Pt. I - Viareggio
I told you I would get progressively worse at posting. Here we are. I haven’t posted in well over two weeks.
I was chatting with a friend who asked what I was up to and was disappointed to hear that I don’t have any crazy adventures besides my trips and other activities during the weekends. The fact of the matter is my weekly activities aren’t that thrilling to hear about. I’m having fun being here, but I mostly stick to my class-homework-workout-frisbee routine, which takes up most of my time. I enjoy this routine, don’t get me wrong, but that’s why I don’t usually post that much about my week. I always have really exciting weekends though, to make up for it.
Speaking of which, the tournament two weekends ago was REALLY fun. I didn’t bring a camera for the sake of packing lightly and, ya know, not damaging my camera, so my enthralling descriptive abilities will have to suffice.
After unsuccessfully attempting to go to bed early, I woke up at 6:30 in order to be ready to go by 7:15. Everything went as planned and my captain, Max, picked me and the other American girl, Georgia, up. We found out he’d found another girl, Emilia, to pick up with us for the weekend, since Giovana thought she had to bail on Sunday in order to study for a test (though she ended up changing her mind). Emilia was also in the car with us for the ride over and she was really nice. I like both Georgia and Emilia a lot.
The ride over was fairly uneventful. We talked a little about what we were all doing in Florence, how we all got into frisbee, etc. but mostly just watched the scenery pass. Once we got there, however, it was kin of surreal. Frisbee tournaments are a setting I’ve become ridiculously familiar with. I counted towards the end of last semester and I think I’ve been to somewhere around 25 tournaments before. So, on the one hand here was this extremely familiar setting then, on the other hand, it was all in Italian.
The fields were a little bit different. Italy doesn’t seem to really bother trying to maintain grassy fields during the winter (probably a good environmental call, all things considered), so we were playing on dirt. They were also definitely a little smaller than standard size and there were only two of them for the ten+ teams that were there. In part because the tournament was aimed at newer players and in part because the field space was so limited that games were only to eight points with a hard cap (max time) at 30 minutes, which was bizarre. We also had a bye (break lasting the length of a game) after practically every game. This meant warming up for every game separately. Warming up is my least favorite part of tournaments. I would actually go so far as to say warming up is my least favorite part of ultimate, so, basically, I was not very happy with this format. Overall, however, the tone of the tournament was slightly more serious than I expected and no one actually drank during the day, which was probably a good thing. I’ll save my non-ultimate readers the details of play and summarize by simply saying I had a lot of fun. We placed third overall (after getting killed by the team from Bologna) which was exciting, in part because games in the semifinals were hardcapped at 50 minutes, instead of 30.
Before leaving, my roommate was jokingly telling me that the whole tournament would stop for lunch. This kind of thing is unheard of within ultimate in the US and I was fairly convinced Italy would be similar. After all, it makes most people feel kind of sick to run on a full stomach. While the whole tournament didn’t exactly stop, they did serve us a full, sit-down meal during one of our byes on both Saturday and Sunday. This was both funny and delicious.
Saturday night was kind of an adventure. Games went until seven at which point we were all exhausted. We decided the best move would be to drop our stuff off at the place we were staying and shower there before heading over to the restaurant where the tournament was providing dinner. Our team had reserved two bungalows for the night. They were pretty well equipped with beds and everything, but a little tight. We managed though. However, something was wrong with the hot water tank in the girls’ bungalow. After one person had showered it seemed like the hot water tank had decided it’s job was done and no matter how long we waited, there was no more hot water. I waited to go last, mostly to simplify the process and not only was I left with zero hot water but we’d also waited so long for hot water at this point that everyone was in a rush to get to dinner before the cutoff time. So I took a three-minute, ice-cold shower with my whole team yelling at me to hurry up.
Dinner was pretty good. We ate at a buffet style restaurant and chatted with the Milan team who are all the most beautiful people I have ever seen. All of them. They were also a really fun team to play which definitely influenced how much I liked them. After dinner we hung out for a while before heading into Viareggio to see the Carnevale happening there.
Carnevale was crazy. It was street after street of people at all levels of inebriation, mostly dressed up in crazy costumes, and packed together so tightly it was hard to get through at some points. We were all pretty tired so none of us drank too much. Mostly we all followed Luigi (whose been playing the longest and was thus the least tired) around to various streets. We did manage to lose Marcello (the other American student from Seattle) at some point, which we were all pretty alarmed about. It quickly became clear that there was nothing we could do about it, though, since his cell phone was off and the crowd was far too large to have any hope of finding him. We decided that he’s an adult, after all, and should be able to find his way back on his own. Sure enough, about thirty minutes after we had all gotten back to the bungalows, Marcello shows up. Apparently he looked for us for awhile before giving up and just taking a taxi. Besides that it was just fun seeing Carnevale. I got to know my teammate pretty well and had a really fun time hanging out with them before heading back.
Last adventure of the night: it was freezing. I had borrowed a sleeping bag from Max and Gemma and it was still freezing all night, to the point that I didn’t really sleep that much. The other people in my cabin reported similar experiences. We woke up the next morning to find that there was actually heating in the cabins that we could have used. Fail.
So that was my tournament experience. The way back was actually pretty entertaining. Marcello joined us in the car and we chatted about a wide range of topic, from theories about the direction frisbee should take as an internationally growing sport, to global politics. I think I forgot to mention that Emilia is Colombian and is completing a masters program in Florence after spending the last several months in Shanghai. She also played for the Colombian nationals team a couple years ago, so all of these discussions of frisbee, politics, economic, etc were all really interesting because they had the perspective of three different countries. As the four English speakers of the team (Emilia is fluent in English but speaks practically no Italian), Marcello, Georgia, Emilia and I decided to hang out some time when Marcello can make it down to Florence (he’ studying in Perugia, normally), which I think will be fun.
And lastly, to further demonstrate how small the ultimate world is, I have a friend named Sam who I’ve played summer league with for the last two summers. It turns out Sam and Marcello have been roommates since their freshmen year of college (I have never met Marcello prior to playing with him in Florence). Marcello mentioned that he would be joining Sam, whose been studying abroad and playing with a team in Stolkholm, for a tournament over Easter weekend in Rimini (about two miles from Florence) called Paganello. Paganello is one of the biggest beach ultimate tournaments in the world (big enough to have it’s own wikipedia page!), which I have fantasized about going to for about a year. I remember deciding to study abroad and thinking that this would be a really convenient point in my life to attend Paganello since, under normal circumstances, I would have to fly myself in from the US and have to be a good enough ultimate player to justify this kind of cost - a condition which is a long ways off for me. But I hadn’t yet found a team, so I emailed Sam to see if they needed more women. He said they did, so I’ll be going to a once in a lifetime tournament in Italy, with two friends from Seattle, playing with a Swedish team. That’s ultimate for you.
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Pt. II - Roma!
This past weekend I went to Rome with school. I LOVE Rome. That city is the reason I decided to study Italian and then to come to Italy. I basically just think that Rome is the coolest city on earth.
Going through all the tours was a bit hectic and exhausting. On the one hand, I’d seen everything we’d looked at before without the inconvenience of being in a big group. On the other hand, having a expert who had spent their professional career learning about Italian art leading a lecture was pretty interesting.
We started out in the Vatican Museums. Considering the size of the collection, the two or so hours we spent there was not nearly enough
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This was the first work we looked at. It’s an ancient Greek work called Laocoön and His Sons. The subject matter is the Trojan priest, Laocoön who, according to myth, tried to warn the other Trojans of the Greek’s ploy to get into the city of Troy via a wooden horse. Athena, a full supporter of the Greeks in this conflict, sent two serpents to attack Laocoön and his sons, in order to keep him from getting in the way of the Greek’s plan. The statue itself actually has a very interesting story, as well. It was renowned in the ancient world and mentioned in many famous texts, though no one knows who carved it. At some point it was lost and everyone presumed it to be gone from the world forever. Though people were familiar with it from ancient texts, no one had actually seen it in centuries when a farmer found the statue under his field. Several historians came to inspect it and confirmed that it was indeed the statue mentioned in ancient texts. Michelangelo himself came to view it and was apparently so moved by the emotion and drama contained in the work, that it would forever influence his own sculptures.
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Next we saw the Belvedere Torso, another ancient Greek work which was Michelangelo apparently found quite inspirational, based this time on the emotion conveyed with so much missing and so little context. By the way, this statue is HUGE. That guy in the background is about three feet behind the statue, to give you some kind of reference.
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I don’t actually know anything about this frescoe - it was just on the way between two parts of the museum but 1) I thought it was beautiful, 2) It (hopefully) illustrates how three-dimensional some of the frescoes can appear, and 3) It also shows how consistently amazing the Vatican Museums are.
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This was the Gallery of Maps, also in the Vatican Museum. It’s basically just a long, long hallway lined with maps, but everything was incredibly detailed. Basically just very gorgeous.
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We made it to a room which had this lovely frescoe in. I was preoccupied looking at this and making sure to get a decent picture while the lecture was talking about something on the other side of the room. I turned around and…
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This old thing was on the opposite wall. No big deal. If, for whatever reason, you aren’t familiar with this piece, it’s The School of Athens by Raphael (my favorite of the artistic “greats”). I was kind of surprised by how vivid the colors are. All of the pictures I had seen prior had seemed somewhat washed out. There’s honestly too much going on in this piece to describe it to you - it’s better to just read the wiki article, I promise.
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We kind of rushed from the room with The School of Athens to the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was cool - definitely worth visiting, but it was not the highlight of by visit to Rome. I think it’s most impressive quality is the sheer scale by which Michelangelo painted it, but I personally find The School of Athens to be a much more beautiful piece of art. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed in the Sistine Chapel, so no pictures. :(
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After the Sistine Chapel we saw the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. I remembered it as being one of the most amazing parts of my visit to Rome previously and it did not fail to disappoint. The scale of the church is indescribable. It’s really kind of difficult to even comprehend once your inside, since everything in constructed to scale.
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To give you a rough idea, this structure is ten stories tall and it fits casually inside the basilica (sorry for the blurry photography…) Additionally, the basilica is big enough to fit a football field inside, and then some. It’s the largest Christian church in the world. But, to be fair, it’s the church - the center of spiritual belief for the world’s second biggest religious denomination, so it’s kind of a big deal.
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These letters are taller than a person.
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Among the other impressive aspects of St. Peters is Michelangelo’s Pieta, which is pretty cool. It was his first major work, and the only one he would ever have to sign in order to gain recognition for. I couldn’t get a good picture, since there was work being done on a wall nearby so the area around the statue was fenced off, but it was pretty stunning. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the subject matter is a the virgin Mary bereaving the death of her son, Jesus. It’s an incredibly moving piece which I think makes the trip to St. Peter’s worthwhile by itself.
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After that I wandered around with some friends and got lunch. The weather was gorgeous and, as you may remember from my earlier posts, I haven’t had such great luck with weather up to this point, so it was nice to finally see some sun.
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Lovely view of the Tiber.
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We hung out at St. Peter’s for awhile before heading to the hotel to check in. My room decided we might enjoy the rest of the day better if we took a nap, so we did that before heading out to the Trastevere. The Trastevere is a neighborhood of Rome that probably has the best nightlife. It’s packed with restaurants, bars and young people hanging out. We got dinner and then decided to stay out and get some drinks. First we went to a bar called Rivendita which had these AMAZING chocolate shots. They’re put into shot glasses *made* out of chocolate. I got a hazelnut chocolate shot, so it had a chocolate liquor, a hazelnut liquor, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and crumbled hazelnuts. It was delicious. After that I’d been wanting to try absinthe for practically forever and convinced my friends to find a bar that served it. We did so in relatively short order. All I can say is… I don’t really get the appeal. It tasted HORRIBLE, but other than that it just seemed like any other hard liquor. To wrap the night up we went to a bar where we could sit out front and all ordered a beer - I had a delicious German amber - then we headed home to sleep before the next busy day.
The next day our school took us on a tour of the ancient Roman monuments. I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have, but I’d also studied Rome’s monuments pretty well during my brief stint as a classics major and I discovered that when I did tune it, it was mostly information I already knew, so I don’t feel too bad about it
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Site #1 was the Colosseum. The Colosseum is another one of those things that you’ll be much better off reading the Wikipedia article than listening to anything I have to say, since there’s just so much information about it. One fact that I learned when I studied it in school, then again on our tour last weekend: The Colosseum wasn’t actually nicknamed the Colosseum because of it’s own massive size, but instead because of a giant bronze statue of Nero that used to stand next to the Colosseum. The name stuck because it also was a pretty accurate name for the Colosseum itself.
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Our next stop was the Roman Forum. This is yet another subject that you’ll be better off reading about on Wikipedia if you’re really interested. There’s wayyyyy too much to say!
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Our last stop on the guided tour was the Pantheon, which I’m a really big fan of. The two friends I was with weren’t terribly impressed, but I think it’s incredible. It’s still the “largest unreinforced solid concrete dome in the world,” and has been since 128 CE. That’s pretty cool.
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The oculus at the top of the Pantheon, shining light onto the ceiling.
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After seeing the Pantheon we were free to go. Syracuse had given us our return tickets already, so we were on our own for the rest of the day. My friends and I decided to get lunch, then wander.
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We decided that it would be a shame to go to Rome and miss the Trevi Fountain, so we stopped by and threw pennies in.
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After that we hung out in the Borghese Gardens, since it was the perfect day to chill in a park. The Borghese Gardens are similar to central park in set-up and function. A lot of people were out and about enjoying the sun and it was nice to just hang out and enjoy the weather.
After that we decided to move our tickets forward a little bit and head back to Florence, since we were all pretty tired. Once back in Florence I got some dinner then headed to bed after a LONG weekend.
This past week was actually pretty eventful. We had midterms, which were a breeze compared to my *darling* home school. I actually enjoy school when it’s easy and I don’t have to think about it besides when I’m in class. Perhaps this doesn’t reflect very well on me, but I really don’t care. I CANNOT WAIT to be done with school FOREVER. T-minus fifteen months. And only ten months of actually being in school, EVER. I can’t communicate how exciting this is. After seventeen years of school, I’m fifteen months away from being done. Holy. Shit.
But yeah, midterms were easy. I actually only had one real midterm, which was in my women and gender studies class. Since it was my only midterm I over-studied (and over-stressed) about it, but I think I did pretty well. Yay!
I also had a midterm critique in photography, which went really well. Photography is a little bit like writing, I think, in the sense that I don’t really know what makes it good or bad, but people seem to think I’m decent at it, and I’m not about to argue with someone complimenting me. My professor had almost entirely positive feedback, but that being said, I still couldn’t tell you for the life of me if a photograph is “good” or “bad”. Anyway, I think my professor mostly only liked my photos because I’d actually followed the assignments instead of spending all my time taking arsty-farsty photos to show to the class.
I’ve also been on a couple of dates with a guy from my ultimate team named Duccio this past week. He seems like a sincerely nice guy and a good person to practice my Italian with, so I’m enjoying hanging out with him.
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Pt. II.V Piazza Michelangelo, Take 2
I had a spare afternoon on Friday, so I ended up going back to San Miniato and Piazza Michelangelo again with some friends. We had the best gelato I have ever tasted on the way there, and then site saw. Not a whole let to mention, besides that it was beautiful.
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Florentine skyline, again.
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View of the Arno at sunset as we passed over a bridge on the way back home.
I went out with some friends later in the night, but it was pretty uneventful. We danced for awhile, but got bored and went back before it got too late.
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Pt. III Viareggio… again!
While I really enjoyed playing the tournament in Viareggio, it meant that I didn’t really get to see the proper carnevale events in Viareggio, which are supposed to be amazing. To amend this I went to Viareggio again yesterday with my friends, Leyla and Marco.
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We got there early afternoon and wandered some, eventually ending up on the beach. It was still a little chilly, but it was lovely to just sit around on the beach and listen to the ocean.
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After the beach we wandered some more and killed time until the parade that night. The parade was spectacular! This was one of the first floats we saw and easily one of my favorites. To give you an idea of scale, those are people, not statues, in the red under the clock. Most of the floats had some kind of political commentary which was, unfortunately, pretty much entirely lost on me but entertaining nonetheless.
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This float was another one of my favorites, mostly because the design was so amazing. Part of what made them so impressive is that they all features moving parts, but were mostly human operated. The float would past and you’d notice there was someone literally moving a part which had looked mechanized from a distance.
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Part of what was so much fun about the parade was that all of the floats were playing really loud pop music and there was a generally festive feel to the whole event. There was confetti EVERYWHERE and everyone was in a generally jovial mood.
After the parade we were pretty tired, though, and decided to go home and make it an early night.
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Pt. III.V Fiesole, Take 2
So as you may remember, it was really frickin’ cold last time I went to Fiesole, a small town overlooking Florence. I went back with some friends earlier today to make up for it.
We took our time walking up and made it to the Sunday market, which was part of the attraction. It was this really cute antique market with all sorts of things to look at, from old-fashioned jewelry to dusty, old books.
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After that we did some wandering. The view was amazing!
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So that’s what I’ve been up. Spring break is technically this week and all my Syracuse classes won’t be meeting, though my Italian class doesn’t get a break, so I’ll still be around Florence. I’m looking forward to having more time to just explore the city, and I’ll try to be better about updating!
