Day 56 (Sunday)

            Today was my day of being an official Cortona tour guide.  It felt good being able to show off the beautiful place I had been living and prove of its existence to Elli and Lauren.  In the morning, because it was Palm Sunday, there was a community procession throughout the town starting with a ceremony at the church at the bottom of the hill.  It was cool to see people of all ages in the procession singing together: young children, teenagers, younger and older couples, families....After we watched everyone go by, Elli, Lauren and I went on a gorgeous walk through the park and around the mountain.  When we got back to Cortona, we explored the exciting antique market that Cortona has the last Sunday of each month.  Once again, there was beautiful jewelry, lace, ceramics, toys, books, and other assortments of objects to touch and look at.  I fell in love with an antique box filled with an old collection of watercolor paints.  I took Elli and Lauren to everything that was open that afternoon: my favorite bread bakery, the thrift store, the chocolate shop, my favorite boutique…eventually we sat and had lunch at one of the many cafes in Cortona.  The guy who owned the café had a very exciting British accent that was far more interesting than any accent from the U.S.  It was a cozy café that had just opened up for the warm spring season.  In speaking of the warm spring season, we had just changed our clocks one hour later, so the whole day I felt I was an hour off.  After lunch, we had some delicious gelato, and wandered around Cortona some more.  Then, I brought Elli and Lauren to our monastery for a little tour.  I showed them around our quaint building and the beautiful studio where I paint, in addition to a mini painting exhibition of my work so far. 

            For dinner that night, a group of girls from my program joined us for an amazing dinner at a restaurant that has been recommended to us by everyone in my program who had eaten there so far.  The restaurant was slightly hidden, and none of us knew the actual name of the restaurant; we only knew that it was owned by a nice man named Mario.  Luckily, we stumbled upon it.  The restaurant was barely large enough to seat the seven of us.  After looking at the menu, Mario told us he would make us a couple pasta dishes for all of us to share as a table.  Our first dish was a simple, but completely delectable penne with a savory tomato, garlic, and basil sauce.  Our second dish was even better: it was a tortellini dish stuffed and tossed with savory zucchini.  We loved it so much, that we ordered a second dish of this kind.  For dessert, Mario insisted that we have some tiramisu.  Now, ordinarily, I do not like tiramisu at all, especially because I do not like the flavor of coffee.  However, this tiramisu was something wonderful, because I split a whole piece with Elli, and I could have had an entire additional piece for myself, but I was stuffed.  Food clearly fills my days with endless happiness.  

Days 54 and 55 (Friday and Saturday)

            Friday was another long day of classes filled with art ed planning, book making, and art history.  We somehow got on the topic of gruesome stories in book making and my book making teacher told us the most disgusting story of a time she was stitching a book while in bed but she dropped her needle and could not find it.  Eventually she went to bed.  The next day, she noticed a sharp pain in her shoulder and felt a prick on the surface of her skin.  Apparently, she rolled over the needle in her sleep, and it got stuck in her body!  She ended up having to get major surgery because it began moving around inside her body near her heart.  I could not stop shuddering for the rest of class while stitching my own book.  After dinner that evening, a group of us was taking a walk when an American family (a husband, wife, toddler, and baby) behind us heard us talking and asked us if we were vacationing.  After we explained that we were studying art here for the semester, the man excitedly exclaimed that he was a painter who had come to Cortona to paint landscapes for the next month.  He teaches art at a University in California, but brought his family here for a painting sabbatical of sorts.  His name is Bryan Mark Taylor (look up his artwork, it is beautiful) and he agreed to come visit our painting class in the upcoming weeks. 

            Saturday we went on our field trip to Assisi and Perugia.  Assisi is known for its famous cathedral dedicated to the Franciscan order, where St. Francis (my personal favorite saint of all time) is buried.  The church has two levels, and on the upper level, there is an ornate fresco order illustrating the life of St. Francis.  The town itself is very touristy, but probably for good reason: once again, I loved wandering through the stone alleyways, staircases, and streets.  I decided to buy my one and only touristy item here, which was a set of St. Francis salt and pepper shakers (I could not resist).  In the churches we explored here, I was fascinated with not only taking in the breathtaking artwork, but also the numerous rituals performed by the many nuns, monks, and other people praying in the church.  There are so many different gestures and movements that go along with the prayers that it was hard to keep track of them all from my people watching. 

            At noon, we boarded the buses to go on to Perugia.  The buses took us to a metro station.  To get into the city, we had to take these tiny mini-metros.  They were adorable small individual metro cars that move on what looks like a roller coaster track from stop to stop, until we made it to the older part of Perugia.  Perugia is famous for being the birth place of Bacci chocolate, a very popular type of chocolate in Italy.  Because of that, there were fancy chocolate shops every few feet, displaying beautiful chocolates in all varieties, in addition to giant chocolate eggs for Easter.  (These chocolate eggs are everywhere, not just chocolate shops…grocery stores…even produce stands!)  Although I did not end up buying any chocolate myself (some people bought a lifetime supply it seemed) it was fun wandering in each shop.  I actually got in trouble in one of the more snobby stores for touching cute little chocolate boxes, thus ignoring the Do Not Touch signs.  Later in Perugia, a group of us ate a delicious lunch at a restaurant.  Tables were set up in the middle of a wide street, with shops lining up along the street on either side of us.  It was fun to eat in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city going by.  I ordered an AMAZING grilled pepper pizza…maybe the best pizza I have eaten so far?  It is a tough call.  I also had some amazing gelato in Perugia…it was a combination of fresh pear (basically, it was like the experience of eating a frozen pear) with lemon…so refreshing!  We did a lot of wandering: we stumbled on a book store with a huge English section, the biggest pastry shop I have ever seen, and a candy store (Perugians apparently like their sweets) with an exciting wall filed with a million different varieties of colorful fruity gummies.  After taking the mini metro back to our bus, we headed back to Cortona.  I was really anxious to get back because Elli was coming to visit for the next couple days and I had no idea when or how she was arriving.  In Cortona, I thought that every curly haired person walking along the streets could be Elli.  I told some girls from my program to ask around for Elli just in case.  Later, from the limited communication we had, I was worried she would be stuck forever in Camucia, the town adjacent to Cortona, but all the way down the mountain.  Luckily, a wonderful taxi driver picked her and her friend Lauren up from the train station and they made it to Cortona safely.  Phew.  

Days 50, 51, 52, 53 (Monday through Thursday)

  This week is proving to be just as busy as last week.  Monday, I painted all day (practically).  Right now I am in a frustrating place in painting where I am disagreeing with all the suggestions my teacher is making for me because I feel that her ideas will remove my voice in my paintings and replace it with hers.  Usually this is not a problem to disagree with an art teacher; however, with our painting teacher, she acts like her ideas are the only correct direction to approach our artwork, which is quite bothersome.  Hopefully this will change in the next few weeks.  On a happier note, after dinner that night, we all got to watch the movie, “Room with a View,” which was played because, in addition to being an adorable romantic story, it takes place in Florence.  It really is exciting to watch movies that are filmed in the cities we have visited.  I can cross this movie off my ever-growing list as we visit more and more places. 

            Tuesday was already my third teaching day, where we were making comic strips about our super heroes that we created the week before.  Although the third graders were more active and wild than usual, it is clear that each day of teaching gets better.  We were really able to push the concepts of the project this time and once again, every student took their time to explore their imaginations.  I am constantly amazed by how much I am able to communicate to the kids even though I know so little of their language.  If I could take anything home with me from my experiences abroad, it would most definitely be the entire third grade class from the Cortona elementary school.  The rest of the afternoon was devoted to book making.  We are learning a new stitch to bind the book together, and although like the other techniques, this one is also very time consuming, I am finally getting my own rhythm of working with all the aspects of book making.  Even more importantly, I am finally getting inspired about ways to not only perfect my technique of book making, but ways to apply meaning and further dimension to the books I make.  After dinner that night, we had yet another faculty presentation.  This one coincidentally was presented by my book making teacher, Amy, and the jewel/metals teacher, Krista, both of whom showed us a very amazing collection of work starting from their high school days.  I think it is so cool to be able to see the early work of such well-established artists. 

            I woke up Wednesday feeling feverish, so I actually spent most of the day drifting in and out of sleep until art history in the late afternoon.  The only thing of note is that I got my art history exam back, where I did splendidly.  My teacher announced to the whole class that someone misspelled the word abbess (the woman in charge of an abbey of nuns) throughout her entire essay as abyss.  That someone would have been me.  I guess I need to brush up on my spelling. 

            Thursday, I woke up feeling so much better.  I guess I just had a one-day spell of something.  Thursday also seemed to be the warmest day we had so far.  I had my first run in shorts!  Also, strawberries for some reason were way cheaper at the produce market.  Such a good day!  Painting also went better today.  We critiqued the painting that I was frustrated with, and I decided to try out my teacher’s suggestion for the background of my painting in a way that still seemed to have my voice.  I painted over the brushy, blended brush strokes in the background with flat bold winding stripes of color that contrast dramatically with my delicate pepper.  This was actually inspired by a page that I colored in a coloring book using this same technique for the background.  I want to push this idea further with future paintings, but I am not sure how I am going to do this yet.  After painting, because it was so beautiful outside, I decided to go for a nice walk before dinner.  During my walk, I explored a different direction of a new nearby mountain; I was taking in the most stunning scenery when I stumbled upon the famous “Le Celle”, a gigantic, charming, and beautiful Franciscan monastery founded by Saint Frances himself in 1211 in the middle of breathtaking woods and with a waterfall running through it.  I did not actually know what this place was (I could only tell that it was some sort of monastery) until I got back and showed our art history teacher the pictures I had taken of the monastery to find out what I had discovered.  Apparently she is planning a big trip with our program to go see this place.  She was shocked that I walked all the way there and back.  I was proud of my adventure.  My Thursday ended on an excellent note with the BEST sandwich ever!  Lately, dinner at the restaurant has been lacking, so I planned ahead this evening by buying a sandwich at the local food market.  It was a Number Eleven: spinach, peppers, eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, (I added pesto to this) on fresh focaccia bread.  This sandwich was the most incredible post-dinner I have ever had, no question.  I think I will need another sandwich tomorrow. And the next day.  

Days 48 and 49 (Weekend!)

Saturday was our field trip to and Volterra and San Gimignano. After a busride filled with a particularly large amount of crazy twists and turns, we arrived in Volterra, where we explored a really interesting Etruscan museum filled with lots of ancient pieces that filled the Etruscan tombs; each piece had a various funerary purposes. My favorite part was all the little figurine statues meant to keep the Etruscans company in the afterlife. I liked how all sorts of individuals and animals were sculpted into these tiny statues; they would be perfect for a doll house. After the Etruscan Museum, we went to another museum, this one known for its collection Mannerist paintings. Mannerism is the style of painting that developed directly in response to the Renaissance as an “anti-classical” style, one where the human form is twisted, distorted, and imaginative, and the spaces they inhabit are filled with vibrant colors but are often ambiguous with odd, illogical proportions. I love this style, and one painting that we talked about really stood out to me as a way that I would like to paint (not necessarily the content of Jesus, but rather the style). Rosso Fiorentino’s “Depostion”, aka “Descent from the Cross”. I was hypnotized by the colors and brushstrokes. After we had our share of museums, we explored and wandered throughout the town. Some girls and I stumbled upon Volterra’s Saturday food market, filled with produce, cheeses, breads, and meats. There was a seafood stand selling a lot of octopus and some other alien-looking sea creatures, which I was fascinated by. Eventually, we made our way to a cafeteria-style restaurant where you essentially point to the foods you want to put on your tray. Unfortunately, my entire program including all my teachers had the same idea, so we were all squished into this tiny place.

After lunch, we headed back on the bus to go to San Gimignano, a town not too far from Volterra. This town is known for its cathedral called the Collegiata with its famous frescoes along all the walls inside. There are also numerous bell towers sprinkled throughout this town that seem to ring at least every 15 minutes, if not more. San Gimignano is also the home of the world’s most famous gelato, although I do not know who got to judge that contest (I would not mind doing that). The gelato was delicious, but what was most exciting was the crazy amount of flavor selection they had. I had never seen so many colors of gelato in my life. I realized that this would be a very fun subject to paint. I sampled numerous flavors including passion fruit and blood orange and cantaloupe before I decided on my mango-raspberry-strawberry combination (completely uncharacteristic of me, I know). Something that sparked many of our curiosities was the Museo Tortura that we passed on the way to the cathedral. Some friends and I decided to buy a ticket to see what this was all about. It actually ended up making me feel more ill than my meat bread that I sadly ate one week ago. The museum’s three stories were filled with various graphic wax statue people being tortured or executed in various gruesome ways throughout history. Lots of horrible instruments were on display to mutilate and harm people more completely painful ways. I was shocked to read that some of the most absurd torturing devices were still being using as a form of punishment in some third world countries. I was somewhat relieved to leave that museum, and cross off going to a Torture Museum off of my list of things today forever. I definitely do not plan on going back to one. The day ended on a lighter note by raiding San Gimignano’s wonderful grocery store for amazing things like spinach in bulk and yummy yogurt. It was quite an exciting day of field tripping.

Sunday was filled with more busy work that I had to catch up on. I made sure to have a wonderful run in the morning, before I had to work in the book making studio all day long. I realized book making for me is so difficult because it is essentially the exact opposite process of how I paint. I paint rather aggressively, recklessly, and gesturely. Book making is all about precision and exactness, so I have to slow myself way down to do it right. Luckily, I had motivation to work hard, because that evening, some friends and I had plans to go to an adorable restaurant in Cortona called La Grotta. It was hidden away through an alley, down a staircase, and through another alley (I had no idea how anyone who did not know about would find this place). The restaurant itself was adorable, with stone walls lined with beautiful wine bottles, and low stone ceilings. Our waiter was a very funny man who insisted on teaching us to order our dinners in Italian. We each ordered a version of the same thing: gnocchi made from ricotta and spinach, with either a truffle or tomato sauce (I choose the latter). This meal was unlike anything I have every eaten. The gnoochi were soft and melted in your mouth. The colors were beautiful: the bright green gnocchi from the spinach, contrasting with the bright red of the fresh tomato sauce. I wanted this dinner to last forever. I cleansed my palette with some delightful lemon sorbet. It was definitely the best meal I had eaten thus far in Italy. I will probably be thinking about it for the rest of my time here. It definitely filled my thoughts as I went to sleep that night. Another week finished!

Days 43 through 47 (Monday through Friday)

Sorry it has taken me so long to blog out this week! It was especially busy filled with studying and work because it is midterms in our program. On Monday, after my usual run, I made a delicious lunch with colorful vegetables, lentils (my new favorite legume of choice), and parmesan cheese (I now cannot eat anything without parmesan cheese. I eat it with EVERYTHING!) Then in painting, I painted another figural pepper in an interesting new color palette. The rest of the day was filled with studying for our upcoming art history exam.

Tuesday was our second day of teaching in the elementary school in Cortona. I definitely think this day was far more successful than our first day. Today with the third graders, the students were making themselves into super heroes who have a super power of doing a good deed within the community using paper collage. This time I was prepared with questions to ask them while they were working to get them to talk about their art project. Even though I did not necessarily know what they were talking about the entire time, it was nice to be more interactive with them during their art making. They asked me quite a few questions during class, which my bilingual students helped translate: Did I have a boyfriend? (They were very upset when I said no). Why was I always running? (Apparently several of them see me run by in the morning). Where did I buy all my pink and purple clothes? The more time I spend with these kids, the more I fall in love with them. I am also constantly impressed by their amazing work ethic, especially for such young kids. They create art for practically a full hour and take their time. I have never had art students so patient with art; it is quite refreshing to have students who truly love their imaginations. Nonetheless, they are putting art education in perspective for me: I now appreciate how nice it is when your students speak the same language as you. After teaching that morning, we had a busy day in book making creating an acordian book with a hard cover and spine. Once again, it is a long, tedious process, and the annoying part is that one little mistake in the beginning can affect your entire book. I now truly admire anyone who can make an attractive homemade book because I am quickly learning that it is not easy at all.

Wednesday was devoted to studying art history all day until our exam that evening at five p,m. This was made difficult because it was a completely gorgeous day; it was very evident that spring was near. I decided to take the flash cards I made and review them while wondering around the streets of Cortona. During my study walk, I ended up discovering the most adorable little park in a residential part of Cortona that I had never explored before on the other side of our mountain. I was so excited that there was an entire beautiful part of Cortona that I had not even seen yet (so excited that I almost forgot I had a test I had to get to…) The art history exam did not end up being so bad, although I have yet to discover my grade. It consisted of standard slide identification questions and essays and resulted in severe writing cramps.

Thursday and Friday, after my wonderful morning mountain side runs, I had a lot of catching up to do with painting, book making, and art ed lesson planning, considering that I spent the last few days focused on art history. Thursday during my run, I also explored a really interesting flea market in the larger town down our mountain. It was filled with the most random assortment of clothes, lots of underwear, rugs, lace, and various toiletry items. I actually liked it better for its excellent people watching opportunity. I find everyone around me fascinating to watch. Thursday was filled with lots of painting and Friday was filled with serious lesson planning, teacher exemplar making, and more tedious assembling of the accordian book.

Days 41, 42 (Weekend!)

            Today, our field trip was to Orvieto, a small, ancient fortress town on a cliff, that looked like an island in the sky.  In order to get up to the town, we had to ride the “funaculare” which is a cable car that takes you up practically on a vertical incline (NOT intended for those who are afraid of heights!)  The town itself was beautiful and adorable, like most of the towns we visit.  Our first stop was the most beautiful duomo in the main piazza.  It had the most ornate façade I had ever seen so far (and I had seen a LOT of churches up until this point.)  The inside was equally as beautiful, decorated with striped green and white marble all the way around.  After that, some girls and I decided to sit at an outdoor café to relax, sip cappuccinos (me excluded) and people watch.  It was one of the most beautiful days we had seen in a long time.  The day could have been perfect, except suddenly something horrible happened.  We were given some free samples of bread and focassia.  Excited to enjoy a free piece of fresh bread, I grabbed a piece and popped it into my mouth.  I instantly realized it tasted suspicious, but I had already swallowed when one of the servers pointed to what I had just eaten and explained that it was baked with pork in it.  I nearly had a panic attack.  I do not know if it was in my head or not, but my stomach instantly starting hurting madly.  I realized the only thing I could do at that point was to cancel out the horrible meat bread with endless vegetables.  I immediately ate some carrots, and then later on at lunch I had vegetable soup and a side of grilled vegetables.  I also ate two apples that day, so hopefully, with all the produce, my stomach was comforted.  Thank goodness from that point on, my day got much better.  In the afternoon, we got a tour of “Orvieto Underground,” which is the caves underneath the city.  This was the most interesting experience.  The caves were used for various purposes; one group was used as ceramics workshops (Orvieto is famous for its ceramics) and another group was used for making olive oil (apparently the steady temperature underground helps the olive oil making process).  These caves were also used as hideouts during World War II.  After this cave experience, we got some much-needed gelato.  I sampled a melon flavor and a blood orange flavor, but decided to have a raspberry, strawberry, lemon combination.  After some final exploration of the city (I found the coolest bookstore) it was time to head back to Cortona (where I ate more vegetables for dinner). 

            Sunday was very relaxed.  I went on a beautiful run.  It was one of the most beautiful days we have had in awhile.  For the first time, all I needed was a t-shirt for my run.  Later that afternoon, Jeanette and I went to a café in town to study for our upcoming art history midterm.  On our way, we discovered that the OTHER gelato shop in Cortona had just opened and were giving away free gelato throughout the day!  This was just about the most wonderful news ever.  I had some fragola and some limone…so yummy!  Then, for the next several hours, we sat and studied and enjoyed some prime people watching.  This café is particularly perfect for prime people watching because the walls are all windows, and the café is situated at a very busy corner.  During our study, a huge religious procession went by, and by huge, I mean that it took a good ten minutes for all the people to go by.  There were numerous nuns, monks, and guys in fancy purple cloaks carrying processional crosses.  There was some sort of prayer chanting too…I just wish I knew what was happening!  It was very interesting to watch.  Before we headed back to our monastery, we grabbed some delicious veggie pizza for dinner.  I cannot believe that my program is nearly half way over!  Italy is flying by right before my eyes!  

Days 38, 39, and 40 (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)

            Wednesday ended up being a snow day for everyone, because our only class that day, art history, was canceled.  What a shame!  I was semi-productive in the beginning of the day by reading all my art history.  Later on, I went on a wonderful walk.  I would have gone running, but it was too wet and snowy, so instead I walked, exploring around town.  I stopped at the vegetable market and bought some very distinguished looking peppers that were contorted and twisted in a figural way (to paint, and of course eventually eat).  Dinner was wonderful that night because we had a fantastic dessert: a puff pastry cake filled with layers of vanilla cream and covered in powdered sugar on top.  After dinner, we had another set of faculty presentations.  This time, my art ed teacher, Erin, and my painting teacher, Zuzka, presented their work, starting with artwork from when they were undergrads in college.  I particularly loved Erin’s paintings, because she draws inspiration from children’s artwork.  Her paintings are very eclectic, colorful, and carry motifs inspired from the carefree, open-minds of young children. I feel like we both paint from similar mind-sets.  Zuzka’s paintings were much more sensual and erotic in their nature.  Overall, I loved seeing the growth of the body of their work from the course of their undergrad years to their current artwork. 

            Thursday morning, the snow was melting, flowing like a waterfall down our hill.   I decided the weather conditions were suitable enough to run in.  Little did I know, that midway through my run, on the other side of the mountain, I realized that for some reason the snow here did NOT melt.  Perhaps it is because the sunlight does not hit this part of the mountain?  Either way, my run ended up being an exciting obstacle course, trying to dodge the huge snow drifts along the road; overall, it was like running in a snow globe.  Painting that afternoon was a confidence booster because my teacher raved to me about how much she loved my first pepper painting, which everyone in my class agreed was finished, although I am not positive at this moment.  I am looking forward to painting more exciting pepper paintings though.  Before dinner, my roommate Jeanette and I decided to relax and people watch at one of Cortona’s wonderful cafes.  I still have yet to visit each of Cortona’s cafes; it seems that there is another café every few feet along the streets and after every corner.  Dinner that night proved to be amazing because, believe it or not, the dessert this night was even better than the dessert that we had the night before.  They served us a warm crepe filled with chilled light vanilla cream, warm fresh berries, and a drizzling of warm chocolate on top.  This dessert was perfection.  I am still thinking about it (and it is now 3 days later). 

            Friday was another non-stop day.  My run was a different sort of adventure from yesterday.  Although all the snow was finally melted, there was a thick white fog that took its place, again only appearing on the other side of the mountain.  It was definitely spooky running into vast whiteness.  In art ed, we are preparing for our second teaching day, where we are planning an art project to make yourself into a superhero that has a super power of doing some sort of good deed within the community.  I am particularly fond of the teacher example I made.  I made myself into a fruit superhero, and my good deed “super power” is that I share fruit with everyone I meet.  In bookmaking, I finally finished my first books!  It is an amazing feeling of accomplishment because the entire process was so technical and tedious, and the final product is so satisfying.  The previous day, we were told that there was some kind of music performance taking place in Cortona’s beautiful theater later that night.  No one really knew exactly what we were about to see, but everyone was excited all through dinner about what might be happening.  Before the show, a group of girls and I stopped at a café for some pre-show dessert.  (I discovered that this particular café had chocolate chip cookies!  I was so excited because I truly thought that chocolate chip cookies did not exist in Italy whatsoever.  I was happy to learn that this café proved me wrong).  The show at the theater ended being fantastic: it was a huge selection of Broadway songs that were performed by a local orchestra in Cortona.  Some songs were played by the orchestra alone, and others were accompanied by this adorable woman who ending up singing such a wide variety of musicals.  There were songs from Les Miserables, The King and I, Chicago, West Side Story, Oklahoma, The Wizard of Oz, and South Pacific, just to name a few.  My favorite was Beauty and the Beast.  The entire show was quite a spectacle.  I was amused because the audience was made up of all these stern looking Italians who never really smiled and looked so serious the entire time, despite the light-hearted nature of the entire performance (with the exception of the enthusiastic old man who sat behind me and insisted to sing along to the majority of the songs).  I was pleased to spend my Shabbat immersed in show tunes.  

Days 36 and 37 (Monday and Tuesday)

            Monday morning was another lovely sunny day.  In painting that day, I switched over my emphasis of painting legs and feet and arms and hands in abstract compositions to painting peppers, squash, or various other produce I can find that evokes a human figural form.  My intention is to paint organic forms of vegetables in a way that mimics the appearance of the human body.  My painting teacher introduced me to the photographer, Edward Weston who takes photographs of various natural plants (including papers) to look like bodies, and takes pictures of the figure to look like plants.  I also am experimenting my painting by using more subdued colors in an effort to see how my painting will differ. 

            I woke up on Tuesday to howling winds and blustery snow, unpleasant enough to make me not want to run.  I slept in instead.  At eleven a.m., my art ed class met to gather our materials for our first day of teaching!  My project to teach that day was an oil pastel watercolor resist painting depicting the students’ role within their community.  I was so nervous and constantly went over the Italian translation of my lesson plan, making sure I could attempt to pronounce all the words that I needed to say.  When my co-teacher and I walked into our classroom, the kids were loud and crazy as usual.  I noticed a few new faces from when we introduced ourselves a few days before, who I learned were Irene, Tereza, and Mattea (I just LOVE the names of each student!)  The discussion portion of our lesson plan was very difficult to carry out extensively in any way, especially because I could not really delve into the students’ responses, which I am assuming were responses to the questions we were asking, although I could not be positive.  The more successful part of our lesson was the actual art making.  I gave the students a brief demonstration of how to use oil pastels and watercolor together and then they went off to work.  Everyone worked amazingly well; as soon as each student had art supplies in their hands, they became quiet little artists.  I was amused that seven of the nine girls in the class had the role in their community as a ballerina.  I realized I have to learn more phrases other than “Ohhhh!” and “Mi piace!” (I like!) in order to talk to the students about there artwork, so that will be my task for this next week.  Either way, the kids chatted with me non-stop, and I could catch a word here and there to understand a bit of what they were saying.  These were the most precious kids I have ever seen.  I feel like they could get away with anything by just smiling their adorable grins at me.  When we were leaving the school, the weather had become even worse; the snow was getting heavier.  I was worried I would not even make it up the hill back to our building, but thankfully I did.  I had book-making next, where we learned to sew the binding of our books together.  This, I soon discovered, was my favorite step in the book making process.  Like knitting, I am able to get in a steady rhythm with the movement of my hands using the thread and needle to sew the pages together.  The style of the first book we are making is called a Coptic book, using a Coptic stitch, which our teacher taught us.  Following bookmaking, the weather (surprise) became even WORSE!  The few feet back to our building was treacherous.  I would have preferred to stay in my bed under blankets for the remainder of the day, but I was too hungry to miss dinner.  The last trek to dinner and back was epic.  I have never experienced wind howling so loud or snow blown in my face so violently.  I truly thought the gusts of wind would pick me up and blow me away or bury me in snow.  Everyone emerged covered in white snow.  It was announced later that the Cortona schools would have a snow day the following day.  Typing this, all I can hear is the wind hissing through the windows in our common room.  It is making me colder, even though I am sitting under three blankets!  BRRR!!!  (P.S. But I would just like to make it clear that it is NOT too cold for gelato).  

Days 34 and 35 (Weekend!)

            Today’s field trip was to Arezzo, which is the capital of the region where Cortona is located.  Although Arezzo has some beautiful cathedrals and one in particular with a fantastic set of frescoes, the best part of Arezzo was its famous antique market.  Now, I know I have raved about more than one antique market so far in this blog, but the antique market in Arezzo tops all antique markets in the world COMBINED.  Seriously, this market went every which way all over town, to the point where I almost got dizzy because I did not know what direction to go in because I did not want to miss any of the market if I went in one direction, but then missed another direction.  The market was filled with the most beautiful jewelry, old antique books, buttons, furniture, toys, lace, ceramics, glassware, tools, photographs, postcards, clothes….everything you can think of.  It took a lot of willpower from refraining myself from buying everything my eyes could see.  I did have a plan walking into the antique market: I wanted to find a wonderful antique book and some beautiful buttons to use for book making.  I found a terrific book right away: I found a very old medium sized Latin text book for young Italian students.  It is filled with not only beautiful text, but interesting illustrations, diagrams, and the best part, a student’s notes throughout the pages.  There was even a homework assignment tucked in the middle.  I am not sure exactly how I am going to use if for bookmaking just yet, but it is a wonderful treasure.  As for buttons, there were a lot of vendors selling them, but they were just way too expensive.  I could not justify spending four euro for one little button.  However, there was a craft market amid the antique market, and there I did find a jeweler who made very interesting jewelry using colorful buttons, bright fabric, and thin wire (shout-out to Sarah…you could totally sell your button jewelry in a craft market like this one!)  And a vendor who made these gorgeous skirts out of mismatched pieces of fabric. You very may possibly see examples of these items upon my return home…Anyway, I do not think I have wandered around in so many circles in one day, trying to see everything I possibly could.  Arezzo also had a department store called Upim, which is known to be the equivalent to our Target.  In my opinion, nothing beats Target, but it was still a fun experience to see an Italian department store.  Lunch was delicious in Arezzo.  A group of girls and I went to a small Italian restaurant.  I had been craving a nice vegetable pizza, because believe it or not, I had not eaten pizza in awhile.  So that is what I ordered.  However, that ended up being pretty boring compared to the squid risotto, the crab soup, or the wild pheasant that my lunchmates ordered.  Not that I was jealous of what they were eating (I definitely was NOT!  My pizza, which was the size of this computer that I am typing on, was amazing.  And I ate it ALL).  I also had more frozen yogurt later that afternoon, this time with rainbow sprinkles!  Because I am on this food streak, I might as well tell you that my dinner was also terrific.  I cooked a vegetable concoction complete with lots of red pepper, spinach, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, onion, lots of garlic, fresh tomato sauce, and parmesan cheese.  I ate this with whole grain bread, which I have discovered is very hard to find in Italy.  YUM!  At this point, I wish I could say I baked something too, especially because tomorrow is my roommate, Jeanette’s birthday.  But we have no oven, and I have yet to figure out how to get around that obstacle. 

            Sunday was overall very relaxed and low-key.  My roommate, Tessie, and I began the day decorating our room for our other roommate, Jeanette’s birthday.  I was particularly proud of my Leaning Tower of Cake birthday card that I made.  Afterwards, I went on my long Sunday run, and following that, made lunch and then caught up on preparations for teaching this coming Tuesday in addition to book making.  By then, it was nearly evening, so before Jeanette’s birthday dinner, I went on a little walk around Cortona.  I always like to visit a new shop each day, and today I discovered a paper store called Papiro that I never noticed before.  Stores that sell decorative paper and fancy sketchbooks are becoming one of my new favorite things to browse.  I ended up buying a fun sheet of paper that I will use in some way for another bookmaking project.  For Jeannette’s birthday dinner, a group of us decided to try a new restaurant that specialized in pizza.  So, for the second time that weekend, I had yet another delicious vegetable pizza.  I love the pizza here; the pizza usually covers a large surface area, but the crust is paper thin, and there is often only a light amount of cheese with a delicious sauce and of course your choice of toppings.  A bunch of people ordered a pear and walnut mozzarella pizza, which I tried and ended up loving.  After dinner, we went to the café that serves the amazing different kinds of rich hot chocolate (last time I had ordered the white hot chocolate).  This time I chose a caramel hot chocolate, which was just as amazing.  I have no idea how the hot chocolate hear gets the impressively thick consistency.  Once again, another week flew by at an incredibly fast pace.  

Days 32 and 33 (Thursday and Friday)

My Thursday was very productive all around. After my run, I read all my art history before lunch. Then, in painting, I completely changed the content in one of my paintings by adding in some intensely large pieces of fruit overlapping some already painted and also intensely large legs and feet. Arms and hands, and legs and feet are my new favorite forms to paint, in gestural, large-scale, colorful ways. I added the fruit to liven up the composition and add a bit of naturalistic color. Immediately after painting, I went to the book making studio to finish my preparations for class the next day, and then immediately after that, I finally went to the gelato place, called La Dolce Vita. I would have gone after dinner, but it closes while we are eating in the restaurant because we eat dinner so late. I figured a little delicious gelato could not spoil my appetite. I actually ended up getting some amazing and refreshing tart frozen yogurt, which was delicious cold perfection. What makes me love this gelato place even more is that 1) You get a card that the gelato guy stamps each time you buy an ice cream. After nine stamps, you get a free gelato! 2) The gelato guy was making beautiful sculptures out of apples! Wow! After my first gelato (although technically frozen yogurt) experience in Cortona, I went to dinner and eventually went to bed. What a day!
Yay Friday! Although Friday is my longest day of the week, I was very excited to finally meet my Italian third graders! Today in art ed, we were going to the elementary school in Cortona to introduce ourselves to our class. I was extremely nervous because I was sure I was going to completely mess up all the Italian phrases I had rehearsed and the students were going to make fun of me. The school is located all the way down our hill and then down another hill, near where we eat dinner each night. Walking into the school, I could immediately tell that the school was a warm and nurturing environment. I could also tell that the classes were much louder and more rambunctious than any classroom in the states, simply from hearing students’ wild chatter through the walls from the school lobby. Rebecca, the print-making professor, warned us about this because her daughters are in the Italian school system. We each nervously made our way to our respective classrooms. When my co-teacher and I walked into the third grade classroom, I immediately fell in love with the cutest and liveliest faces looking back at me. There were only twelve students there and I immediately discovered that two of them are actually from England and are bilingual in Italian and English (Phew). We each introduced ourselves with the books we made and explained that we will be designing superheroes and comics based on the theme of community. We then took photographs of each student to help us learn their names, which include Romina, Sofia, Thomas, Francesca, Veronica, Samuele among others…I just LOVE their names. I am now pumped to teach them and have some serious motivation to study up on my Italian. Our meeting was brief; afterwards, all the art ed teachers and I met back up in the lobby and the school presented us with biscotti and meringues. I adore this school. In bookmaking later that afternoon, we are finally putting our books together. We are learning the steps of how to attach the book cloth onto the book board (kind of like wrapping a present), the decorative inner paper, and the optional inlay on the cover. I am attaching one of my vintage photographs as the inlay on my first book. I am very excited for the final product of this project. Later that night after dinner, many of us went to the local pub, Lion’s Well, where it happened to be Karioke Night. This pub reminds me of a hobit’s house in Lord of the Rings, not that I am a fan of that movie. But the pub is adorable with its super low arched ceiling lined with stone. I feel like I have to duck my head while walking though it. It was a lovely Friday, but once again, it was sad not to have Jews to celebrate Shabbat with. I hope someone out there is eating challah for me!

Days 29, 30, 31 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

            AHH! It is already March.  I have already been abroad an entire month.  My Monday started off with a nice long run to the grocery store in the town at the bottom of the mountain.  I needed to stock up on cereal, although even in this huge grocery store, they have a very poor selection.  It ranges from corn flakes, frosted flakes, and Special K, which are all essentially the same cereal.  I miss oatmeal squares and multigrain cheerios!  Immediately after this exciting trip, I had my painting critique for my massive, colorful, figural self-portrait piece.  I decided for my future paintings that I am going to keep up with the larger scale canvases, because it really allows me to move freely with my brushstrokes.  (Shipping all these pieces home will be another story…) 

Tuesday morning I woke up extremely sore.  Both my legs and back ached, probably from the steep hills I have been running on and not enough stretching post runs.  I decided a nice walk would loosen myself up, so I explored around the mountain before class.  In art ed that day, we are preparing for meeting our students on Friday, and then our first day of teaching the following week.  I am in the process of attempting to translate my lessons in Italian and then practicing reciting what I can, but this is a very slow and challenging effort.  I am also making a cute little accordian-style book to use as a visual aid (and script) for my introduction on Friday with my class of third graders.  I am basically sharing my name, where I am from, who is in my family, what I am studying, my favorite thing in Italy, and my favorite food.  This was supposed to be a small ten-minute project, but I am having way too much fun coloring it and putting in as many details as possible.  In book making later than afternoon, we learned how to apply surface treatments to our hand made paper (such as dyes and varnishes) and then, we finally learned how to put a type of book together.  I work at a very slow pace to put the book together, starting from ripping the paper down, to cutting out the book board for the cover, to picking book cloth and decorative interior paper…trust me, this is a VERY lengthy process.  I do not understand people like my suite mate Jordan who flies through the whole thing in record time.  Maybe a few weeks from now, I will work more efficiently…Actually today in the midst of me cutting out my book board, I stabbed my finger with an exacto knife.  I was more annoyed that I had to work one-handed for the rest of the class as opposed to the actual injury, although my poor finger was not a pretty sight.  After dinner that evening, we had a third set of teacher presentations.  This evening, our R.A. Daniel presented two of his short stories, and the creative writing professor read some of her poems.  I was extremely impressed by both of them.  I really like this part of the program, where the professors share with us their background and their work.  We get to see a personal side of them that would otherwise remain hidden to us. 

On a side note, apparently the fifteenth-century monastery we are living in is haunted.  Numerous people in my program, including two of my own roommates, have reported having bad dreams and creepy visions at night of moving figures in the shadows or leering faces in the window.  Thankfully, I have been free of any creepy dream or vision, but I will keep you posted if this changes. 

Wednesday, after some serious stretching, I was able to go on a run again!  It ended up being quite an adventure because it started pouring a few miles in.  I walked back up the hill to our monastery soaking wet.  That afternoon, before art history, I painted for several hours on my next canvas.  On this canvas, I am focusing on all parts of the figure, which is still based on images of myself, except the face.  Right now there are lots of legs, feet, and hands dancing around in different positions.  I am in an experimental mode right now, so I am not positive where this painting is going to go, but it is an explosion of exciting colors right now.  I am ending this post with good news and bad news.  The bad news: sadly, I am developing a cold at the moment.  There are a lot of people getting sick, so I am surrounded amid a lot of germs.  Hopefully, my cold is just a slight glitch and will be gone in milliseconds.  But for now, I am sneezing and blowing my nose quite frequently.  The good news: The gelato place in Cortona, right at the bottom of our hill, FINALLY opened!!!  It has been closed up until this point, and we have all gone such a long time without gelato, so everyone in my program is overjoyed.  I look forward to being a frequent visitor to the gelato place from this point on.  (I did not go today, because it was really cold and rainy.  Maybe tomorrow…keep reading and you will find out!)

Days 27 and 28 (The Weekend! YAY!)

            Today was our second field trip from Cortona.  Our first stop after an hour of super windy roads along Italian mountains, countryside, and authentic vineyards and olive groves, was Pienza, the town famous for its CHEESE!  Shop after shop sold these crazy looking cheeses, from a range of super fresh cheeses to extremely aged cheeses, in all colors (yes there was PURPLE cheese, which was a type of wine cheese) and textures…Wow.  The most famous of their cheeses was Pecorino cheese, which is delicious, especially with honey or jam.  I prefer Pecorino in its medium stages, as opposed to its freshest or oldest stage.  (I sampled several types).  Something even more wonderful about Pienza was its spectacular view of vast lush green rolling hills and mountainside.  It was the most green I had seen in Italy so far, because in Cortona and everywhere else we had been, there is not a lot of grass.  Even the ground in the park in Cortona was covered in pebbles, as opposed to grass, so it was very refreshing to be able to breath in the fresh smells of grass and trees.  An hour into our time in Pienza, some professors took a group of us on a walk right outside of town into this green wilderness, where we found an ancient Pagan church among a grove of olive trees.  In my opinion, it was the most interesting church we had seen so far, considering it was somewhat dark and eerie inside, with a pitch black dungeon-type space that we explored underneath the nave of the church.  The church seemed more like an abandoned tomb than a church.  I went off on my own a little while after that to explore more of the nature in the area.  I just could not get enough of the view before me.  I wanted to dive in and swim in it, if  I had that ability.  I decided that if Pienza would be the town I would move to if I could.  It also had quite a lovely assortment of shops, a park, and cafes…I think I would be set for life. 

            Around 12:30, we went on to visit Montepulciano, another quaint, walled-in mountainside Italian town, just a short drive from Pienza.  For those of you who have seen the Twilight New Moon movie (I have not) this is where the movie was filmed, which many girls were excited about.  We arrived around Siesta time, meaning all the shops were closed, so my room mates and I decided it would be a perfect time to relax in a café and eat lunch.  The one we found was very decorated with much artwork and fantastic views out the windows.  I had some Zuppa Verdura, which ended up being a vegetable soup so thick, that it was almost a solid.  Quite a hearty lunch.  After, we wandered up and down the streets until shops starting opening so we could explore even more.  Some girls I was with wanted some pastries, so we stopped in a bakery.  What was intending to be a short visit ended up lasting more than an hour, because the owners of the bakery, an older couple named Pino and Lena, were fascinated by us and bombarded us with questions.  Pino did most of the talking, and although he spoke mostly in Italian, I could understand him through his animate facial expressions and fierce hand gestures.  He was very upset that there was only one boy on our program with forty-five girls.  He could not contemplate how we were surviving in such circumstances.  He was quite hilarious.  Eventually it was time to go back to Cortona, and along the way we stopped at yet ANOTHER church to see.  I had seen so many churches today, that I was a little churched out, and was pretty much ready to curl up in my pajamas in bed.  Nonetheless, the day was quite an exciting adventure. 

            It felt so good to sleep in on Sunday!  I went on a nice long run for a good two hours, before I started the rest of my day’s agenda.  Something I discovered on my way back from my run was that Cortona has a gigantic antique market in one of its main piazzas during the last Sunday of each month, which was exciting to explore.  I had not known that this takes place, so it was a lovely surprise.  The market was much like the one from Lucca, with fun antique chochkes that I would love to fill up shelve and tables with.  For the rest of the day, I pretty much worked on my painting, which was due the next day in addition to lesson plan stuff and cutting down my paper for bookmaking.  A high point of my day was when I FINALLY purchased my very first Italian coloring book.  I bought it from the newspaper/magazine stand in town.  I figured that in addition to the joy it will bring me from coloring, it can also be useful in teaching me Italian because it depicts page after page of animals and states what animal it is that I am coloring in Italian at the top of the page.  So I would say my entire Sunday was all in all a splendid day.  Bring on the next week!