From my Black Death class on site I ran back to Villa Rossa for my Italian class, in which we watched a movie about the mafia. It was in very fast very Sicilian Italian...3 minutes into the movie Donatella (my professor) left the classroom, and Tim went up and turned the subtitles on. Thank goodness because I ended up really enjoying the movie! Hannah didn't like it though (she watched it in her Italian class also). It was like the Italian version of Milk, you know, about Harvey Milk, but the main character wasn't gay, and was a communist, and his family was part of the mafia. So, you know, something along the same lines...
Anyway, I ran from Italian back to Palazzo Vecchio for the class tour of the museum, and it went GREAT. Unfortunately the class had to be split in two, and I couldn't be in two places at once, but I gave the tour to one group and was shadowed by a regular museum tour guide Stefano because it was a secret passageway tour and I wasn't expected to give the secret passageway tour but I was allowed to give the tour and he just unlocked the doors. It was great. It was a little weird, because for this class there are presentations given, so we often stopped in one room for a long period of time to discuss one particular fresco or something, but otherwise the tour went well on my end, and I'm looking forward to getting more comfortable with the material so I can give tours without any reservations!
After my final class, we were dismissed early so we could make it back to Villa Rossa for a lecture by the museum director of Palazzo Strozzi, the only rotating exhibit space in Florence (i.e. without a permanent collection, so there are always new shows coming in and out). But I learned a lot about art curating and creating interesting and interactive exhibits, and I'm hoping I can use him as a contact in the future.
Apparently this week is just relentless, and packed with fully, busy days! Tuesday morning I made my way to the library to finish up my FINALLY LAST NEVER HAVE TO DO ONE AGAIN Leonardo presentation--yay! After scanning images for two hours, I made my way to Italian, which was a short class, and we studied some works from Puccini's La Boheme because that night the upper level Italian classes were headed to--you guessed it--the opera!!!! But first, I had to head back to the library and finish my presentation, meet with my TA, get my presentation approved, fact check, etc etc. After finishing most of my work, Hannah and I headed to Spazio to speak with the Italians, and since it was a kid's birthday (the one guy in Hannah's class, kind of like the Tim to our class), Donatella made us two giant pans of tiramisu and brought spumante! It was perfect, because since we weren't going to be home for dinner, Anna had packed us little sandwiches and oranges, so Spazio served as the perfect dessert for our take-out meal! Plus this Spazio was really fun, we talked to two Italians (one a young working man, one a university student) who wanted to hear more about American universities i.e. Greek life. So we were amused trying to explain sororities and fraternities, and then talking about SU back home and our families and our brothers and sisters.
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| Sarah, Sarah, Dani, and me at our favorite restaurant, Gato e Volpe |
After Spazio I headed back to the library for a little to squeak out a little more work, while Hannah went to a lecturer for her photo class. Tim came and met me in the library around 6:50, and we were going to make our way to the opera, which was on my side of the Arno at St. Mark's English Church. Hannah refused to be left behind on her own, and it took us a while to get her to leave the lecture, but we had to go, and she wasn't a happy camper. Oh well, you can't please everyone. Tim told me I should be the one mad because she was going to make us late, but I didn't want to get into it. I let it blow over and by the end of the night it was like nothing happened.
Anyway, the opera: it was held in a small church (which apparently always has mass in English! Good to know!) about 6 bridges over from our house (aka not close, even though it was our side of the Arno). There were about 50-80 people there for the performance, and there was a grey-haired gentleman narrator (from Austria, so he sounded like Arnold) who would come out and describe the scene we were about to see in English before it was sung in Italian. The performers did four scenes from La Boheme, which is what Rent is based off of, who knew! But it was beautiful, and a lovely authentic Italian experience. Mom you're right, Sam does come here this weekend, and I'm thinking about taking him, they have a second performance Saturday night of Puccini's Wedding of Figaro, so I'm going to ask Donatella for more information today in class. But over all it was very very fun, and a great experience!
The opera ended a little after 10, so Hannah and I had to catch the night bus (ugh....only bad experiences with that bus...) and as usual the 10:07 bus didn't show up, so after waiting another 10 minutes for it, we decided, hey, now we're only about 3 bridges away, we can walk. So we walked home together from our bus stop, and we got in around 10:50, so it wasn't terrible, especially since it was a nice night. But we got in, and were wipped out, so we headed to bed shortly after, especially since MoWe are our early days.
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| Night at the Opera! |
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