Carrara - part 3

Once again, this will be a pretty short posting. It was a really cool trip but there's not too much to say about it. Just pretty pictures.


It's hard to tell from the picture, but there was a long drop down from the roads we were on. The bus was whipping around pretty quickly and there are no guard rails. I was feeling pretty sick.


As we approached Carrara's quarries we could see a series of bridges leading from the roads into the mountain. We would enter into one such opening. They took us into the mountain in four van loads. I can't imagine those vans last very long. They drove pretty quickly over really bumpy roads.


The first order of business was for all of us to put matching helmets on. If the mountain collapsed on top of us, these plastic helmets would save us.


It was pretty dark in there but we could see tunnels leading off in different directions. It kind of looked like the Rebel Alliance base on Hoth. If you don't know The Empire Strikes Back well enough, I'm not going to take the time to explain, sir.


It was kind of eerie in there with the odd lighting and caves to who knows where, but with our trusty yellow helmets we weren't afraid of anything.


They got the huge slabs of marble away from the walls by drilling a small space above (as seen in the picture above) and then drilling down the back of the new slab. I thing they said they used explosives too. It was hard to hear in there. I also think that our guide said that they work in fairly small teams because the noise can get so loud in there.


One of the ominous caves. Gollum lives in there.


Our tour guide was so tough that she didn't need a helmet. Here she is seen rapping or something.


A light in the tunnel up ahead. Could be civilization. Could be another lamp. We all took pictures just in case.


Here are some of the vicious cave creatures that Sarah warned me about. Never fear! I was wearing a yellow helmet.


Then our van came back and escorted us back out into the real world. We were made to return our helmets. Apparently they weren't souvenirs. After our trip into the mountain an old Italian man told us all about the recent history (last century or so) of the quarries. John translated some of it but I think he got bored because he wandered off. Luckily Clark was there to fill in. Then it was back on the treacherous road back down the mountain. Our bus driver barely, but ably, managed to maneuver through some twisty small town roads. At one point both sides of the bus were nearly scraping into buildings on either side. Excitement! Then I almost got sick on the ride home again. The end.

Carrara - part 2

I don't have much to say about this posting. It's mainly pictures of the mountains above Carrara and some of the exterior quarries.


That is not snow in the mountains. It's all white marble. Marble comes in many different colors, but Carrara (and the surrounding area including Pietrasanta) is famous for its white marble.


The Romans favored Carrara's white marble. They used it for many things including the Pantheon and Trajan's Column.


It was also very popular around the time of the Renaissance. Michelangelo used it to create his David.


Unfortunately these pictures aren't really showing how beautiful it was up in the mountains.


Here you can start to see the exterior marble excavations.


I'll show the interior excavations in my next posting.


John told us that this area wasn't worked on for a long time until modern technologies allowed them to quarry further down.


I loved watching the machinery at work. They look like toys. I wanted to play with them.


As we walked up into the mountains (out of the back side of a cave that will be in my next posting) we saw that everything was covered in layers of white marble dust. My shoes (and maybe my lungs) were covered with it.

Carrara - part 1

Friday 9/12
Sarah had originally planned to go on the Carrara trip with me, but in the end she decided that she needed to get some work done before her class spill session the following Monday. So I left our apartment around 7 to get to the Piazza Savonarola in front of Syracuse by 7:30. There I met Sean, Luke, Clark, Prof. Hatfield, and about 50 undies. We boarded our bus and were off, probably leaving a few stragglers behind. Actually, a few of the students on our bus were supposed to be going on another trip to Assisi but they just missed their bus and got on our's instead.
We actually went first to Pietrasanta, a town on the coast about 7 miles southeast of Carrara. It has a thriving art community, as it has since the time of the Renaissance. It, as well as Carrara, have always been important for their marble quarries. More on that later.


Pietrasanta is a pretty small town. When we got there it quickly became obvious that they have access to marble. There were quite a few marble sculptures and facades around the main piazza. Their Duomo, the Cathedral of St. Martin, has a marble facade and a lot of marble on the inside. The bell tower was also supposed to be covered in marble but they probably ran out of money somewhere along the way. So it kind of looks like the front of San Lorenzo in Florence, which was also intended to be covered in marble.


Here are two of the marble statues around town. The lion in the background is important because it shows that this area was once under Florentine rule.


Here you can see John ___ lecturing to the class. I forget his last name. He lives in town and is a sculptor and instructor. He is from Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. I'm sure that you all remember Huddersfield Town F.C. as the team that Herbert Chapman managed (winning two league titles and an FA Cup in the 1920's) before moving on to manage Arsenal (where he also won two league titles and an FA Cup). Anyway, you can also see Prof. Hatfield just behind John ___.


The interior of the Duomo.


More of same.


The Columbian artist Fernando Botero also lives in town and he painted two works for a smaller church down the road. Here is his depiction of heaven. You can see Mother Theresa (kind of) in the bottom left corner.


And here is his depiction of hell. Note Hitler popping his head up. That skeleton is not fat. It is big-boned.


Here is an artistic portal at the end of a row of shops and two undies that got in my way.


We walked around to an artists' workshop where sculptors, bronze workers, and mosaicists were in action. The computer is telling me that I spelled mosaicist incorrectly, but I'll be damned if that's not the proper way. Anyway, here are some lovely piles of scrap marble. We were allowed to take little pieces that were too small to be made into anything. I couldn't pass that up! So now I have a random piece of marble sitting around the apartment.


Here are some of the random finished products that were sitting around the yard.


An earthquake opens the ground between Clark's feet but he can't be bothered while telling a story.


John show's us how it's done. We all got a chance to sculpt a work of art. I made a squiggly line.


Here are some of the materials that will be used in a mosaic. There were people just sitting around putting little scenes together. I couldn't tell if they were all working on the same piece or on separate works.


Here is one of the almost finished products. We were told that it was going to Florida. We assumed that it would be installed in a McDonald's.
We also got a little lesson in bronze working, then left the shops. We had a little time for lunch before moving on to Carrara. I had lunch in a little pizza shop with Prof. Hatfield, John ___, Clark, Sean, and Luke. To be continued on the road to Carrara.

Early September

Tuesday 8/26
I guess I'll actually start before September since there were a couple of noteworthy events during the last week of August. The first was that, after more than a month of working at I Tatti, I got a desk, a computer, and a sign in and password for Harvard's ALEPH catalog. So now I was able to make the appropriate changes to the records I find every day that have some kind of cataloging errors. Most of what I do is pretty basic. If there are more difficult problems I still work on those with Angela (Reference Librarian and Assistant Cataloger). Later that day I became aware that I had the stomache virus that Sarah, Kellin, and many others already had.
Sarah and I met Gian Mario (another librarian at I Tatti) at a pizza place near the Piazza Sant'Ambrosio. We had a really good time chatting with him about I Tatti, Sarah's work at Syracuse, and his time teaching at NYU. Unfortunately, while we were still sitting around talking, the stomache virus showed up. I had the visit the restaurant's bathroom a few times. Luckily, this was a pretty descent bathroom which is an unheard of luxury here in Italy.

Thursday 8/28
The only important thing that happened today was that we went to the J. Joyce Pub for the first time. Sarah and I met Dan and Clark there because we wanted to check it out. I found it while walking around a week before and it looked pretty cool. It's a pub with a Irish writers theme. It's also got a great patio that we would visit a couple of other times before it started getting too cold.

Friday 8/29
I watched Manchester United (winners of the Champion's League) lose to Zenit St. Petersburg (UEFA Cup Champion) in the UEFA SuperCup. It's always nice seeing ManU lose.

Saturday 8/30
We went to Sean and Luke's place, which was documented in the last posting.

Sunday 8/31
This was a pretty lazy day. Sarah was working hard on her presentation preparation so I was on my own. Later, I tried to watch Fiorentina (Florence's professional soccer team) play Juventus. I have since learned that they rarely show Serie A (Italy's top league) games on basic television. Instead, there were four channels showing people talking about the game as it was going on. Since I had nothing better to do I watched one. The analysts would be talking about something while one guy was apparantly watching the game on his computer (which was facing away from the camera). Then the guy watching his computer would start yelling about something that just happened and they'd all start talking about what just happened, I guess. Then one of the other guys would actually go over to a magnetic board in the shape of a soccer field and move little black and white circles around on it to show us what just happened. It was thrilling.

Tuesday 9/2
Sarah and some of the others were working the undergraduate orientation this week. On Tuesday I tagged along with them when they went to the hotel where the kids were staying and ate a huge buffet dinner. I am really teking advantage of Syracuse. I get free food, I get free trips, I use their Internet access. I might feel bad for a second until I remember how much it costs for Sarah to go there. Then I start thinking that they owe me some more free meals. Later, Sarah, Kellin, Sean, Clark, Sarah D., Carrie, and I went across the river to the J. Joyce Pub again.

Thursday 9/4
All this week was also orientation for the new fellows at I Tatti. So I met a lot of new people at work also. One of them named Max would figure into our group later. Today on the way to work I experienced my first bus break down. That was fun. They eventually sent a replacement bus and I just barely made it to work on time. That was almost a disaster as I hate being late.

Friday 9/5
I went with Sarah and her class right around the corner to Piazza Signoria where Tom was presenting his prova. Sarah did this last semester. It's where you are going to lecture to the undergrads, but first you must prova your presentation in front of the grads and Professor Hatfield so that they can let you know what you are doing wrong. Tom was working on politics and sculpture in the Piazza Signoria. It was interesting to see what it is these grad students are doing. Plus, I got to meet Prof. Hatfield. Afterwards, Prof. Hatfield took us out for coffee. Then we all went back to Sarah's school so they could work and so Sarah and Kellin could prepare the group's going away present for Carrie, one of the past grads and TAs.


When everyone had had their fill of studying Sarah, Kellin, Sean, Luke, Tom, Sarah D., Carrie, and I went outside to the Piazza Savonarola (the plaza right in front of their school) to chat, have a mojito (seen above), and eat some apertivi. I can't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but many bars in Italy have this apertivi deal where you buy a drink and get to eat their appetizers. I'm sure they want you to drink a lot and eat a little, but many people buy one drink and load up on food. Some places have really delicious stuff laid out. Anyway, we had these 7 euro mojitos and some crappy apertivi. That's right over $10 for a drink (actually about a bottle of liquor in a forest of greens).


Close-up on the mojito.


Carrie and I take pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. Luke and Sarah try to avoid the cameras. The little stand in the piazza is seen in the background.


My nighttime shot of Sarah and Tom and the others doesn't quite work out.


After drinks in the piazza the group moved over to House of Sizzle. Clockwisearound the table are me, Tom, Sarah D., Carrie, Kellin, Sean, Luke, and Sarah.



Saturday 9/6
It was already almost 30 degrees (85 degrees to you Americans) when I got up at 9. I made lunch while Sarah worked on school stuff. I made penne pasta with panchetta, onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, and red sauce. I figured that I should describe what I make like Sarah does. We went to House of Sizzle again at 6 to eat and watch some college football. We saw Ohio State barely beat Ohio. It was pathetic. We met a guy named Nick from Columbus and a couple of other guys that we might watch games with in the future.


Later that night Sarah and Kellin talked about watching a movie but instead became obsessed with the show Ciao Darwin. The program was showing models in different types of underwear walking backand forth like runway models while Italian men stared and slobbered on themselves. It was pretty humorous. I actually got tired of watching, but Sarah and Kellin were overly offended yet obsessed with the display. Then they felt compelled to take pictures of the proceedings.

Sunday 9/7
We went to dinner at La Colonnine (could be spelled correctly) to say goodbye to Carrie. She had accepted a job in New York as a student tour company's Director of European Operations. Sarah, Kellin, Carrie, Sean, Luke, Sarah D., Tom, Paola, Clark, Clark's friend, and I enjoyed a great dinner. I really branched out and tried the Pizza Americana. Mary strolled by later and joined us. After dinner they gave Carrie her gift. It was a Florentine flag that Sarah and Kellin got everyone to sign and write a message to Carrie. It made her cry which made Sarah and Kellin cry. Always the sign of a great gift.

Tuesday 9/9
I went off and got a haircut by myself after work. It was scary since I couldn't communicate with them, but they actually did a better job than last time. Later that night Little Cat made a surprise return. We hadn't been graced by her presence since she mysteriously showed up on the roof tops across the street. That cat moves in mysterious ways. She sniffed around for a while then disappeared again as suddenly as she arrived.

Friday 9/12
I left Sarah to her studying and I went off to Carrara. I'll write about that later.


After I got back from Carrara a group of us went out to drink on the steps of Santa Croce. I love that this church is a popular place to hang out and drink. It started raining, which you can't really see in the photo above.


Sarah huddles under the main entrance to Santa Croce with the rest of us to avoid the rain.


I can't remember what day it was that I walked by this beautiful road construction. A lot of the streets downtown are paved with these large blocks. When they have to repair the roads they pull up the stones, mark them with their locations and order, and replace them later.

Monday 9/15
Sarah and half of her classmates had their spill session today. It is a very stressful time for them and they weren't supposed to be done until after 6 or so. So after work I got off the bus really early and just walked around the northwest side of town. From there I walked south towards the river to the neighborhood in which Lara, Steph, and Dan live (by the way dad, in case you were wondering, Casa LSD is on the eastern corner of the intersection of Lungarno Cristoforo Colombo and Via della Bellariva). Anyway, I went into a store there to buy some supplies. Unfortunately every school kid and their parents within a square mile were also there buying school supplies. I really wanted to buy a pencil and paper so I had to forge my way down that aisle. The aisles were tiny and there were approximately 111 people in that aisle including groups of parents who were camped out at either end of the aisle blocking everything. I ran out of there as fast as I could. After paying for the goods, of course. I walked home a new way, a couple of blocks in from the river. Oh yeah! That's where I saw the construction pictured above. Oh well. I'm too lazy to rearrange the pictures. Besides, these Syracuse computers take forever so I'll leave it at that.


As soon as I got home I got a call to meet the group at Piazza Sant'Ambrosio for some post-spill session venting and apertivi. It was pretty cold out for the first time since I've been here. Above, Sarah, Dan, and Tom try to act like they're having an interesting conversation while Kellin, Lara, Mary, Sarah D., and Stephanie have a real conversation.

I've been in the computer lab at Syracuse for too long. Later.

Party with the Quiet Ones

On Saturday, August 30 most of our group got ready, bought some provisions, and headed out to Sean and Luke' house for a cookout. Sean and Luke are the TAs, and last year's grad students, that Sarah used to call the Quiet One and the Quieter One. I don't know which name applied to which person. They live about two miles east of Florence on the south side of the Arno in a nice little house in the country. It's a pretty cool location, but difficult to get to. We took the bus and then walked quite a while. They have a big yard that was great for a cookout.


Dan and I prepare some food. I was put in charge of making hamburgers. Actually, Sarah mixed the meat, onions, and spices. All I had to do was make them into patties. Everything was delicious.


Everyone was stuffed. We sat around and chatted for a long time. From the back of Dan's head clockwise around the table the picture shows Dan, Lara's back, Kellin, Sean, Luke, Tom, Tom's friend (whose name I forget), Clark, and Sarah. I happened to be behind the camera when the photo was taken.


Some people rode their bikes out. Sarah and I really need to get bikes. All the cool kids have them.


Kellin and Lara play badminton while Clark winds up to hit Sean's pitch.


Clark tries to brush Sarah back from the nonexistant plate and almost takes her head off.


Sarah responded by knocking this pitch out of the park.


Sarah dreams of her missed chance of becoming a professional baseball player. We stayed for a long time until it got dark outside and I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We moved indoors for a while then headed back towards town. We ended up at House of Sizzle to watch the first week of college football.


The next day it was back to the real world where papers had to be written.

Sarah's Birthday

After our trip to the Palazzo Vecchio and the Brancacci Chapel we went to a little restaurant called something like Osteria di Santo Spirito. It was out in the piazza and looked pretty nice. The food was really good but our server was terrible. What seems to us to be bad service is not really out of the ordinary here, things are just different in Europe. But our server was just plain bad. He ignored us pretty blatantly and even left to go talk on the phone and smoke a couple of cigarettes about thirty feet from us while we needed refills and then our check.
After the delicious but irritating lunch we went home and watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. They were really wierd. Lots of crazy dancing. I really don't know what was going on. But I bet someone was paid a lot of money to choreograph it.


Later, Sarah, Kellin, Sean, and I met Dan, Lara, Clark, and Tom at La Taverna for Sarah's birthday dinner. The food was great and there was a lot of wine and lemoncello going around.


Things got a little goofey after all of the lemoncello. Actually, with this group things get a little goofey whether there is alcohol involved or not. Above, Kellin, Lara, and Sarah discuss their symposium topics. Or maybe not.


Tom looks dreamy as Clark tells a story. Dan avoids the camera.


Sarah's shoes were hurting her so I gallantly offered to let her wear my sandals on the way back. Pretty smart, huh? I avoided all cuts, abrasions, and stubbed toes, but I had some impressive blisters the next morning.


Rather than calling it a night, we bought more wine and moved to the steps in front of Santa Croce. Tom entertained us for while. In the dark picture above Kellin and Sarah try to hold an intellectual conversation with Tom.

Palazzo Vecchio and Brancacci Chapel - part 2

cont...


Sarah searches for a shot from above the Hall of 500.


The palazzo has a porch on the southeast corner near the top of the building. It affords some nice views of town plus you can see the rooftops around our apartment. This shot looks southeast towards the hills across the Arno.


This is looking directly east (I guess) towards our apartment and the top of Santa Croce beyond. If you look a Santa Croce's tower and follow a line straight down to the greenery between apartments, that is directly across a little alley from our perilous terrace. Little Cat somehow manages to get back and forth from the rooftops on either side of the alley. Sarah thought about calling Kellin and telling her to pop her head out of her rooftop window to see if we could see her. We'll have to try that experiment next time.


This shot looks east along our street, Via dei Neri (called Via della Ninna at this point) towards Via dei Leoni. Somewhere among the bikes below is Kellin's bike Alessandro.


And this is the view west from the same vantage point looking down on the Loggia dei Lanzi. The columns on the left travel south to form the eastern part of the U-shaped Uffizi Gallery. The loggia (with all the statues in it) is on the north end of the Uffizi's U-shape. There is always a really annoying bottleneck of people here when you are going from the Piazza Signoria toward our place because the gap between the loggia and the Palazzo Vecchio is small. The bottleneck becomes pretty bad because there are always 500 tourists standing there either gawking at the copy of David, Perseus, and the other sculptures, or marvelling at the annoying mimes that are usually there. I don't trust mimes. They have small hands and they smell like cabbage. Every last one of them.


Upon exiting, I made Sarah pose for her now famous "laughing at the sculpture's naked butt" pose. Classic. We left the Palazzo Vecchio and headed south across the Arno to our next location, the Brancacci Chapel.


The most convenient bridge from one location to the other was the Ponte Vecchio. It is possible to get good pictures of this always crowded bridge, but I did not succeed. But you can get an idea of what it looks like. There is construction on it and there are always people in the way (usually more than this), but you can see how there are little shops on both sides of the bridge. Most of the shops were closed when we crossed, but I like theway the shops looked when they're closed better than when they're open. It looks just like a regular street, but it is actually a bridge that was built in 1345. There had been a bridge at this spot since at least Roman times, but they were destroyed and rebuilt many times over the years. As the Germans were retreating from Florence towards the end of WWII they left the Ponte Vecchio intact even though they destroyed every other bridge in Florence.


On the way to the chapel we went into Santo Spirito, a basilica with a very boring exterior, south of the Arno. It was begun by Brunelleschi in 1444.


I really don't remember much about it, except that a friar came around and asked us to leave in five minutes because they had to prepare for mass. Also, there are copies of one of Sarah's favorite and one of Sarah's least favorite Michelangelo sculptures in it. They have a copy of his Pieta from St. Peter's in Rome and his Christ the Redeemer from Santa Maria sopra Minerva (remember my picture from the Rome postings? Of course you do.), also in Rome.
Anyway, on to the chapel.


The Brancacci Chapel is a side chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine. Even though I've seen about 5000 chapels paid for by rich families inside of churches here in Italy, for some reason I was expecting a stand-alone building for the chapel. I was wrong. We got there as mass was ending, so we waited outside for them to close the church and open the side entrance that allowed access to the chapel only. We weren't allowed to explore the rest of the church while it was closed. I really didn't know what to expect because I had never heard of it before. It's a small room on the right of the main altar that was paid for by Pietro Brancacci. The patron of the decoration of the chapel was Felice Brancacci, a descendant of Pietro. It has been called the Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissace for its very influential painting cycle. The painting were mainly done by Masaccio and some were finished by Filippino Lippi. Sarah said that it is a continuous narrative. It influenced many Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo.


I hope I got all that information right. Sarah's usually not around when I post these things and I am trying to remember what she told me.


I really liked the head of the snake that is watching Adam and Eve.

Palazzo Vecchio and Brancacci Chapel - part 1

Sunday 8/24/08
Yes, of course I realize that this is Sarah's birthday. I will talk more about that in another posting. Right now I would like to talk about what Sarah and I did before the birthday festivities. First of all, like I had all week, I woke up extra early (around 6 am without an alarm clock, can you imagine?) to watch some Olympic excitement. It seemed like the only time that good sporting events were on without being constantly interrupted by the panels of "experts" that just wanted to talk for hours about some Italian judo competitor who didn't make it to the medal round, was early in the morning.

Around 10:30am, after watching the U.S. men's teams win the indoor volleyball and basketball gold medals, Sarah and I began the arduous 0.05 mile trek to the Palazzo Vecchio which serves as Florence's town hall.


It was begun in 1299 and has changed names over the years as the leadership of Florence has changed. First it was the Palazzo della Signoria (it's in the Piazza della Signoria) after the Signoria which was the ruling body of the Florentine Republic. It was also called the Palazzo del Popolo (people), Palazzo del Priori (the priori were the nine members of the Signoria), and Palazzo Ducale (for the Duke of Florence after the fall of the Republic). Finally, after the Medici dukes moved into the Palazzo Pitti across the Arno, it became known as the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace).


This is the main chamber called the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred), which was built under the direction of Savonarola who sent the Medici into exile and was later excommunicated and executed in the Piazza Signoria.


The walls of the Salone are covered by huge frescoes of Florentine victories over Siena and Pisa. One of them, seen above, is said to be covering up an unfinished work by Leonardo da Vinci called The Battle of Anghiari. One of Sarah's professors, Dr. Rab Hatfield, and an Italian expert in high-technology art analysis, Maurizio Seracini, are working to prove that it is under the fresco. Obviously no one wants to remove the late 16th century frescoes unless they know for sure what is under them. Professor Hatfield wrote a book called Finding Leonardo that makes a case for recovering Leonardo's painting.


Sarah looks up at one of the lavishly decorated rooms.


The Studiolo of Francesco I (named for Francesco I de'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany) is covered by 34 paintings.


I believe that this was the chapel of Eleanora of Toledo who was the wife of Cosimo I de'Medici, making her the Duchess of Tuscany.


This shield in the corner shows Eleanora's coat of arms, including the balls of the Medici family that can be seen all over Tuscany.


This is Cosimo il Vecchio (the Elder), not to be confused with Cosimo Primo (the First). He was the first of the Medici political dynasty. Cosimo I de'Medici (1519-1574) was the first Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cosimo il Vecchio's father Giovanni di Bicci de'Medici (1360-1429) was the first to enter banking on his own and be influential in Florentine politics. But it was Cosimo il Vecchio (1389-1464) that became the unofficial head of the Florentine Republic.


This is The Hall of Geographical Maps. It was also called the Wardrobe and was where the Medici kept their precious belongings.


The 53 maps on the walls (like this one of Italy) were painted by a Dominican monk and show the knowledge of geography in the 16th century. The huge globe in the center of the room was ruined by too many restoration attempts.


This is where giant elephants live and play.


This is a medieval bathroom.


When you gotta go, you gotta go.


This stairway is guarded by a vicious saramonster that lives in a hole in the ceiling.

8/7/08 to 8/21/08

That's right. It's another boring, no pictures post. This is just stuff that happened between the trips to Rome and Assisi.

Thursday 8/7
Today I went back to I Tatti for my first day of work while the library is closed for the month of August. I soon learned that, even though it's closed, there are still fellows that come in to research. And of course the employees are there working, except for those that are on vacation. So basically I Tatti is only closed to Sarah and her people. Those lowly grad students.
After I got home from work someone rang our buzzer. Sarah said we should ignore it. We later found out that it was Lara and her sister Megan who were locked out of Casa LSD. Stephanie was in the States and Dan was in Spain and Lara had no way to contact her landlord. Oh, and her friends weren't answering their door. I blame Sarah. Luckily they found us a little later when we ventured out to buy some groceries. I lent them my phone and we parted ways. They showed up later though, since they still couldn't get ahold of their landlord. So we watched the Forsyte Saga and Lara and Megan used the absent Kellin's bedroom.

Friday 8/8
I worked again today, and Lara was able to get into her apartment. This was very important since I met Sarah at LSD after work so that we could watch the openning ceremonies of the Olympics. In celebration of the Beijing Olympic games we ate Chinese food for dinner.

Saturday 8/9
Today began my fourteen days of spending every waking moment (while not working) sitting in front of the tv watching the Olympics. Well, from early morning until about four o'clock that is. That is when the games were covered here. It also began my immense frustration over the terrible job the Italian tv networks do of covering the Olympics.
I did take a break from television watching to go over to LSD for a dinner party featuring Sarah, Dan, Clark, Analia, Earl, and I and later Lara and Megan. Good times. Unfortunately it was quite hot this evening, even when we got home around 1:30 am.

Sunday 8/10
Watched terrible Olympic coverage and the terrible movie Failure to Launch. Really terrible.

Monday 8/11
I work at I Tatti Monday through Thursday, so I'm not going to bother mentioning it anymore. After work Sarah, Sarah D., her cousin, Kellin, Sean, Lara, Megan, Dan, Clark, and I went out to dinner at Za Za which was good but quite expensive. That's kind of how most things are here in Florence. Afterwards some of us went to House of Sizzle to be entertained by Francesco and for more Olympic coverage.

I'm going to skip ahead a few days because every day involved watching Olympics, soccer, and dinners.

Friday 8/15
Today was Ferragosto. I don't think that's how it's spelled but I don't care. I think it's kind of a dumb idea. This "holiday" marks the middle of August. Yay! So everything that wasn't already closed for the month of August in Italy was actually closed today. Better buy your groceries ahead of time. I think that the dumbest thing about it is that everyone leaves. We saw on tv that all the highways leading north to the rest of Europe were packed and at stand-stills. Actually, that went on most of the month. That's what happens when you encourage an entire nation to leave at the exact same time. Hmmmm.
Well, we stayed. It turned out to be a really nice day. It rained for a very short time around 8 am and was nice and cool the rest of the day. Sarah thought it was cold. It was a great break from the usually unbreakable heat. There was a nice breeze and the rain came back off and on al evening. There was even some hail. Could this day get any better? Yes! Along with the usually non-stop coverage of Olympic fencing, cycling, judo, and rowing, they actually showed diving, volleyball, and track and field events. Things we actually like. I really don't understand the Italians obsession with fencing and cycling. That's usually all they show. Unlike in America where there are seven stations showing non-stop coverage, here they have one network that shows a little bit of crappy sports and then spends way too much time talking about it. That's all they do is talk and not show highlights. It was infuriating. There were fantastic things going on and they would have a panel talking for hours on end. Sorry. I was not happy.

Saturday 8/16
There was more Olympic watching in the morning. Sarah and I broke the monotany by going for an athletic power walk (not to be confused with Olympic speed walking - those people are hilarious) across the river, up to the Piazza Michelangelo, past San Miniato, around this long hill-top road (sometimes called Viale Galileo and sometimes Viale Niccolo Machiavelli), back across the river, west through Cascine Park, and back home. I haven't tracked it on Google map's pedometer, but it was almost ten miles, much of it uphill.

Sunday 8/17
Thankfully the showing of sports I like continued, but there was still way too much time wasted on panel's of "experts" (who happen to be experts on every sport) opinions. Sarah, Lara, Megan, Dan, Sarah D., and I went to Tijuana for dinner then back to Sarah's place to watch An Affair to Remember. After mixed drink specials at Tijuana and wine and grappa at Sarah's, I was a little inebriated. Well, not a little. I still made it to work early the next day, as I do every day.

Tuesday 8/19
Today was my first day of working in the archives at I Tatti with the archivist Ilaria Della Monica. And...
Wednesday 8/20
I got a ride home from Eve Borsook. Well almost home. A couple of bridges away, which is way better than taking the bus. Plus, in walking home I discovered a great bar called the J. Joyce. Eve Borsook is a very well known art historian who moved to Italy from the United States in 1952.

I'm going to stop there for right now. Not very exciting stuff, but I figured I should let people know what's going on. I know that it looks like we go out to eat and drinking at dinner parties every other day, but that's usually not the case. This posting happened to include a number of dinner parties, but that is not the norm, unfortunately. The vast majority of our days see me working at I Tatti, Sarah and Kellin working all day on presentations and research, a small but tastey dinner at home, and more studying. It just so happens that days like that don't make for very exciting reading. So now I am beginning to prepare some more postings with pictures. Hopefully one of these days I will catch up and not be writing about things that happened a month ago. Later.

Assisi - part 3

Once again I really don't have much to say about these pictures. We did't see a lot of big name works of art or landmarks (other than the church). Most of these pictures are just showing the beauty of Assisi. Prepare to be amazed by my ridiculously awesome photography skills.

Now that I say that I can't remember why I took this one. I think that I just liked the building. It is such a charming town. It looks like an ideal place to live, except for the swarms of tourists. Sometimes I wonder about the people that do live in these Italian towns and I think it would be almost like living in Disney World.

Another church. I don't know which one it was. It's not St. Francis's church. And if it's not St. Francis's church I don't give a rat's ass. Sorry. I was paraphrasing a line from tv.

Here's one leaning building.

A view of Assisi from the hilltop above.

The road back to the train station. They stuffed people into the buses that ran back and forth every half hour.

Another leaning building. My dad just mentioned that they got hit by an earthquake recently. A couple of people were killed in St. Francis's church when part of the roof collapsed during an aftershock. Sarah knew about it too and pointed out the damaged ceiling when we were inside. Of course, we weren't allowed to take pictures.

I liked the fact that this visiting friar was in line for pizza like everyone else.

I also like the little tree that was growing above one of the gates out of town.

And that is all from Assisi. I think we might have another chance to go with Sarah's school. Maybe then I'll take some pictures in the basilica and get her class kicked out. We'll see.

Assisi - part 2

As I mentioned in my last post Assisi was built on a hillside. As a result the town is a little difficult to get around. The beginning of this posting is just going to show what it is like. Since we spent most of our time walking around and exploring, this post will show you why we were so tired by the end of the day. You'd better feel sorry for me. That's all I want.


Up, down, or restaurant.


You'd have to be pretty fit to live in Assisi.








Even though it was difficult to get around it was definitely worth it. The town is beautiful. Everywhere you turn there's another picture opportunity.


I waited at the bottom of these steps for quite a while to take this picture. Every time the last person was almost out of view, someone new would round the corner.





Eventually Sarah guided me up towards the top of the hill.


But on the way up Sarah felt compelled to add her gum to the growing collection.


We decided not to go in to the castle because it was pricey and Sarah said that there's not really much to see inside. We decided to have lunch in some of the shade that it provided. We packed our lunches at Sarah's suggestion. It's not a bad place to have a brown bag lunch. The view certainly was nice.


Sarah surveys her territory.


There aren't too many bad views from the top of the hill.


Sarah's still surveying her lands.

Assisi - part 1

Friday 8/22
Sarah and I once again got up a little early and made our way to the Santa Maria Novella train station. We got there in time to catch the 8:09 train to Assisi. The trip was pretty uneventful. I think I just listened to music and stared out the window most of the time. We arrived at the train station which is actually in the nearby town of Santa Maria degli Angeli. From there we had to buy bus passes and take the bus up the hill to Assisi. The bus was packed. There's only one reason people get off at this station. Everyone goes up to Assisi. And they were all on our bus.


As you can see, Assisi is built on a hill. To the left you can see the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, or St. Francis of Assisi.


It is a huge church and is the mother church of the Franciscan Order. It has an upper and lower church which were begun in 1228, along with the Franciscan monastery.


Of course the bus doesn't take you all the way up there. It drops you off at the base of the hill. You have to work your way up. I soon learned that this is one tough city to get around. Well, I suppose it's not too bad if you are going to one specific location, but we went up and down all day long. Very tiring. Assisi's residents must have buns of steel.


The complex includes the churches (one right on top of the other) and the friary. Bathrooms are to the right and cost 50 cents. Euro cents that is.


Unfortunately they do not allow you to take any pictures. I thought about sneaking a few but was afraid of the mean looks Sarah was giving me. I saw a couple of other ne'er-do-wells taking pictures so I gave them mean looks too. This is the gothic upper basilica. My pictures would have been better.


This is part of the lower basilica.


This is the tomb of St. Francis. I really wanted to get a picture of this. I couldn't find any really good images of it. There was no talking allowed down here. It was like the Sistine Chapel where, every few minutes when the people start getting bolder and louder with their whispering, a voice comes from above saying, "Silence."


This is the view of Assisi from the church. They have bushes that say PAX (peace) and one above it showing the T-shaped cross of St. Francis. They sell these crosses in about 300 shops around town. I wanted one but Sarah already had one. Apparently I need to find an original key chain.


That's Sarah not looking at the valley below Assisi. Somewhere out there is a train station.


This oratory was set up in the basement of St. Francis's birthplace. It used to be a draper's shop, but was turned into the oratory in the 1200s.

Rome - day 3 - part 3 and day 4

The rest of our Tuesday in Rome continued after we left the Capitoline Museum.


Not far from the museum we came upon perhaps the loveliest fountain in all of Rome. Well, not really, but it did the job. In most places I have been in my life I probably would not have considered drinking from something that looked like this. But in Italy it is quite normal, and necessary when you don't want to pay for a bottle of water everywhere you go.


We walked past Trajan's Column once again on our way to our next bus. The column was built in 113 and has a spiraling relief depicting Trajan's victory over the Dacians. It was right around the column that I found Sarah's group when I came to join her in Italy when she was with her SCAD group. I was walking along the crowded streets of Rome with no way to contact her when a girl whom I barely knew saw me and called out to me. It was quite lucky that she recognized me because I probably wouldn't have found Sarah until her group returned to their hotel that evening.


We took another bus south and out past the gates of Rome. From there we walked a while until we found the entrance to the San Domitilla Catacombs. We were quite unhappy to find out that the catacombs were closed (despite their posted hours of operation), but Sarah reminded me that there were two other catacombs in the area. So we walked even further until we reached the San Sebastiano Catacombs. We had to wait a while until an English speaking tour was going down, and when we finally did we learned that we were the only ones in the tour group whose first language was English. Some people were translating what the tour guide said to others in their group. Even our tour guide spoke very shaky English. But it was really cool. Literally. I thought it felt very good while Sarah was cold. We weren't allowed to take pictures down there, but I don't think that pictures would have done the catacombs justice. And the catacombs demand justice. The tour was pretty short, and unfortunately we had to stick to the path and couldn't wander off on our own. Actually, it's probably a good thing because we would have surely gotten lost.


On our way back to our bus stop we passed the old Appian Way, perhaps the most important ancient Roman road. It led down to the southeast of Italy. But we were going north.


Above the catacombs was the church of San Sebastiano. Saint Sebastian was martyred when Diocletian was persecuting the Christians in the 3rd century. He was tied to a post and shot with arrows but the arrows didn't kill him. So they killed him with a club.


This is one of the arrows that is said to have struck Sebastian.


The church also has a stone that supposedly has the footprints of Jesus in them.


The bus was absolutely packed full of people so we decided to get off a little early and walked the rest of the way north. We stopped at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore to check it out. It wasn't on Sarah's list, but there was something going on and there were tons of people there. It was packed inside as you can see. We'll have to return some time because it looked really interesting.


Cardinal Bernard Francis Law was speaking at the church. He was the troublemaker causing all the hooplah. We left and took it easy back at our hotel.

Wednesday 8/6/08

This is the Flann O'Brien Pub where we once again ate breakfast. It's actually pretty large and has a big back room that we never saw anyone in.


Our only mission of the day was to go to the Galleria Borghese in the Villa Borghese. Sarah had to make reservations in advance for this one. We arrived early and sat around for quite a while before it was our time to go in. Sarah's group from SCAD had come here also but were turned away either because it was closed or they didn't have reservations. I forget which was the case. Anyway, it has a lot of paintings and sculptures, but we were most impressed by the marble sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini such as Apollo and Daphne and The Rape of Proserpina.


After we left the museum we wondered around the immense Villa Borghese gardens. Sarah really wanted to rent one of the vehicles seen above but we never found out where the rental station was. We just kept seeing people in their peddled cars mocking us with their happiness.


After we walked fifty miles through the gardens we passed back through the old walls into the city. We passed a Hard Rock Cafe on the beautiful Via Vittorio Veneto. It looked so inviting that we couldn't pass it up. After an exhausting, very hot week we relaxed in the air conditioning, had English-speaking waiters, and American style bathrooms. The food was great. We absolutely stuffed ourselves on the typical American portions that are way more than one person needs in a meal. The only reminder that we were in Italy was the fact that our waiter was nowhere to be found for about forty minutes while my drink sat empty on the table. An empty chalice is a lonely chalice. I thought about just leaving, but he finally showed up.
From there I ran back to the Flan to get our bags that we had left at the pub while Sarah went to the train station to get our tickets. We were cutting it close on time and didn't want to have to wait for the next train. We made it in plenty of time.


We took the Eurostar at 5:55. It was bound for Bologna and Trieste, but we decided to get off in Florence. We'll have to check out Trieste another time. We just relaxed, listened to music, and read on our speedy train. Above, Sarah works on her blog. I only jotted down a few notes for my condensed version.