The last few weeks.

My time in Italy is starting to come to a close -- only 18 days left! -- but I've had the opportunity to travel to a bunch of places over the past few weeks.   I finished my class on fresco cycles two weeks ago, so three friends and I chose to travel to Pompeii and Sorrento during the break weekend.  We spent basically all of Friday in Pompeii, which was much bigger and more excavated than I expected.

I was also surprised by how intact many of the frescoes and mosaics were inside the homes.  Most of the bodies have been removed and taken to a museum in Naples, but we did see a skeleton or two.  From basically any part of the city, you can see Mt. Vesuvius looming in the background.

After our day in Pompeii, we took a train along the coast of the Bay of Naples to Sorrento.  We had booked tiny cabins in a campground right outside of Sorrento, but when we arrived to the campground we found out that we had been upgraded to bungalows with kitchens and porches and views of the Bay and Vesuvius and the cliffs of Sorrento.  We took advantage of our kitchen and porch and made dinners and breakfasts and cappuccino to eat outside!

After spending Saturday and Sunday walking around Sorrento and trying lots of lemon flavored treats (Sorrento is known for its lemons) we took the train back to Naples to get some pizza before heading back to Orvieto.  Naples is known for having the best pizza in Italy, but it's also known for its high rates of crime and unemployment.   Between the gangs of men hanging out and lining the streets and the craziest drivers I've ever seen, we felt like we were risking our lives in Naples, but the pizza was totally worth it!

After our trip, we started a new class on liturgy and art.  For the next few weeks, we're learning about praying the hours and making two liturgical books.  This past weekend, we also went to Rome to visit the catacombs.  On Sunday, the town of Orvieto celebrated Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) by shooting a bird down a zipline into the Duomo.  It was definitely an interesting spectacle, since it incorporated men in Renaissance tights with trumpets, firecrackers, giant pictures of the apostles with fire coming out of them, and a big band parade.  I'll never think about Pentecost the same way again.

Frescoes and Football

This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we’ve been going on both educational and non-educational field trips.  On Thursday, we visited Arezzo to look at a famous fresco of the Legend of the Holy Cross.  While we were there, we also had some free time to look around the city.  Arezzo is a really old town in Tuscany, so it was full of amazing architecture and beautiful views around the edges.

Friday, we drove to the monastery at Monte Olivetto and then to the small town of San Gimignano.  Even though there were huge frescoes in both locations, the best part of the day was definitely the fact that we spent hours driving through the Tuscan countryside.  It was absolutely incredible.  Every single time I looked out the window, it was like being in the middle of a post card or a movie.

San Gimignano is a really tiny hill-top town.  It’s known as the city of towers or spires because it used to have more than seventy tall towers -- our professor referred to it as the ‘little Manhattan of Italy’.  At some point, the local duke ordered the towers to be removed so only thirteen of them remain, but thirteen still looks like a lot considering the tiny size of the town.  San Gimignano is mostly a tourist destination today, but it’s completely idyllic.  All of the streets are lined with leather and ceramics stores, and each window has a different type of flower draped from it.  Exploring the area was definitely a beautiful way to spend the day!

Yesterday, we took a break from viewing frescoes for class and went to the Roma football game!  It was definitely the most intense sporting event that I’ve ever seen.  Roma played Catania (a team from Sicily) and even though the scores wouldn’t affect either team’s standings, the crowds still sang, booed, cheered, whistled, and yelled their hearts out.  The final score was 2-2, and I thought that some of the Roma fans around me were going to have a heart attack in the final few minutes because there were a bunch of shots on their goal.  I’ve heard that soccer is basically a religion to the Italians,and their enthusiasm for Roma definitely surpassed their enthusiasm for Easter Mass!

Firenze

On Friday, we had a field trip!  Yay!  Instead of touring the capital in Harrisburg or some place in Allentown, we actually went to an exciting city -- Florence!  Because the class that I'm taking right now is focused on the frescoes and texts of the Renaissance, we looked four fresco cycles in monasteries and churches throughout the city.

One of the frescoes was inside of the Medici palace.  The Medicis were the most powerful and important family in Florence and huge patrons of the arts.  The picture above is from their courtyard garden which may have been even more beautiful than the frescoes.

Our field trip ended at 5 p.m., but about half of our group had booked a hostel to stay an extra day in the city.  We spent the rest of the night walking around, eating outside, listening to live music, and enjoying the wonderful weather!

The next day, we went inside the Duomo and then climbed to the cupola at the top!  It was 463 steps, but totally worth it because we got to see some amazing views of the entire city.

After descending the Duomo, we went in search of what the guidebooks have labeled the best gelato in Italy.  And found it.  Then we walked to a piazza on a hill overlooking the city.  The walk was wonderful, because we went through a really pretty public garden.

After walking, we ended our time in Florence with a lot of shopping in the outdoor leather market!

Venezia

This weekend, two other girls and I spent the weekend in Venice!  We took the train from Orvieto early on Friday morning and spent the next two days walking around in the city and getting lost a lot!  Even though we literally spent hours wandering around in circles, Venice is not such a bad place to be lost in.. It is even more beautiful than pictures and movies!

We took boat rides up and down the Grand Canal, which was absolutely gorgeous.  All of the buildings are old and falling apart, but they are aging more elegantly than I would have thought possible.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day exploring the nearby islands of Murano and Burano.  On Murano, there are a ton of glass blowing factories and stores, and Burano is known for it's lace and brightly colored houses.

Spring!

For my poetry class this month, our final assignment is to put together a portfolio with 12 poems and images that correspond to the poems.  Since quite a few of my poems are about Orvieto, I went for a walk today to take pictures for my poems.  It definitely made me realize again just how beautiful Orvieto is in the springtime!

Tonight we also had a poetry reading and art show for the work we've done this past month.  We each read two poems, and our poetry professor presented several of her published poems.  Then we had a reception and viewing of all of the Via Crucis paintings.

This sign basically invites anyone in the community to come to the show.. There were people at the poetry reading who didn't speak English.

This is the front door of the palazzo where we have classes every day.  It's unbelievably old and gorgeous!

A New Post, finally!

Once again, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog. It’s also been a while since I’ve taken good pictures (...sorry, Mom).  But, since I’m taking a poetry class this month, I have a few of my poems to explain these past few weeks here in Orvieto.

Easter is a much more extensive celebration in Italy than in American.  They refer to the whole week as the ‘Settimana Sancta’ or Holy Week, and this reality permeates much of their lives.  We attended SO MANY church services last week.  On Saturday night, many of the other students and I went to a midnight Mass in the Duomo in Orvieto.  The service began at 11:15 and didn’t end until 1:45 in the morning!  I may have (very briefly) nodded off a few times because the mass was in a mix of Italian and Latin.  During the service, though, they turned out all of the lights in the cathedral and then lit a bonfire in the back.  We were all holding candles, so then the bishop led a procession to the altar, lighting each row of candles on the way.  It was a little bit like a Christmas Eve candlelight service, but much more dramatic and beautiful inside an old, gothic Cathedral!  

On Friday night, we also attended the town’s Via Crucis service.  Several hundred people met in the piazza in front of a large church in Orvieto, and then we all got candles to carry.  Some priests led a procession around the outer edges of the town, and we stopped at 14 different spots where they led the liturgy of the stations of the cross.  Because Orvieto is situated on top of really sheer, dramatic cliffs, we had amazing views of the countryside at night during the walk!  The entire path was also lit up by small candles.  The candles and the priests led us to another church in the very center of Orvieto, where priests placed a crucifix at the altar and led the liturgy of the last station.

Our class also did a much smaller version of a Via Crucis.  Right now, half of us are taking the poetry class and the other half is taking a painting class.  The art students each painted a station of the cross, and we each wrote a poem about one of the stations.  On the Thursday before Easter, our whole group went to a nearby park to look at the paintings and read through the poems for each station.  The Catholic version of the Via Crucis focuses entirely on Jesus’ suffering and concludes before his resurrection.  It was a new, but really valuable experience for me to spend so much time meditating on His path to the cross, rather than rushing right to the resurrection.  The station that I wrote my poem about is called ‘Jesus Falls for the Third Time’ and it refers to when Jesus falls at the foot of Golgotha on his way to the cross.  My poem is basically a personal reaction to this station of the Cross

Jesus Falls The Third Time.

Why three?

Wasn’t once enough

To prove him willing, submissive?

How could they watch him three times?

Foot tumbling over rutted ground, cross scraping 

and tearing the wounds on his back.

Wasn’t once enough for them 

To see gashes and glazed eyes and

notice bruises blackening his ribs?

Why three?

Were his stumbles literally three

Or three symbolic and endless? 

Three falls are too many,

Three nights of Sheol too much, 

The cost of sin too high.

Three is awful.

It is extravagant.

It is enough. 

Other than celebrating Easter over this past weekend, life in Orvieto has been pretty normal.  A lot of runs outside along the cliffs, cappuccino, attempts to write and analyze poetry, and conversations and daily life with the other students here.  Our big project this month is a portfolio of twelve poems and reflections on life and art in Orvieto.  Since I have never really focused on writing poetry before, it’s been a little bit of a struggle to get into the discipline of writing, editing, and improving my work every day.  This poem that I wrote captures some of the ‘normal-ness’ of life in Orvieto because it talks about my relationship with the other Italian families who live in my apartment building, which is located on Via Postierla.  One thing to know before you read the poem:  the bottom floor of the building is an aerobics studio that blasts American music at all hours.  Think Ke$ha, Lady GaGa… 

Neighbors

I don’t often hear other voices in Via Postierla.

Their quiet lives fade, muted by the pulse

of the aerobics studio downstairs.

We have exchanged no words, but

Ciao and Buona sera

except when the woman across the hall

jabbed the doorbell and lectured me

with sweeping gestures and staccato Italian.

I see them through doorways and bannisters

caught in Polaroid minutes.

Architecture provides the momentary 

import of a thing surrounded but

I do not know how to give 

these snapshot people due regard.

I often watch a woman and her old, old mother

inching down the stairs arm in arm.

The mother’s wrists are frail as Murano glass

but the daughter grips them, determined.

I stare at this photo of filial care.

I wonder, do they have worries like my own,

these snapshot people?  Broken dryers, 

ants in the kitchen, moldy bathrooms.

When they step out from our shared staircase, 

do they dance to the echoes of top 40 songs?

Italy’s rolling cadences sound fuzzy in my American ears

and my American eyes have faulty lenses because

people are not flat and they are not simple and

they are not snapshots.

The reason I haven't posted on this blog in a while...

... is because I have spent the entire week in our studio working on a book making project.  Our class split up into two groups with half creating giant drawings of Orvieto and the other half writing and designing a book about the city.  The goal was to create a book that is accordian folded so it can be hung vertically and viewed on both sides.  For the text of the book, we used photos of 'letters' that we found outside in Orvieto to make tiny, linoleum print stamps which we printed individually by hand onto the pages of our book.  Our stories had to be 1,001 characters long, so stamping was a very long process. 

Last night, we had an art show with members of the Orvieto community to present our work.  Here I am with my book.  I wrote my story about the cliffs surrounding Orvieto so the one side looks like a giant vertical cliff while the other side has more abstract, layered elements.  It is impossible to get a picture of the whole thing because a) it is two sided and b) it is 400 cm from top to bottom.  

Because the majority of the other students here are art majors, their drawings and other works were absolutely incredible.  Here is a snapshot of just part of our studio with their drawings displayed.  

Since we only take one class per month, on Monday I'll be starting a totally new class -- Poetry and Ekphrasis.  This class focuses on writing poetry that responds to art which will be just as much of a new experience for me as a drawing class.