Days 25 and 26 (Thursday and Friday)

            I started my Thursday with a wonderfully long and beautiful walk, once again exploring more of my surrounding Cortona environment.  It was a little scary at the end, because all of a sudden, the sky looked extremely threatening as if it was about to downpour, and I was completely unprepared for any sort of rain.  Luckily I beat the storm by a few milliseconds.  Painting was exciting that afternoon.  I completely turned my canvas around and starting painting different images from my self-portrait photo shoot on top of my original painting around the canvas, creating a juxtaposition of various angles of myself, my legs, and my face in unexpected color palettes.  I am getting more and more excited about this huge painting.  After dinner that night, some girls and I decided we needed something sweet, so we went to a local café to nosh on some dessert and hang out.  This café had more than twenty different types of hot chocolate, so I decided to order some white hot chocolate.  Even though it came in one of the tiniest mugs, I could barely finish it because it was so rich!  If I did not watch them make it, I would have thought they simply melted a white chocolate candy bar into my mug!  Needless to say, it hit the spot. 

            Friday (my second Shabbat in Cortona with no challah) was another extremely long day, complete with my eight hours of class.  I was slightly upset because I slept in that morning, so I had no time to go on a run.  (And I have been having the WEIRDEST dreams ever these past few nights…I do not know what it is about sleeping in a monastery that is seriously affecting my sleeping cycles).  Art ed was exciting.  We are getting down to business planning each of our lessons and making teaching exemplars to prepare for our quickly approaching days of teaching.  As I said before, our overall theme for the third grade is community.  My partner and I decided to create art projects based off of the idea of exploring one’s role within the community, discussing rules of the community, and from their, discussing how one can make their community a better place through the acts of kindness and good deeds.  For our final project, we are going to have the third graders pick a good deed to be their “super power” and they are going to make themselves into superheroes (life-size superhero self-portraits), making a difference in their community.  In paper/book making, we are finally starting to make books!  Today, we learned how to cut down large pieces of paper into the signatures and folios that make up a book.  As of now, it takes me a LONG time to get this down.  Most people in class finished all their paper, and I only cut down half of what I need for my first book.  Either way, I am excited to finally be putting together books from scratch.  I can only imagine how satisfying it will be to have homemade books to sketch in!  At dinner that night, we had the most fancy and decadent dessert that we have had so far.  It may have even topped my white hot chocolate from the night before.  Dessert was a white vanilla panecotta that was served in a little glass jar.  Panecotta is sort of like sweet cream in almost a jello-like form.  It sounds gross, but it was actually heavenly. There was also some vanilla cream, more like pudding, in a small waffle cone.  Together, the two little desserts were amazing, and I am not usually one to rave about creamy things.  It was a lovely way to end my long and tiresome Friday.   

Days 22, 23, 24 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

            Monday morning was gorgeous.  I ran to the fun grocery store in the town down the mountain from Cortona and stocked up on some very red peppers, pink lady apples, cute little mushrooms and grape tomatoes, among some other delicious things.  And, just so you are aware, I did not run back up the mountain to Cortona carrying all my bags of produce, because that would be just crazy.  I power walked up the mountain instead.  With all my amazing vegetables, I decided to make a colorful soup for my lunches this week.  It ended up being quite beautiful, complete with spinach, broccoli, carrots, and the veggies I just bought.  That afternoon in my painting class I covered a lot of the canvas.  My self portrait, which is much bigger than life size, is turning out very loose and gestural, and with an interesting color palette.  At first I wanted to revert back to my traditional pinks and purples that I always love to use, but my professor challenged me not to.  So, I am adding lots of blues and browns and yellows, but my purple is still there. 

Tuesday morning was quite wet and rainy.  In my art ed class, we began lesson planning.  We are teaching in pairs.  Although I am not overjoyed with who I was assigned to teach with (hopefully she is not reading this blog) I still am overjoyed to work with Cortona’s third graders in a few weeks, and she actually had some good ideas.  We are basing our lesson plans off of the theme of community.  In paper/book making, we started working with pigmented pulps to make colored paper.  We each made stencils for pulp painting, which is when you essentially paint with colored pulp onto your paper.  (Pulp is the soaked fibers that are pressed into a sheet of paper).  I of course made a pepper stencil, and I then made a purple dye to make purple pepper paper.  How could I not?  After dinner that evening we had our second faculty presentation, where two of our professors give a presentation about their lives and artwork.  The first presentation (the week prior), Chris, the ceramics professor, and Rick, the director of the program, gave their presentations.  Tonight, the presentations were by Rebecca, the printmaking professor, and Preeti, the photography professor.  I am fascinated by Rebecca’s life.  When she was a grad student she also studied in the Cortona art program.  She ended up falling in love with a local Italian, and ended up marrying him and moving to Cortona!  She has lived here for nine years now, and has two daughters in middle school (they sometimes eat dinner with us; they speak both English and Italian fluently).  I am just amazed about how her life completely changed from coming to study here for a semester. 

That night, while falling asleep, we had our first thunder storm, which was actually quite violent sounding, with lots of lightning.  The storm felt somewhat out of place, experiencing it from Cortona, because I have always associated thunderstorms with being cooped up at home on the couch or in my bed huddled under blankets.  I guess I did not realize that thunderstorms exist in Italy too. 

            Wednesday morning, I went on my longest run yet, exploring yet even more of the Italian wilderness around me.  There was one strange moment on the run, where I turned the corner, and all of a sudden there was a sheep that I literally almost ran into.  I do not know what it was doing there all by itself…My Wednesday schedule is pretty open, because the only class I have that day is art history, but it is not until 5:00 p.m.  I would have wanted to wander around all day, but I had to finish up my Leaning Tower of Pisa paper.  It is difficult to fill up ten pages about it.  

Days 19, 20, and 21 (Friday plus the Weekend!)

            Friday was an extremely busy, crammed day.  I had eight straight hours of class, which was more class than I had during any day of college so far.  My day started out with a soaking wet run (it started pouring midway through my run).  Then I had my art ed class.  I found out that I will be working with third graders in the coming month!  The school we will be working in is really small.   It will also be quite a trek to be carry all the art supplies we need up and down our hill and then another to get to the school.  Even so, I can honestly not wait to start teaching these kids.  In the mean time, I really need to brush up on my useful art classroom Italian phrases.  After art ed, I had my paper/book making class, where we learned how to create embossed and embedded paper, using interestingly textured objects such as buttons, bubble wrap, string, and other fun stuff.  This time, I planned ahead and wore my rain boots, to prevent myself from getting soaking wet toes.  Directly following my art ed class, I had my art history class.  By this point, I was EXHAUSTED!  But I survived my final two hour class of the day.  I really love all my classes, but it was a lot for a rainy Friday.  That night at dinner, a big realization dawned on me.  One of our servers at the restaurant has been reminding me of someone, and I finally decided that this server reminds me of the clock from Beauty and the Beast.  This server is an enthusiastic Disney cartoon, specifically the sophisticated French Clocksworth. 

            Saturday, we had to wake up at the crack of dawn in order to go on our first field trip from Cortona: Pisa!  As exciting as Pisa might seem, it really does not have much to offer other than the Cathedral Complex, which consists of the church, baptistery, and of course the famous bell tower.  I was actually scheduled to give my art history group presentation about this lovely leaning tower, which ended up being quite a success.  We ended our presentation with a demonstration about the various clever poses one can photograph next to the leaning tower.  And then of course, we actually carried out this necessary Leaning Tower of Pisa photo shoot.  It was quite a sight to see so many people out on the lawn in front of the tower pretending to hold up the tower or pretending to have it fall on them.  We only stayed at Pisa for a couple hours.  Afterward, we went on to Lucca, an adorable old city surrounded by a wall.  I love Lucca.  I could not stop taking photographs of its little alleyways.  I loved the colors of all the buildings: so many warm yellows, peaches, and oranges.  I also happened to notice that there was a rather large collection of beautiful pastry shops and bakeries.  It was difficult to tear my eyes away from their display windows.  One of my favorite parts of Lucca was a massive, never ending antique market that took up block after block.  Each of the little tents sold trinkets that I could imagine being sold at an Anthropologie store.  I fell I love with this table of old fashioned vintage photographs of people.  I was so intrigued by them, that I decided to buy some.  I decided they can provide some good inspiration for paintings.  Lucca is definitely a city I would like to go back to during a future free weekend.  As we were leaving, there was a sun shower, and a full vibrant rainbow illuminated the sky.  A very happy ending. 

            Sunday was super productive from the moment I woke up.  First I hand washed every article of clothing that I brought with me in the sink in our bathroom.  This chore needed to be done, or I would have no clothes to wear, which would not be a good thing.  However our sink is not very big, so it took lots of washings to get everything clean and then it took another hefty amount of time to drape everything over the various space heaters in our room.  After all my efficient rounds of laundry, I went with my paper making partner to make more embossed and embedded paper.  This was the first time we were completely on our own in the paper making lab.  I like to embed patterns in the paper which means you make a sheet of paper, and then place flat objects such as rubber bands, buttons, tooth picks, and string, in a lovely arrangement and then finally make and place a sheet of paper directly on top, sandwiching the objects in between the two papers, making one thicker sheet of paper.  The paper is then pressed and dried.  We worked in the lab for two hours.  Then, I went on my longest run yet all around and up and down the mountain.  During the time frame of my run, the weather did all sorts of weird things.  It started out beautifully sunny, and then starting lightly raining, and then the sky cleared up, and then a little while later it drizzled again…After my run, I put my first few marks on my newly made gigantic canvas.  I officially decided to make a self-portrait.  Another painter in my class, Charlotte took photographs of me, and then we switched and I took photographs of her, because she is also painting a self-portrait.  Our photographs turned out to be very dramatic images, so I was excited to finally start painting.  Before I knew it, it was time for dinner.  My room mates and I were all craving pizza, so we walked down the hill to one of the pizza parlors in town.  When we got there, a lady before us snatched all the last pieces of vegetable pizza.  Everything else available had meat on it.  I was about to have a conniption when at the very last moment, one of the chefs brought out a beautiful zucchini egg plant pizza.  They packed for me in an even more beautiful pizza box.  That may sound weird, but the pizza boxes from this restaurant were, in my opinion, a work of art.   I am planning to go back to this place a start a collection of these boxes, although I am not sure what I am going to do with them.  None of you will be surprised to here that when we got back to our school, I added on some of my own vegetables to my pizza to make it an even more delightful experience.  Which it was.  

Days 15, 16, 17, and 18 (Monday through Thursday)

This is the beginning of our first official week in Cortona.  I am excited to finally have all my classes underway, and getting into my routine here.  Monday was a gorgeous day.  I started out the day with the most delightful run I have had so far, exploring again where I went on my walk the previous day.  All the Italian people that I pass on my run always wave, smile, and say hello.  It is so pleasant.  The only class that I have on Mondays is my painting class, where I was already working on my painting.  I was making great progress on my painting, decided on shade of pinks and purples for the background of my red objects, when my teacher, Susie, came up to me to tell me that she wants me to paint the colors that I see in the actual background.  So I then had to paint over all my beautiful pinks and purples.  I was a little upset about that, but I figure I have complete freedom after this painting to do anything I would like to do, so I will put up with it for now.  Monday’s dinner again proved to be way more fun and nourishing for the vegetarians than the meat eaters.  I think the meat eaters are starting to notice that the vegetarians are being much better fed and are thus becoming jealous.  This is the least of my problems.  Just so you have an idea of what we have been eating for dinner, this dinner, after our lovely first course of pasta, consisted of delicious roasted peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and this purple cabbage vegetable.  In addition, we had chick peas, green beans, and salad.  Everything is extremely colorful, which is important to me of course.  I have also been drinking a glass of wine with each dinner, and so far, my favorite kind has been a pink wine (of course) called Rosata.  In my opinion, the best desserts are when they serve us a beautiful fruit plate.  Fruit is a perfect way to end a meal. 

            On Tuesday, I had my second art education class and my first paper/book making class.  I am really enjoying my art ed class.  The teacher, Erin, is one of my favorite professors.  We have been doing some interesting activities together that can be applied to younger classrooms such as acting out scenes occurring before or after a specific painting or creating narrative visual art piece from listening to music.  Afterwards, I had my first paper/book making class.  We are started out with papermaking and later on in the semester we are going to explore book making.  I love my teacher, Amy.  I think it is because she gives great demonstrations and instructions, but she occasionally messes up, but embraces her mistakes in a cute way.  Kind of like Ms. Frizzle.  Anyway, we got a brief introduction to basic paper making.  There are a lot of terms and vocabulary, but of course the best part is the actual making of the paper.  It is a very wet process.  In the future I am going to need my rain boots and raincoat unless I want to get completely soaked. 

            Wednesday is an open day for me until 5 p.m. when I have my art history class before dinner.  During the day, I went on a long beautiful run along the mountains again and then later in the afternoon I wandered around Cortona.  I discovered a little preschool with a very fun looking playground.  I also visited the chocolate shop, where there are the most beautiful chocolate creations, some little delicate truffles that are so beautiful they could pass as sculptures.  Wednesday was my suite mate, Jordan’s 21^st birthday.  That night at dinner, we all sang to her in both English and Italian, and the restaurant presented with a huge layered dessert, with custard or pudding and this puff pastry. 

            Thursday morning, my run turned into an exciting adventure.  Because I was not in the mood to go uphill, I decided to take a road that I had not been on before that winds all the way down the mountain (and yes I did realize that I would eventually have to climb back up).  It eventually leads to a neighboring town called Camocia (spelling?).  This town was not nearly as quaint as Cortona, but much more busy.  There were people, cars, and shops everywhere you turned.  I stumbled upon this giant wonderful grocery store called the Coop, which many people had been talking about before and I naturally had been dying to go explore it, due to my love of grocery stores and markets.  This was by far the biggest Italian grocery store I had seen so far.  It was really fun to see the wide selections of things.  There was a whole aisle completely devoted to pasta, another completely filled with tomato sauces, and another entire corner of the grocery store was filled with olives!  Also, I was excited because this was the first grocery store I had seen so far with an actually baking aisle!  Until today, I though people never baked; now I am relieved.  I took note though that there are very few cake mixes, brownie mixes, and that sort of thing.  I ended up buying some spinach and some carrots in bulk that I later used to make a delicious salad when I returned to Cortona (it was a long trek back up the mountain!)  That afternoon, I had my painting class again.  We critiqued our still lives and then began to stretch canvases for our next project of what will be any direction we choose.  I am considering doing a series of figural portraits of my self...perhaps partially clothed?  I am still not sure, but of course will keep you posted!   Susie, my professor, has urged me to use a big scale with my paintings, so I am currently in the middle of stretching the biggest canvas I have ever seen.  It is double my size.  It has taken a lot of energy to put together so far, and it is still not finished yet (I have been working on it all afternoon).  I am both excited and nervous to actually begin painting on it.  I realized that all of a sudden, I am becoming super swamped with work.  I have my painting, art ed preparations, readings, and an art history presentation to prepare!  Yikes!  All I want to do is wander and visit grocery stores and markets!  I have to remind myself that I am not exactly on vacation…this is actually study abroad.  

Days 13 and 14 (The Weekend!)

            Finally it’s the weekend!  This was the first semi-relaxing day so far!  Saturday, my lovely roommates, Jeanette, Meg, Jordan, Tessie, and I woke up to go to Cortona’s market that they have each Saturday.  We wanted to take advantage of this particular Saturday, because during the rest of our Saturdays, we go on field trips to various Italian cities.  However, the market ended up being a bit bizarre.  There was one tent that was kind of like an outdoor Walgreen; it had all your toiletry essentials.  There was another tent that was selling pajamas, socks, and underwear.  Seriously, lots of underwear.  There was another tent that sold random odds and ends and a couple others that were selling fresh meats and cheeses.  We ended up spending more time in a little thrift store, where I found the perfect oversized, crazy-patterned, super colorful button down shirt to be my painting smock.  I am still very excited about this.  I of course also visited all my essential fruit and vegetable markets, because they would be closed on Sunday.  It is my goal to befriend all the owners of these markets in the next few weeks.  And the guy who owns the pastry shop.  All of these people will be excellent friends to have. 

            That evening, a group of us decided that we wanted to experience a nice authentic Italian restaurant in Cortona for dinner.  I am actually not positive what the name of the restaurant was that we went to, but it was very adorable and hidden away in one of the many alleys that extend off of all the Cortonian streets.  The owners spoke very little English and the menus were completely in Italian, so it was a challenge to order dinner.  Luckily, the one word I knew, “Vegetariano,” came into good use, and I ended up ordering a lovely zuppe (soup) and a delicious spinach side dish.  Yay!  That night, in honor of Valentine’s day, there was a romantic film being played in the quaint little theater situated in the middle of Cortona.  We were all very excited to see our first movie in an Italian movie theater.  It ended up being a very cool experience; even without subtitles, we were able to figure out the underlying story (and it was a very bizarre one!)

            Sunday of course is Valentine’s Day.  Cortona takes Valentine’s Day very seriously.  Every shop window and café window is decorated with Valentine’s Day decorations.  It was the busiest and liveliest that I had ever seen Cortona so far.  Everyone was out and about the entire day.  During the morning, there was a painting competition, which I decided to enter.  How it worked was that you had to get your canvas or paper stamped by the curator of the competition, and then you had three hours to create an artwork before submitting it by the 12:15 p.m. deadline in the town hall building.  I was eager to participate, especially because there were really nice prizes of expensive art supplies.  However, I was not aware that we were supposed to create artworks with a romantic theme.  When I arrived to submit my piece, I realized everyone was turning in these romantic landscapes of Cortonian streets, with flowers, doves, couples in love, that kind of thing.  Because of the time limit, I decided to create a quick self portrait using bright Valentine’s Day colors, but applied in an aggressive and textured manner that created a rather creepy and scary painting.  I was pleased with my result, but it was not exactly what the judges were looking for.  Needless to say, I did not win any of the prizes.  Next time, I will make sure to understand the parameters of the next painting contest I enter.  There was also a small chocolate festival taking place in one of Cortona’s main piazzas.  It was nothing like the chocolate festival I stumbled upon back in Florence, but it was still adorable and romantic and I decided to buy a heart shaped biscotti dipped in two kinds of chocolate.  That afternoon I went on the most dramatic two and a half hour walk deep into the mountains.  The walk was dramatic because of the intense view of the world that I was admiring the entire time.  It was so inspiring and overwhelming to see the entire Italian valley below me as I went farther and farther along on the walk.  I do have to warn you that this walk would not be pleasant to anyone who has even a slight fear of heights.  There is nothing to stop you from falling off the mountain, and the winds are very harsh.  I am careful though, so no one needs to worry.  I hope everyone has the most romantic Valentine’s Day!

Days 11 and 12 (Thursday and Friday!)

Thursday was my first day of official class, although the only class I had that day was my advanced painting class.  Our studio is in the chapel of the monastery where we live.  I am not used to having a studio right in the building I live in.  I like the idea of rolling out of bed in my pajamas to go paint, or being able to paint late into the night.  The studio itself is beautiful and very spacious, but we found out very quickly that the air circulation is not so great.  I was trying not to think about all the brain cells I was losing from breathing in the fumes and chemicals of our oil paints and turpentine.  Because our class and the beginning/intermediate class are the only people using this studio, we are able to leave all our easels, paints, and brushes set up, which saves so much time.  As you know, our first assignment was to find three random objects from a Tobacci.  I discovered the perfect thing for my object.  In Italy, and other European countries, they sell these chocolate eggs with a small prize inside.  I bought several of these, and each one gave me a different prize.  My favorite was a small red superhero action figure with bulging muscles standing in the stereotypical superhero stance.  I decided to change my still life to only red themed objects, so instead of using the yellow rubber gloves I bought yesterday, I arranged the pomegranate with the action figure along with a red light bulb and a red roll of duct tape that I found in a cabinet in the studio.  I have yet to find out what my ending result will look like.  Thursday night, it started to snow lightly, but then starting Friday morning (thankfully after my run, which was already slippery) it started snowing the largest snowflakes I have ever seen.  The snow flakes are the size of clementines.  The view of Cortona and beyond is completely hidden by a vast whiteness.  Nothing is visible.  I have the strange feeling of being in an alternate universe or something because I cannot see anything other than whiteness.  Our hill down into town is very scary right now, because of how slippery it is in combination with how steep it is.  It was difficult enough walking the few feet to our other building where my art education class is held, let alone down a long never-ending hill.  I am not sure if anyone is going to make it to dinner tonight (all the way down the hill) in one piece, but I will keep you posted.  Before I do though, I would like to take note that everyone on my program is impressed with my ability to eat vegetables and make the most beautiful lunches out of them.  I usually cook a variation of the same thing every afternoon: I sauté some red peppers, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and leafy greens and then eat them with a scrambled egg or a little cheese and bread.  It has been delightful. 

            All right, so we did survive going down the hill.  It was super snowy and slippery.  It took us a good half hour to make the full trek.  There was only one person who fell, but I think she recovered.  Cortona has apparently never seen this much snow ever.  A lot of the town is shut down because of all the steep hills that are too dangerous to travel on.  While wandering around in town before dinner, my friends and I visited the lovely pastry shop, and I quickly decided that this is what I want to do with my life.  This was the most quaint and lovely pastry shop I have ever seen, and if all else fails, I will move to Cortona and get employed here.  I decided to buy a one euro apple filled pastry, which I still have yet to try (I am still full from dinner).  In speaking of dinner, one of the most traumatic events of my life happened to me during this evening’s dinner.  Until this night, all the vegetarians always had to sit together to get all the fun vegetarian dishes (the meat eaters were starting to get jealous of our exciting dinners each night).  Tonight, we were finally allowed to sit throughout the dining room.  Everyone was being served a hearty looking and vegetarian appearing soup at the beginning of the meal.  One of the waiters served me a heaping bowlful, and I noticed that there was a lovely pink sweet potato in the middle of my soup.  I was about to scoop it up and eat it immediately, when, to my horror, I realized that this was no potato, but rather a big hunk of meat!  My heart jumped out of my chest, and my face got all flushed.  I was close to hyperventilating!  I nearly just swallowed a huge piece of meat, and who knows what would have happened to me then!  I panicked, but luckily, Marco the (also vegetarian) Italian professor came to my rescue, running over, and speaking something Italian to the waiters.  Apparently there was some mix-up with the soups, and everyone apologized to me and brought me meat-free soup, which ended up being delicious.  However, I still get shaky when I think about this experience.  That meal, we also got the most rich and decadent dessert so far, which was actually in honor of Valentine’s Day.  It was this warm molten chocolate lava cake with strawberries.  I am not a big chocolate eater, but I loved it.  When you poke the little cake with your fork, warm rich chocolate sauce seeps out, and trust me, the whole thing is perfection.  This meal was overall a good way to spend my first Shabbat in Cortona, although I definitely miss challah (a lot).  Shabbas Shalom!

Days 9 and 10

This was the first morning we were able to sleep in slightly.  It felt great.  I even showered.  Our first activity of the day was a tour of Cortona.  Which of course was awesome.  Everywhere you turn there is a new little alleyway or stairway or café or grocery store.  Everywhere people are smiling at you.  There is a little movie theater, a chocolate shop, pastry shop, bread bakery, flower shop, art store, thrift shop, and antique store.  I immediately visited all the produce markets, which are open in the morning and have the freshest fruits and vegetables I have ever seen.  In most of these markets, you are not actually allowed to touch any of the produce.  You have to point or tell to the vendor what you want and they will pick the best of that fruit or vegetable available and weigh it for you.  Between the first two days, I have already bought several apples, the biggest red pepper ever, some clementines, some dark leafy greens (I don’t actually know what exactly they are), some mushrooms, tomatoes (of course), broccoli, carrots, strawberries, kiwi, and even a pomogranate.  The pomogranate was actually for my painting class, even though I plan to eat it immediately after I paint it.  Our first assignment for my painting class was to buy three random items (preferably from a Tobacci, which is the equivalent to a tiny 7-11 or Walgreens, but as I said, very tiny.  With these objects we were to paint them in a way that makes them seem extremely important or holy.  Personally, I just loved the color of the pomogranate.  I also bought some bright yellow rubber gloves.  I am still not sure what my third object is going to be yet.  In the afternoon on both of these days, I went on a walk (one day) and a run (the other) exploring right outside the walls of Cortona. It is truly the most dramatic view I have ever seen.  The walled in city is on one side, and the rest of the world is on the other: basically a cliff that goes down and down and down.  I started these excursions through a park that starts right at the bottom of the hill from our school, which is completely flat, but then leads to a road which is a gradual long uphill.  It was not long until I realized that runs here are going to be no picnic.  The hills are so difficult because they never end.  It is even difficult running on the downhills, because they are either so steep or go on for so long, that it puts so much pressure on you not to lose control with how fast you are going.  On this second day, we had a brief run though of all our classes, to get a sense of the syllabus and what we will be doing these next few months.  My painting class seems very laid back, a nice change from school.  I am also taking a paper and book making class, which will be completely new to me, considering I have taken nothing like it.  I am so excited to take home all the adorable and extremely satisfying little books that we will be stitching and sewing together by hand.  Maybe I will make one for some of you…I am also taking an art education class, and although I will not get any art ed credit for this class at U of I, it gives me the amazing opportunity to teach the Italian children here in Cortona, which I cannot wait for.  It will definitely be interesting to teach students who do not speak any English.  My final class is art history, which will go over basic Renaissance history, which is nothing new to me. Classes officially start tomorrow (Februrary 11^th).  All my professors seem really interesting; they are all women, which is another nice change of pace.  I am sad that I will not be taking Italian with Marco, but I plan to sit in on it as much as I can.  

Day 8: CORTONA!!!!

We would FINALLY be arriving in Cortona today.  As much as I loved being in Rome and Florence, it was exhausting living out of a suitcase and being on the rode constantly, and more importantly, I had never been so curious about our destination.  I craved to learn all about it.  We still spent the beginning half of the day in Florence.  In the morning our program raided the art store called Zecchi’s.  The experience was way more overwhelming and stressful (and EXPENSIVE) than I imagined it to be.  The store is quite small and not built to fit 46 art students searching for all their art supplies at the same time.  And when we finally made it out of the store, we were all stuck lugging all our heaving bags of art supplies around with us for the rest of the afternoon.  Oh well. 

            The bus ride from Florence to Cortona was less than an hour and a half.  My heart started beating faster as soon as I could view Cortona in the mountains in the distance.  And then we started driving up.  And we never seemed to stop.  I could not believe how high up Cortona was.  And then we had to walk up the hill to our actual school.  Now, this is not just any hill.  This is a 45-degree hill about a half a mile long.  We were all panting and sweating by the time we got to the top.  My legs are still sore.  (They also might be sore because I never stretched from my run the day before).  I immediately noticed how friendly the local Cortonians are.  Everyone would stop and smile and say “Ciao!” to us.  Apparently, the locals here look forward to having us art students here to join the rest of the Cortona’s 1200 population.  Our building is beautiful.  The building is an old fifteenth century monastery.  Within the building is our dormitory area, our breakfast eating area, and several classrooms and studios, including my painting studio for the semester which is held in the chapel of the monastery.  Painting in this space will be SUCH a delightful change from the cockroach-infested Flagg Hall at U of I.  There is also a small kitchen for us to cook in, a common area for lounging and hanging out, and a beautiful garden area outside.  Overall, I can picture myself moving here permanently.  Oh, and we have a maid service here that makes our beds every morning.  They are known as the “angels.”  Immediately after arriving we were able to unpack.  The rooms we live in our very spacious.  I have four other roommates that are divided two rooms connected together with a bathroom in the middle.   I was thankful to be on the side of the building with the inspirational view of Cortona and the towns below outside our window.  This is the view that we will wake up to everyday.  I had to remind myself each moment that this was real, that Cortona actually exists, and that I am actually living here!  Each night we eat together in a wonderful restaurant all the way down the hill called Totinos.  We have our own eating room on the bottom level.  The courses here at Totinos are more exciting, all because different dishes kept on coming.  Being a vegetarian is by far more fun, because dinner is always an exciting surprise, whereas all the meat eaters more or less have the same meal each night.  Our first dinner started with spinach ravioli with a creamy tomato sauce. Then came this weird celery side course.  Then the waiter brought to our table a delicious cheese that you are supposed to eat with honey (which we did: a delicious all-natural thick honey).  Then the waiter brought a cabbage dish.  Then this other weird pizza thing.  And then the best part of the dinner: an amazing lentil dish.  Then came salad, and finally a crazy fancy dessert.  I only ate the strawberry off the dessert because at the point I was so full.  I would like to take note that little by little, I have been appreciating the wine here more and more.  Just so you know.  

Day 7

This was our last full day in Florence.  I was determined to see as much of Florence as I possibly could, because I knew we would be really rushed the next day.  We started out touring the Accademia Museum, which houses the celebrity statue, Michelangelo’s David.  Like the Sistine Chapel, I was tingly all over when I was walking toward it.  The security at this museum was very heavy because apparently a long time ago, a crazy art student threw a hammer at the David and broke off one of his toes.  The David was the main attraction by far at this museum.  Everything else was a lot of intense religious art.  After the museum, a group of us went with our Italian professor, Marco on a walking tour to view several churches and then to go across the river and up really high to view Florence from an amazing high perspective.  Breathtaking is the word to describe this experience.  And extremely windy.  I was worried the gusts of wind would grab my camera right out of my hands.  Nonetheless, it was so wonderful to see Florence from so high up.  The view was just what one would imagine: the matching terracotta rough tops, the dome of the duomo in the distance, various bell towers peaking up among the buildings, sublime mountain tops looming over the entire scene in the distance.  The full effect is definitely something that everyone should experience in their lifetime.  When we got too cold from the crazy winds, we decided to get some quality lunch.  We found a tiny pizza parlor in the neighborhood below (we had to climb done the millions of steps to get there).  Because the restaurant was so tiny, we felt very cramped at our table.  I was especially confused because there was only one young guy working the restaurant by himself.  After he took our order, we could watch him in the kitchen whip up each of our pizzas from scratch in record time.  I actually ordered a vegetable calzone.  Within fifteen minutes he head single handedly made five different pizza-like dishes from scratch.  I was amazed, considering that it takes me at least an hour to make one pizza, let alone five. 

            That afternoon, I decided it was time for my first run of Italy.  I was a little nervous, because the streets of Florence were especially crowded that day.  And also because I had not run in over two months because of a stress fracture.  Despite this, I decided to give it a shot because the day was one of the most beautiful days we had seen so far; there was not a cloud in the sky.  Even though it was challenging at first, my run ended up being a wonderful success.  I made it to the river and run along it and then deep into the side of Florence on the other side of the river, which I had not yet explored.  My run was basically a new form of wandering and exploring the city.  After I recovered from the shock of running, I went and visited a book store.  My goal was to find some sort of Italian cookbook with beautiful photographs.  I ended up finding a cookbook about gelato and sorbet.  Trust me, the pictures will make you hungry instantly.  

Day 6

Our first full day in Florence!  We woke up early enough to see merchants setting up for that days market which goes on for blocks and blocks all around the city.  Our first stop was the wonderful Duomo with its beautiful dome, bell tower, and baptistery.  All of these structures are studied over and over again in art history, so it was amazing to finally see and experience them in real life.  And the pictures in the text books definitely do not do them any justice.  Around the Duomo, there were many gypsies begging for money, which made me a little uneasy about pickpocketing, because I knew that was common in this area.  After discussing the Duomo, we all made our way to the Ufizzi art museum a few blocks away.  This museum contains a lot more famous art history icons including Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Primavera.  Also in this museum are lots of artworks by Caravaggio, a famous renaissance artist, and Raphael and Michelangelo.  One of my favorite Renaissance pieces, Titian’s Venus of Urbino is housed in this museum, which I could not tear my eyes off of.  Overall, I never spent so much time in an art museum before, with an exception of course to the Art Institute.  And in the end, I could not help but buy many beautiful post cards in the gift shop.  After several hours in this museum, we went to (surprise) another museum, this one famous for containing Donatello’s David statue.  However, after the Ufizzi, I was pretty museumed out, so I could only handle a small amount of this museum.  I think that was the case for most of us, because shortly after, we made our way to a café for lunch.  This café was nice because the menu was in both English and Italian, which was exciting because they had so many options to choose from.  I ended up ordering a grilled vegetable dish with melted mozzarella and basil, which was incredible.  From lunch all the way until dinner, I spent the rest of the day wandering Florence on my own, one of my new favorite activities to do in Italy.  I of course visited every book store and supermarket that I came across.  I also explored the market that we saw being set up that morning and got two gorgeous scarves.  After a few hours of wandering, I stumbled upon this amazing chocolate festival taking place in the middle of a piazza.  I am no chocolate fanatic, but this was the most breathtaking experience.  Under the biggest tent I had ever scene, there were countless chocolate vendors showing off there beautiful creations and offering delicious samples.  I tried to document the experience with as many photographs as I could.  I saw chocolate that looked like cheese.  Chocolate that towered to the ceiling.  Chocolate in every color, shape, size.  I also could not believe the crowd that this festival attracted.  The piazza was packed with people, and lots of Americans I noticed.  I ended up splurging on some decadent strawberries with warm dark chocolate drizzled over them.  Trust me, this snack was perfection.  As if that dessert was not enough for the day, later that night after dinner, a group of us went out for some before-bed gelato.  The place we ended up at had the most flavors I had seen yet: kiwi, melon, mango, rose, nutella, were all new flavors from what I had seen so far.  However, I had to go with my trusty deep plum berry gelato-sorbet.  On our way back to the hotel, we noticed a carousel in the middle of piazza.  We decided to give it a ride.  At least now I can say I rode on a merry-go-round in the middle of Florence!

Day 5

Today we were finally leaving Rome and making our way towards Florence!  I was so excited, except we were actually stopping along the way to visit the ancient medieval town called Vertibo.  Despite it being really dreary outside, this walled-in town was particular charming.  I loved the churches here.  They were so different from the churches in Rome because instead of the arched marble ceilings, they were high, flat wooden ceilings, giving the person below an entirely different experience.  I also spent a lot of time wandering up and down the streets of these little town.  I stumbled upon a little corner bookstore.  I decided to buy a little baby board book about a cow named Mooka to help me learn some basic Italian.  The woman in the store though could not understand that I wanted the book for myself.  She kept on trying to wrap the book in baby-themed wrapping paper thinking it was a present for some non-existent little child.  My lunch a few hours later ended up being my favorite meal so far in Italy.  Some friends and found the most quaint little Italian café, hidden under a little archway.  This restaurant was clearly not a tourist spot, which I really liked.  It was filled with all these interesting looking Italian people either having lively conversations or simply reading a newspaper over their cappuccino.  We sat down expecting a menu, only to find out that there was no menu.  The waiter told us what was available that day (all in Italian).  Luckily there was a girl in my group who understood most of what he was saying.  I ended up ordering a vegetable soup (zuppe verdure).  Zuppe (pronounced zoopay) is one of my favorite Italian words.  This soup was SO DELICIOUS!  It had kale, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and celery, and some scrumptious bread soaking in it too.  As my dad would say, it hit the spot. 

            Right as we were leaving Vertibo to get to Florence, it started to rain.  It was raining harder when we arrived in Florence, which made lugging our heavy luggage two blocks to our hotel a very difficult task.  But I was too excited to care, because I was finally in Florence!  I knew I loved it already: all the buildings had terracotta roofs and bright green shutters on the windows.  Each building was a different shade of a burnt yellow or orange. The cobblestone streets.  The balconies at the tops of the buildings filled with pots of flowers.  Everything was so quaint.  We got there in the evening and it got dark quickly, so there was no time to explore until the next day.  However, the restaurant in Florence understood the vegetarian diet better than the hotel in Rome, which was nice.  Our vegetable course for that evening’s dinner consisted of beans (finally!) and broccoli which I had been craving for quite a while.  Yay vegetables!

 

Day 4

This was our last full day in Rome.  The day was mainly dedicated to exploring Rome’s ancient ruins.  I also learned to master the metro system in Rome, because that was our primary source of public transportation as opposed to the bus system on this particular day.  In the morning, I went with a group to explore the church that held Michelangelo’s Moses statue.  Some of the group was not aware of the stop we were supposed to get off at.  As one girl hurriedly made her way off the metro, the doors closed on her!  Luckily, in the nick of time, Daniel (our camp counselor) came to her rescue by shoving the doors open again and pushing her out to her safety.  My heart did a double flip.  

            I could not believe how ancient everything is that I was surrounded in.  We started on Capitolin Hill or “The Sacred Center” of Rome.  For those who are curious, Rome was founded in 753 B.C.E.  Two brothers, Romulus and Remus were found and adopted by a she-wolf.  Later on the tried to share the power of the region they were living on, but apparently two brothers trying to share power never works out.  The brothers fought, Romulus killed, Remus, so now Rome is called Rome and not Reme.  Interesting, I know.  Beyond this hill is the amazing Roman Forum, which has much tradition.  Its three main functions are to serve as a market, serve as a meeting place for government purposes, and to serve for sacred purposes.  There are numerous gigantic archways, including the Arch of Titus and the Arch of Constantine.  These arches were an iconic Roman symbol of military victory.  All right, the history lesson is over.  It was quite an experience wandering around the Roman Forum.  I began snapping photo after photo, until I realized I would be stuck with all these photos of rocks.  So I stopped.  My favorite part of the Roman Forum was this area that served as a sort of apartment complex for holy virgins.  It looked like all these giant caves on the side of a cliff.  The end of the Roman forum exploration brought us to the infamous Colosseum.  Despite the horrible events that went on in this magnificent theater for the pleasure of Roman spectacle, it was amazing to see in person these piece of architecture.  We got to go inside and it was strange to think about it being packed with people so long ago. 

            Later that afternoon, we visited the Borguese Museum, another art museum.  My favorite part of this visit was actually the beautiful gardens that we walked through to get to this museum, which was actually originally someone’s house.  The museum held lots of Renaissance-esque paintings and zillions of statues.  Before dinner, I went on my last exploratory walk through Rome, trying to visit as many supermarkets as possible (these are my favorite thing to explore!)

Day 3

Today we visited the Vatican.  Vatican City is actually considered to be its own country surrounded by a wall, separate from Italy with its own postal service, grocery store, and everything.   There is so much history inside the Vatican museum, the main attraction being the Sistine Chapel.  Everywhere you turn, there are signs pointing you in the direction of the Sistine Chapel.  So, everywhere I turn, I think I am going to be walking right into it, but instead, there is more hallway, turning into more hallway.  This museum is one crazy never ending maze.  I felt like I was walking in circles for what seemed like forever.  During this journey, we saw Raphael’s amazing fresco, The School of Athens.  This is another art history icon that I have been looking at in books and on slides for the longest time.  I had no idea that it took up an entire wall in this museum.  It was so big and overwhelming.  It took me the longest time to take my eyes off of it.  Finally, we made it to the Sistine Chapel, and I got so tingly.  I could not believe I was actually IN the Sistine Chapel.  Michelangelo’s masterpiece.  I only wanted to exclaim in awe, but the guards kept on shushing everybody.  This is something that everyone has to experience in person.  There is no other way to truly get the full effect it has on you.  Usually the Sistine Chapel is completely packed with people, but because it was February, we did not have to bump into people constantly while gazing up at the ceiling.  I spent at least an hour in the Chapel, until my eyes got too tired.  I spent some more time exploring the rest of this massive museum, but nothing could quite top what I had already seen.  One funny thing though was that I ran into my friend Lisa from another study abroad program. 

            That afternoon a bunch of people from my painting class visited Stephen Wessel, an American minimalist painter who was living in the American Academy villa in Rome.  This villa houses outstanding artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, and scholars each year from America.  It was cool to see this amazing mansion where they lived and Stephen’s beautiful studio.  However, I was not completely impressed with Stephen as an artist.  While we were visiting there, it began to sun shower.  Just as we were about to leave, we saw a crystal clear double rainbow arching across the sky. 

            Two girls and I decided we wanted to walk back to the hotel from downtown Rome, as opposed to taking the bus in order to explore the more residential area of the city.  The air outside had never felt so refreshing.  On our way back, we stopped in my very first Italian supermarket where I bought a beautiful red pepper and some apples.  I later started getting made fun of in my program for always having a red pepper and an apple or carrots or an orange in my bag at all times.  We got a little lost the rest of the way back, but we finally made it in the end with the combined knowledge of the geography of Rome. 

 

Day 2

Our day started with a walking tour of downtown Rome.  My favorite part of this tour was when we stumbled upon this open-air market.  An entire piazza was filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, meats, cheeses, craft items, spices, and dried fruits.  I of course bought some apples and I put together a snack of some dried mango, cranberries, strawberries, and raspberries.  There were numerous other dried items that I had no idea existed in dried form including carrots.  I was hoping to see a dried red pepper, but that was one of the few missing foods.  Later, we met up with the entire group and toured some ancient churches.  All of a sudden we turned a corner, and there before me was the Pantheon!  This building has been the source of countless art history papers. I could not believe I was actually seeing it and going inside it.  For those who don’t know, this building is a major architectural feat and a very interesting building to visit.  Sunlight pours through the hole at the top of the dome into the dim interior. 

            I had the most delicious lunch today.  We went to a pizza vendor where she cuts off a portion of pizza, weighs it, then cuts in half and assembles it like a sandwich for you to eat.  I choose a mushroom pizza.  All the pizza I have seen in Rome has very thin crispy crust which I really like.  After lunch, I enjoyed my very first gelato (or technically sorbet) of Italy.  It was this deep plum berry flavor.  It was perfection.  I think it is all I need in life.  In the afternoon, we continued our walking tour by climbing up this steep hill and then climbing endless steps to come to an area that reveals the most amazing view of all of Rome.  Everything could be seen from this height.  I could not get enough of all the different colors of roof tops.  After this, most people went back to the hotel, but I still wanted to wander.  I joined two other girls and we roamed (haha pun) really deep into the city.  We made it the beautiful Spanish steps, where I ended up getting my second gelato of the day.  This time it was fragola (strawberry) and again completely delicious.  We made it back just in time for dinner.  After dinner, we had a meeting where the professors presented each of their courses and we could decide what classes we wanted to take.  I had initially signed up for advanced painting, book/paper making, art history, and Italian.  I was set on the first three classes, but I decided instead of taking Italian to take the art education class because it allowed me to actually teach the Italian children in Cortona.  I could not pass that up, so I went for it.  

Day 1

Sitting in my O’hare terminal, I had no idea what to expect of Italy.  I truly had no clue where the next three and a half months would take me.  Already I had one stressful moment.  I discovered that my massive duffel bag was 8 pounds too heavy to check.  I had to empty out all four pairs of shoes in addition to my poncho and all my books.  All these items in addition to my overflowing backpack and carry-on bag made it very difficult to maneuver through the airports.  Despite this, traveling went remarkably smoothly.  The plane to Rome was only about a third full, so everyone had an entire row to themselves to sleep.  I of course could not sleep at all.  Way too anxious to get to Rome.  The flight was a little under eight hours.  We (I was traveling with my friend Tessie) arrived in Rome at around 8:30 a.m. and immediately found other Cortona art students to wait with.  Our “camp counselor” Daniel was waiting for everyone waving a UGA flag.  Eventually we made our to way to our hotel in Rome.  I had to constantly remind myself that I was not dreaming.  After a group of us got settled in we decided to start exploring.  We got a map and a bus ticket, and within fifteen minutes, we were surrounded by all this beautiful and ancient Roman architecture and life.  With no specific destination in mind, we set out into the city.  I was freaked out by how careless the drivers in Rome seemed.  Cars were speeding by in all directions and seemed to pay no attention to traffic lines or pedestrians.  Rome is definitely not ideal for running.  As soon as we made it off one of the main roads and onto one of the narrow side alleys, the noise of the traffic dimmed down and I was able to appreciate the beautify colorful buildings that came right up to street.  Everywhere I looked I wanted to snap a photo.  We decided to try and find Trevvi Fountain.  Walking ahead of the group, I was about to walk over this metal chain, distinguishing the sidewalk from the street, when I fell flat on my face.  So Graceful.  I later learned that my entire left knew was covered completely in a humongous purple bruise.  At least it matches all my clothes. 

            Trevvi Fountatin is beautiful!!!!  Part of me might just have been in awe because it was the first major monument of Italy that I experienced, but it was so exciting to see this fountain in person.  There is a myth that if you through a coin into the fountain over your shoulder, you will fall in love.  Each of us took turns in throwing in euros.  We will see what happens.  I loved the people watching around the fountain.  I also loved that you could fill your water bottle with water right from the fountain.  After sitting for awhile, we decided to get some food.  We went to a café a few blocks away, where one of the waiters spoke English.  My first Italian meal consisted mostly of this steamed spinach and some other vegetables (no surprise!).  Our busride back to the hotel took a really long time.  My exhaustion suddenly hit me.  It was my goal to stay awake until bed time that night, but as soon as I made it back to the hotel, I fell asleep.  Luckily my roommate woke my up for our welcome orientation meeting, or I would have slept right through it. 

            I soon learned that being a vegetarian in Italy was quite an ordeal.  There were only four of us (out of 46) and two professors that were vegetarians.  In Italy, there are three courses: the first course is the pasta course, the second course is the main course, usually consisting of some combination of meat/vegetables, and the third course is the dessert.  I think the hotel cooks were confused about what a main course is for vegetarians.  Our main course that night was some iceburg lettuce salad and some triangles of cheese.  Not my ideal main course, but no worries. 

            That night, I never slept so deeply in my life.  More than nine hours.  For me, that is a lot of sleep.