our orientation for the Stanford Program in Florence and heard about all the possible classes. At the end of the day the sun finally came out, and as I walked home, I looked down the Arno at the Ponte Vechio in the evening light.
Ponte VechioAfter a lovely walk, I returned to my room and opened the window to the last of the day's sunshine.
The View from My RoomAs you might be able to understand, I'm still adjusting the idea that this city is my home for three months, and that my feet will walk on these coblestone streets everyday on my way to and from school.
Pretty neat.
Pretty neat.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Almost There!
Once again, writing in transit. I am sitting staring at the valleys that go by me as I wind my way from the Ligurian coast inland, my destination Pisa. I’ve spent a beautiful, short, two days in Genoa with Alii and her family and friends. Wonderful Italian family dinners, with crazy conversation flying by too fast for me to understand half the words, but with enough animation for me to understand and laugh at the jokes with everyone else. And of course, delicious food. Finally real prosciutto again! It’s something I’ve missed all year long between my visits to Italy – prosciutto in America just isn’t the same, and it’s impossible to get the “prosciutto crudo” (uncooked) that I like so much.
I arrived at the airport safe and sound, on time, with all my luggage there and intact – a minor miracle if you know the stories of my past travels. Alii’s mom picked me up from the airport and I had a delicious lunch with her and Alii since everyone else was at work or school. In the afternoon, while Alii studied, I got to sleep finally since I hadn’t slept since waking up the day before at 5:00 am in San Diego. I meant to only sleep for an hour, but Alii took pity on me and woke me up an hour later than I requested, so I got 2 hours of sleep. And, well, I suppose you should call it more like 3 because it took me a full hour and a half to make my body sit up and leave that comfortable bed.
That evening, while Alii studied more for her big exam, Chiara came by to see me, and took me on a Vespa ride to a little café for the best granita in the city, an icy slushy drink. Like her, I ordered the berry granita with whipped cream on top, and I can personally confirm that it was quite delicious. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the Vespa at first. I’ve never ridden on a motorcycl
Wednesday I managed to sleep the whole morning, and wish Alii luck as she went to take her exam at eleven. I met her for lunch afterwards and we walked around the city a bit, sightseeing and talking. After a relaxing, easy-going afternoon we had another delicious dinner and then went out to meet her friends for a drink. I had met them last year when I came to visit, and it was fun to get to see them all again. We went to a bar by one of the old churches, which had some clear plastic panels interspersed amidst the stones in the floor so you could see the water flowing in the cistern several stories below. We went down a flight of stairs into a tiny little room, the center of which was all plastic, revealing the water underneath, and the sides lined with cushions to sit on. Very cool. Who knows how old it was. Anyway, we went back upstairs and ordered drinks, and sat and talked until 12:30, at which point we walked down to the harbor to take some goofy photos and mess around – Alii wanted some fun photos to make a gift for the birthday of one of her friends, so she used me as an excuse to take a bunch. We enjoyed ourselves, were generally ridiculous, and adopted all sorts of poses in our crazy wigs, hats and fake ears.
And then this morning I got up, packed, missed my train by about five minutes, and got on the next one that will eventually get me to Florence, only a little bit later than originally intended. A very exciting evening ahead of me!
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