Ciao i miei amici!
So the internet access thing hated me last week, but here is an extra-long post to make up for it. Lots of love from Orvieto,
Mackenzie
Monday, 3/19/07
Ciao tutti,
Maria Louisa and Juanita have started giving salsa dancing lessons - whee! I missed the first one, unfortunately, but they assured me that I can get in on the next one and learn to salsa like a maniac. Actually, I’m not sure they know the word “maniac” in English, but that was the sense of what they said.
Schoolwork is, unfortunately, beginning to pile up on me as well. The big research paper is due in two weeks exactly, and I have a lot of Italian vocab and writing exercises to do this week, not to mention a translation due next week. I’m trying to sit down and be diligent, but it is hard when there are so many fun things to do and so many fun people to talk to. And now that we’ve started doing weekend trips, the work time I’ve got is pretty drastically reduced. But who wants to do homework over a weekend trip to Padua and Venice? Seriously.
I’m also sick now, which makes me sleep a lot and not get much done. I guess I could, actually, get more done. Theoretically. If I could keep from falling asleep all the time.
Orvieto has changed my senior honors project thesis. I hope, I desperately hope, that it is good enough to get someone to advise it... and I’m even crazy enough to hope that it’s Professor Perrin who advises it. That would be pretty much the most rocking thing ever.
We arrived in Padua on Friday afternoon, after an early start and a 4 hour train ride. Intense! I think that’s the farthest away we have to travel, though, so that’s good. Any longer would get ludicrous for a weekend trip! We stayed at the Casa dell Pellegrino, or Pilgrim’s House, which is huge and echoing and full of people making pilgrimages. It was nice not to have to worry about how much hot water I was using for once.
After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we went on a walking tour of Padua (walking tours are one of Skillen’s favorite activities, if you haven’t gathered that by now). We ended up in this academic square, which was flipping amazing. Not that the square was amazing, so much; it just so happened that we arrived in the middle of a Paduan graduation ceremony, which we’d heard about but never expected to see. Graduates wear a wreath or crown of laurel leaves, and then are made to run through a gauntlet of slapping hands a couple of times (and then they’re fed an olive - who knows why!). Then the friends and family of the graduate make them stand on a podium or high curb, and present them with a profane and absurd poem written in their honor on a huge piece of posterboard, complete with caricatures of the students. The graduate has to read the poem out loud, and then chug a bottle of champagne (Katie and I want to replicate the festivities for Elena’s graduation, all except the chugging a bottle of champagne bit). It was really, really hilarious. Very often the graduates are also made to put on a goofy coat or hat or something, too. Laura tells us that the posterboard with the poems on it and the laurel wreaths are kept as prized possessions for the graduate’s whole life.
Friday night Marlene initiated my first-ever bar experience. This semester, obviously, is going to be full of firsts. We spent forever trying to find a place for dinner. I mean, we must have walked at least an hour and a half. And then we had to settle for pizza again. Everything else is just really flipping expensive, and we’re most definitely on student budgets. Then we walked around for like an hour because Marlene wanted to find the best place to have a drink, and finally we all just got tired and went into this place not far from the hotel. It actually ended up being a really nice place, despite the obligatory group of sketchy Italian men standing around outside (I swear, we can’t go past a guy without him checking out someone’s bum, usually Elena’s). Our barista was totally cool, and told us all about the kind of drinks favored by the Paduan college students, and we tried some, and they were good. Not as good as this coconut-tasting thing Marlene got, but good.
I have a little rule for myself regarding drinking. It’s called a one-drink rule. It’s working pretty well for me so far. I get to go out and have fun at bars with my friends and try different drinks, but I’m still at the maximum alertness level to deal with a foreign country (and a language, which, admittedly, I butcher). I’ve also, in recognition of my status as an alcoholic light-weight, developed some personal codes about always having a full stomach, and avoiding things like vodka and whiskey.
I’m letting you all know this because I have a feeling there are going to be some funny stories this semester regarding tipsy students, and I want to be able to tell them without anyone worrying (I know I’m breaking pretty much every Protestant church code of behavior, and that someone is bound to get worried I’m turning into an alcoholic). For instance, if I had to censor myself about going into bars, I would be unable to tell you all that Jeff, apparently, gets giggly once he’s had a few drinks. Elena develops an asian glow, but she’s so ridiculous all the time, I have a feeling it would be hard to tell if she ever got tipsy. I felt like it was funny that I was the roommate who was out at a bar until one in the morning. Not the role that I ever expected to play. I feel like, though, I would be hard pressed to find a better group of people to have my first bar experience with. And there are definitely sketchier places to have it in.
The weirdest thing about the bar was the ages of the people there. I mean, there was the whole range, from fifteen year-olds to late middle-age. I was so weirded out at first, but then I thought about it a little more. And you know what? If bars in America were places frequented by people like your little siblings and your parents, the whole drinking atmosphere would get a hell of a lot more responsible.
There’s a little bit of interpersonal drama going on here, but I think we’ve been handling it pretty well so far. There’s also a little medical drama going on here, what with literally half the group being sick with something right now, and Maria Louisa having a more serious doctor’s appointment on Friday that caused her and Juanita to join the group later. Maria Louisa is only 17, which I feel might be a little young for a trip like this. Juanita is 19, and very mature, so she ends up taking care of Maria Louisa a lot (and they’re the two really fluent Spanish speakers as well, so I guess it makes sense for them to team up). Alexis thinks she has bronchitis, and her parents think she has walking pneumonia, so she’s going to the doctor tomorrow. As much as Italy is full of crazy fun stuff, it still has viruses and group stress, so keep us in mind!
We also made a day trip to Venice over the weekend, since it’s just half an hour from Padua. It was interesting. I think I like Padua better, honestly, but we had fun. We ended up getting lost about five times. Thank goodness for Marlene, who has both a sense of direction and the ability to read a map! She also understands enough Italian to understand directions, not just ask for them, which is pretty rocking. Towards the end of the trip things got crazy, about when we were finally headed back to the train station to go back to Padua for the night (we left at around 9 p.m.). Somehow we fell in with these four Russians, who had probably had a few drinks. Juanita, Marlene, and Elena were being their usual crazy selves, and they started running and jumping and whooping through the streets. The Russians joined in, and whistled and chanted the directions to the train station, and it was so nuts. The streets were mostly empty at that point (Venice actually only has a stable population of maybe 60,000, when it could hold probably three times that amount. So most of the shop owners go home at night, and the crowds during the day are mostly tourists), so it was just us having a crazy race. Then, at one point, Juanita decides that she should start waving to all the people in the cafes we pass - so they start whistling and shouting “ciao,” and yelling. Oh man, it was nuts. Definitely not the kind of thing I would start, but I figure I might as well enjoy it if I’m caught up in it already. =)
We also got to visit the Guggenheim museum in Venice. I think that was my favorite part. Apparently Peggy Guggenheim (who I learned slept with about every male artist ever) had a house in Venice, and her ashes are there next to her dogs’ ashes (she had like twelve and treated them like her kids). The museum is kind of small, being in her house, but it was stuffed full of amazing stuff. We spent a very happy two hours there. It was great to just see some modern art for once. Renaissance is all very well and good - I’m perfectly aware that it’s sophisticated and symbolic and whatever, but all of the churches we’ve seen so far combined couldn’t equal the emotion in one of the Pollock pieces we saw. I guess, if nothing else, this semester is teaching me that (as much as I feel claustrophobic in modern art museums sometimes) my feet land squarely in a place of loving modern art. I’m going to have to treasure that little bit of modernity, I have a feeling, because I don’t think we’ll have the chance to see much more of it this semester. Just more tombs and frescos. = /
Sunday morning we went to mass at the church near the Casa Dell Pellegrino. It was nice. This Sunday I understood twice as much as last Sunday, even if it still only amounted to like 10 words. Then we found our way to a park market, and everyone else shopped while I sat in the park and wrote for a while. I really needed that! It was great to just sit in the sun and process things. I was approached by two Italian Jehovah’s witnesses, though, and one creepy guy. I’m not talking the typical Italian stare-at-Elena’s-bum creepy, I’m talking creepy. Good thing I have that death-stare down pat (as Mom is forever reminding me), and am great at pretending to be deaf (I do it in lectures all the time). The Jehovah’s witnesses were actually nice people, but they spoke no English whatsoever, and I only caught a few sentences of Italian. So they went away and sat down a couple yards to my right and started praying (probably for my soul. And they didn’t even know I’d been to a bar the night before). Who knew that the language barrier could work in my favor? I don’t have the heart to be rude to people who are actually sincere, so I felt relieved to escape an awkward conversation.
Also, Juanita and I discovered that we have the same birthday! Isn’t that crazy? I’m exactly, to the day, two years older than she is. That is pretty much cool.
Today, Monday, is the feste di San Giuseppe. That is, the feast of Saint Joseph (Mary’s husband, who, according to Catholic dogma, never ever had sex with her ever in the whole course of their lives, because she gave birth to God. I am learning all kinds of weird things for this Mary research paper.), who is the patron saint of Orvieto. So the schools got a holiday, and the stores all closed, and they had some kind of procession tonight of his statue from one church to another. I sort of slept through the festival mass, though, and then decided that since I’m sick and it was pouring rain I was not going to go to the party afterwards. We’ll see whether I end up regretting missing that cultural event or not, but I have a feeling I just really needed that three-hour nap to get over this cold crap.
I’m thinking of cutting my hair really short. Really really short. But I kind of feel like I would regret it later. Maybe I’ll dye part of it blue? I feel like I’ve been talking about doing that since I was graduating high school, and never got around to it. Maybe Italy is making me crazy, and that’s why I have the urge to make some drastic change to my appearance. = ) I definitely feel like I need to disassociate myself from being quite so much myself right now. How fast does one get over culture shock? (It’s interesting, the crazy stuff they get away with here in terms of style. In the bigger cities, they have half their hair chopped off, and some of it braided, and bits here and there dyed crazy colors. I love their shorts, though. Much more modest than ours.)
So this has been freaking long, but a lot of stuff is going on. Next weekend is the Florence trip, so probably there will be a lot more forthcoming. I don’t seem to be able to help it, once I get started. It must be the English major in me. Hopefully reading all that wasn’t too arduous. You can take it in stages, or something. = )
Ciao loves,
Kenzie
P.S. It is now Tuesday, and I am so wildly, shiningly happy to be me that I am forgetting all thoughts of cutting my hair short. I may still dye it at some point in time, but maybe not for a while yet. I think sleeping twelve hours yesterday has put me well on the way toward recovery from this cold. And I’ve got to keep this brief, because I’ve got a resounding load of homework to deal with. But you know what? It’s gonna be OK, and I’m gonna get it done and make it good and make it work. So there. = D
Monday 3/25/07
So, I didn’t get internet access last week to send you my e-mails and updates! Sorry! Suddenly everything exploded, and I couldn’t make it work. Hopefully this week will be better, although we have a huge image identification test on Thursday, and our big paper is due next week, so we’ll see how much free time I end up having to go in search of internet. Alexis is on a promising lead, though - there might be a coffee shop where you can get coffee and free internet for as long as you need, which would be by far the best deal in town if it’s true. If that works out, I may find it easier to keep in touch in the next couple of weeks, despite yet another time change, this time in Italy. The time difference between here and Alabama is now 7 hours again, and the time difference between here and Messiah is 6. Ah, well. The 5 hour difference was nice while it lasted.
We went to Florence (and briefly stopped in Arezzo) this past weekend. It was a good trip, although by far the most trying one as far as I’m concerned. I had to room with two people who really get on my nerves, so that was trying. And I think my personality is just not one which travels well. I find it stressful, and I really need time to sit and just be quiet for a little every day; not something that’s available on these weekend trips. But! I have cool friends, and we had picnic dinners every night on the floor of our hostel rooms, and we went to markets and walked through the rain and saw churches (Lord, the amount of churches we’ve seen!), and we climbed to the top of Brunelleschi’s dome at the Florence duomo, which was amazing. I think I’m going to develop an obsession with climbing to the tops of things after this semester! Every time there has been something to climb it has been so worth it, so beautiful... so breathtaking. Even if I don’t like to stand too close to the edge. = )
I am not sure what else to tell you - life here continues to be good, despite those minor irritations and stresses. A lot of people are undergoing relationship drama and trauma while they’re here, so I’m glad to be standing in an unworried place. I can’t believe that we have been here a month already! In one way it’s been long, and I can remember packing a lot in, but at the same time... I mean, where the heck did it go? We will be in Orvieto for only two more months and about two weeks. And then two weeks of traveling and back in the U.S. It sounds like a long time, but I have a feeling that it won’t be. There’s plenty to fill up all that space - so many possibilities! I’m trying work out if I can do weekend travel during the semester, or whether I will need to just save my money for the two weeks at the end of the semester. It sounds like we’ll be going to Bosnia, Croatia, and Greece. How fabulous does that sound? I’m so ridiculously excited that I can’t even say. I don’t even know where to start with figuring out specific things to do, but at least we have country goals! = )
This Thursday at 2 is my phone interview for the summer/school year job at Messiah, so be praying for me... I really, ridiculously, want to get that job. It’s time I got some actual writing experience. And it would solve the problem of hunting for a summer job when I get back, which is just really stressful. If I have something assured for when I get back, I just feel like the transition into the summer will be so much better overall, even though I won’t be at home, which will be bizarre, and I will have to do some serious quick packing and moving up to PA when I get back. I don’t know. Either way will probably be stressful. I just think that in the long term it would pay off to have that experience with the publications office. Particularly if I’m thinking of supporting myself with an English/editing job while pursuing a grad school degree (whether that ends up being art or english I still haven’t the faintest clue).
Whew! Life is complicated! And busy! So I’m going to go and work on my Mary paper for a while before I get brief internet access to send this collected chronicle to you. I’m feeling much better, although I still have a cough and some congestion, but I’m encouraged by the fact that after a week I’m improving. My roommate Alexis has been sick for three weeks now, and even the antibiotics the doctor gave her last week didn’t make any improvement, so she’s getting worried now, and is going back again this week. It’s just a little complicated because the doctor speaks no English, and Laura doesn’t always translate into Italian accurately from English, etc. There are literally only 5 out of 20 people who aren’t sick with something right now, so keep us in mind! It’s pretty nutty.
Love,
Kenzie
Monday, March 26, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Hello again!
I am trying to make Wednesday my e-mail and blog post day, but we’ll see how it works out. Things are speeding up here, and I no longer feel like I’m going to be spending the next three years of my life out of touch with the entire freaking world. I think the semester will go by just as every semester has gone by, which is fast. I mean, think about it, we’re already in the third week! Pretty soon it will be a month, and then a third of the time will have gone by. Crazy. But in that case, I should be 1/3 fluent in Italian by now, and I am certainly not.
I’m going to have to give myself a postage/communication allowance, I’ve decided. Otherwise I would probably spend my entire week’s budget on postcards and stamps and internet time and all of that stuff. I still haven’t heard back about the phone interview, but hopefully today when I access the internet briefly there will be a message from Rebecca Kasparek. I’m trying not to be antsy, I really am. But this job would be so perfect on so many levels.
I did my laundry today. Because the washing machine is so small and so expensive, and handwashing takes a long time, and everything takes so long to dry, it’s been a kind of ongoing process since last week. I wash a few things, and dry them, and wear them while I wash a few other things and dry them. Today’s the first day I’m trying to dry jeans, so we’ll keep a count on how long it takes.
I no longer feel like simple things - trips to the tabacchi, pranzo, homework - are worthy of e-mail attention. I guess that’s kind of good, right? That I’m settling in somewhat and getting used to it all? I hope so.
For the past couple of days I’ve just been happy to be where I am, which is a nice change. I’m sure I’ll be cranky and have homesick days again before the semester is out, but just being happy indicates a nice trend for the semester I think. I’m going to keep it going as long as I can.
Siena was a fun day. We drove through world-famed beautiful landscape, and I didn’t even fall asleep on the bus it was so amazing to look around. Someday it would be amazing to live there. I don’t know how I would earn a living, not speaking Italian and all, but it would be amazing. I’m finally able to appreciate some of what we’re looking at, I think, and not just treat it as alien and hostile turf. It is in a lot of ways alien still, but I’m able to open my eyes and actually look at it. I don’t know that I really have a lot to say about Siena - we saw some fresco things, and some church things, and some of it was cool and some of it was just alright, and Skillen’s lecture was frustrating as usual (it’s impossible to get him to shut up so we can have a discussion! I swear! He’s like a train barreling down on a pigeon). There was this amazing high wall of a church they intended to build as an extension of the Siena duomo which we climbed to the top of. It was stressful getting up and down because it was a very narrow spiral staircase, and there were oftentimes people trying to go both ways, but the view was worth it. I’m not even sure of anything I can say that would convey the wow factor of the height and wind and sun and being able to see mountains in every direction in the distance. It was pretty amazing, and was one of the first things I knew, right away, was worth it, and was real, and not some part of a play. Does that make sense?
I’m not sure what else to say. I’m in a digesting thought pattern right now; I don’t seem to have a lot to say, but I’m chewing over and treasuring the things that have happened in the last few days, trying to incorporate them into my balance. There are an awful lot of people here, so I am trying to figure out the best combination of alone time and people time, study time, thought time, fun time, and creative time. Study time has taken the backseat this week, but I’m getting back into the habit of work now, I think, so it should be OK. I’m much less distracted now that I’ve found my feet.
My roommate and I are still getting along well, planning a roommate date to Cafetal every week, but we may have encountered one problem. She’s been trying to get up early every day for devotional time before breakfast, going to bed pretty early. The thing is, I’ve been going to bed pretty late, around midnight or 1 and rolling out of bed fifteen minutes before colazione. All this would be fine, really, if only she didn’t hit the snooze button so many times before she gets up. No joke, this morning she hit the snooze button eight times. That means that, starting at 7 a.m., I’m being woken every five minutes for 40 minutes. That’s a good hour and fifteen minutes before I actually have to get up. We’re going to have to work something out, like, maybe I get up and kick her out of bed the first time it goes off....
A Dr. Stein from Gordon college came this week and gave a lecture and performance on Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and their time in Italy. It was interesting, although I remember hardly any of it. He has one of those voices that it hypnotic, and I zoned out, just sort of listening to the sound rather than the sense. It kind of reminded me of Professor Perrin, actually. Not that their voices sounded the same, but just that they both have musical smooth voices. He read “My Last Duchess,” and it was pretty amazing. He read some other stuff, too, but “My Last Duchess” is the only one I knew from beforehand.
Um... that might be it for now. I’ve got to go read the catechism and get ready to head to the library. And maybe get a cookie or something. And figure out where on earth to break a 50 euro bill. There aren’t a lot of places that would have enough change, I feel like. Curse the ATMs and their large disbursements! = )
Love,
Kenzie
I am trying to make Wednesday my e-mail and blog post day, but we’ll see how it works out. Things are speeding up here, and I no longer feel like I’m going to be spending the next three years of my life out of touch with the entire freaking world. I think the semester will go by just as every semester has gone by, which is fast. I mean, think about it, we’re already in the third week! Pretty soon it will be a month, and then a third of the time will have gone by. Crazy. But in that case, I should be 1/3 fluent in Italian by now, and I am certainly not.
I’m going to have to give myself a postage/communication allowance, I’ve decided. Otherwise I would probably spend my entire week’s budget on postcards and stamps and internet time and all of that stuff. I still haven’t heard back about the phone interview, but hopefully today when I access the internet briefly there will be a message from Rebecca Kasparek. I’m trying not to be antsy, I really am. But this job would be so perfect on so many levels.
I did my laundry today. Because the washing machine is so small and so expensive, and handwashing takes a long time, and everything takes so long to dry, it’s been a kind of ongoing process since last week. I wash a few things, and dry them, and wear them while I wash a few other things and dry them. Today’s the first day I’m trying to dry jeans, so we’ll keep a count on how long it takes.
I no longer feel like simple things - trips to the tabacchi, pranzo, homework - are worthy of e-mail attention. I guess that’s kind of good, right? That I’m settling in somewhat and getting used to it all? I hope so.
For the past couple of days I’ve just been happy to be where I am, which is a nice change. I’m sure I’ll be cranky and have homesick days again before the semester is out, but just being happy indicates a nice trend for the semester I think. I’m going to keep it going as long as I can.
Siena was a fun day. We drove through world-famed beautiful landscape, and I didn’t even fall asleep on the bus it was so amazing to look around. Someday it would be amazing to live there. I don’t know how I would earn a living, not speaking Italian and all, but it would be amazing. I’m finally able to appreciate some of what we’re looking at, I think, and not just treat it as alien and hostile turf. It is in a lot of ways alien still, but I’m able to open my eyes and actually look at it. I don’t know that I really have a lot to say about Siena - we saw some fresco things, and some church things, and some of it was cool and some of it was just alright, and Skillen’s lecture was frustrating as usual (it’s impossible to get him to shut up so we can have a discussion! I swear! He’s like a train barreling down on a pigeon). There was this amazing high wall of a church they intended to build as an extension of the Siena duomo which we climbed to the top of. It was stressful getting up and down because it was a very narrow spiral staircase, and there were oftentimes people trying to go both ways, but the view was worth it. I’m not even sure of anything I can say that would convey the wow factor of the height and wind and sun and being able to see mountains in every direction in the distance. It was pretty amazing, and was one of the first things I knew, right away, was worth it, and was real, and not some part of a play. Does that make sense?
I’m not sure what else to say. I’m in a digesting thought pattern right now; I don’t seem to have a lot to say, but I’m chewing over and treasuring the things that have happened in the last few days, trying to incorporate them into my balance. There are an awful lot of people here, so I am trying to figure out the best combination of alone time and people time, study time, thought time, fun time, and creative time. Study time has taken the backseat this week, but I’m getting back into the habit of work now, I think, so it should be OK. I’m much less distracted now that I’ve found my feet.
My roommate and I are still getting along well, planning a roommate date to Cafetal every week, but we may have encountered one problem. She’s been trying to get up early every day for devotional time before breakfast, going to bed pretty early. The thing is, I’ve been going to bed pretty late, around midnight or 1 and rolling out of bed fifteen minutes before colazione. All this would be fine, really, if only she didn’t hit the snooze button so many times before she gets up. No joke, this morning she hit the snooze button eight times. That means that, starting at 7 a.m., I’m being woken every five minutes for 40 minutes. That’s a good hour and fifteen minutes before I actually have to get up. We’re going to have to work something out, like, maybe I get up and kick her out of bed the first time it goes off....
A Dr. Stein from Gordon college came this week and gave a lecture and performance on Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and their time in Italy. It was interesting, although I remember hardly any of it. He has one of those voices that it hypnotic, and I zoned out, just sort of listening to the sound rather than the sense. It kind of reminded me of Professor Perrin, actually. Not that their voices sounded the same, but just that they both have musical smooth voices. He read “My Last Duchess,” and it was pretty amazing. He read some other stuff, too, but “My Last Duchess” is the only one I knew from beforehand.
Um... that might be it for now. I’ve got to go read the catechism and get ready to head to the library. And maybe get a cookie or something. And figure out where on earth to break a 50 euro bill. There aren’t a lot of places that would have enough change, I feel like. Curse the ATMs and their large disbursements! = )
Love,
Kenzie
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
"the slowness that oppresses us in dreams"
- DANTE
A few things, my loves: here's a conglomeration of e-mails I wrote in the past couple of days and also a blog post that I wrote. So there's a lot going on. Italy is pouring rain today, and this week is the emotional insanity week Skillen says, so I am eager for it to be over. Ciao, ciao, ciao.
“the slowness that oppresses us in dreams” - Dante
I’m trying to focus and take joy in the small things that denote progress. Today, in our tutoring session, Alessandro told me that I said something “perfetto,” in a very Italian way. I felt like I would cry earlier that afternoon, and I really almost did start bawling right then. I feel so stupid, all the time, and inadequate, and unhappy to be in my skin. I am pessimistic about how the Italians perceive me, and I am uncertain about how my fellow American students perceive me.
There have been flashes of goodness in today, even though it has been heck of frustrating, I don’t intend to deny that at all. I got to talk to my parents on the phone (and if I can brag on my little brother for a second, he got offered a great scholarship at Hope College!), and I got to talk to Greg on the phone. Alessandro complimented me in tutoring, and I got to prepare and eat dinner with Elena and Katie again, which is always a lot of fun for as long as it lasts. We’re usually the last ones out of the kitchen, if that says how much we enjoy being in there eating and talking. Today I understood more Italian than I did yesterday, and twice as much as I did last week. Today I did more listening than yesterday. Today I made it through canto XXIII of Dante’s Purgatorio.
But you know, in the face of the mountain of information I have to assimilate, I’m overwhelmed. No way I can ever be culturally competent. No way I can ever speak Italian coherently. No way any of these little victories mean anything! How can I ever expect to be a person of integrity or have a great job or make good work or have successful relationships or anything? There’s not enough in me to do even one of those things. If a week has lasted this long, then four months is going to be like three years, and by the time I leave I will be worn down to a culturally incompetent nubbin. You’ll be able to find me gibbering in the corner of the terrace and looking up at the sky for some kind of rescuing angels.
In conclusion, to be quite honest, I’m a wreck (and the continual invasion of my space by dramatic girls is not helping, nor is the onset of PMS, nor is the drama of attempting to communicate with the outside world from this gosh-darn convent). But I am going to focus on tomorrow, and the fact that it is a new day, and tomorrow I will understand more than I did today, and more than yesterday, and twice as much as last week. And maybe saying these words is going to make them happen, yes? A new day means new possibilities, and it is just possible that I will not flub at least one of these fabulous new opportunities.
Hugs from Orvieto.
Saturday 3-3-07
Hey guys!
Italy continues to be pretty fabulous. I’m enjoying my first weekend, and all the available time to write to people and work on my own writing, and of course catch up on memorizing all of that Italian. These first few weeks are going to be really busy, I think, between beginning Italian and culture lectures, and movie nights, and weekend field trips. Yesterday we went to Assisi, and it was so amazing.
Assisi is about an hour and a half from Orvieto, so we just got some busses and all piled in to make the drive. Everyone slept on the way, of course, because we’re college students and that’s what we do, but the countryside was beautiful. Even in the winter there’s a lot of green, some of it really almost a lime green: very brilliant and catching the light. It was a cold day, unfortunately, in Assisi, and a warm day in Orvieto, so I was woefully underdressed. = ( It wasn’t so bad, though, as long as we kept moving.
We saw four churches/monasteries related to St. Francis of Assisi. Most of them were the typical huge renaissance cathedrals. We had a great tour guide through the Basilica of St. Francis, though, who made it much more interesting. He was an American Franciscan monk, on assignment in Assisi for the next three years. If every place we go to is as interesting as that, I might not hate Renaissance art after all! Skillen’s class, which is the Renaissance art history one, is driving me bonkers! He’s a great conversationalist, and as a person I like him a lot, but when it comes to his lecturing, man, it makes me crazy. Pray that I can pay attention through six hours a week of him going off on tangents!
My favorite place in Assisi, though, was St. Francis’ hermitage up in the hills. People still walk barefoot up the path he used to pray at the altar he built. He used to retreat there to a cave to meditate and pray, but the poor guy couldn’t get away from people even there. Other monks kept following him up, and a small monastery grew up over his cave. It’s beautiful, so simple and filled with stone carvings. Everywhere you look along the path to the altar on the hillside, people have scratched crosses on the rocks, and made small twig crosses and set them along the stone wall, or even piled up rocks in the shape of a cross on the ground. I understand their desire to either take away or leave behind something from that place - it was so beautiful and quiet, and yes, a sacred space. I’m certainly not Catholic, but I’m beginning to have more sympathy for a lot of their liturgical practices and the idea of pilgrimage. If you ever, ever get a chance to go there, do it. But give yourselves a couple of hours! We only had 45 minutes there, hardly any time at all to look around. Everywhere you look there is someone sitting along the path reading or writing or praying, and it really does seem like it would be a nice place for that. Probably anyone who’s catholic would skin me alive for saying that it reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Waters house, but it does. = ) Just the same sort of closeness and fitting, you know, with what’s around it? Maybe the cave and the monastery serve the same function of Falling Waters in provoking us to a new awareness of our surroundings. That’s my theory, anyway. And it sort of makes sense that as a place of prayer it would also be a place of attentiveness.
I’ve now had my first Italian wine, cappucino, and gelato. I confess I liked the cappucino and gelato better than the wine! (although the fish we cooked with the wine turned out to be absolutely amazing) They have the best coffee here. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to go back to American coffee! Even specialty coffee shop stuff just pales in comparison. It’s really full and strong and most of it has a sort of nutty flavor. Oh, it’s amazing. I may break down and buy one of those little espresso-makers Greg told me about to take home, just so I can try to replicate this stuff. And the gelato... mmm! I don’t really like ice cream, but gelato is less creamy, and thicker, more like frozen yogurt. SO GOOD! I want to try the pistachio kind next time, just because it’s green and absurd and I’m feeling adventurous. = ) Coconut gelato also turns out to be great, as are these coconut candy bars they have here, called Bounty Bars. If I don’t get fat, I’ll be surprised.
I have now met all three of the nuns here, and they seem pretty tolerant of my lack of Italian ability. Suar Franca is really nice, as is Madre Giovanna, but Suar Therese is way intimidating and hardly ever smiles. Suar Therese is apparently a scout master here in Italy! I had no idea they even had that kind of thing, much less that a nun would lead a troop! Madre Giovanna is a great cook, and is apparently the one we have to thank for the wonderful menus here. It’s a good thing I love carbs, though, because we don’t eat meat very often. It’s a lot more expensive here than it is even in the U.S. And gas is almost 7 euros a gallon! Can you believe it?!?! It makes me feel like we don’t have it so bad. And all the cars here are stick shift.
Also, my schedule has changed a little bit. My tutoring session got moved up on Tuesday, so would it be OK if you called at 9 rather than at 10? Then I’ll have time to talk for an hour and still have time to make dinner before tutoring. Also, I gave you the wrong country code for Italy! Alessandro, my tutor, informed me that it is 011 for Italy. So you’ll have to dial that, I think, before you dial 039 and the convent number. So complicated! Greg tried calling me on Thursday and the number didn’t work, so it sent us scrambling to figure out the right sequence to actually reach the convent. I wish they’d orient us more clearly to these sort of things.
Oh, funny story: Yesterday in Assisi, Katie and Elena and I went out to eat at a trattoria we saw near the basilica. We each ordered a different kind of pasta and salad, because frankly we couldn’t read the Italian menus, and we decided to try and broaden our horizons. So when we got them, we passed them around to each try a little of every dish. Well, apparently that’s a no-no in Italy... the Italian couple sitting next to us started laughing hysterically. = D At least they laughed, though, and didn’t yell at us that we were rude or something. And we, in our broken 10 or so words of Italian, managed to order and get the check and everything. Whew! I’ve decided, though, that it’s no use being shy, and if I’m going to learn Italian I’m just going to have to go for it and ask a bunch of questions like “Come si dice” while I’m in stores to try and expand my vocabulary as rapidly as possible. I doubt if I would ever be fluent by the time I leave Italy, but my goal is to be able to understand most of what is said to me, and maybe even carry on a real conversation. Luckily, my roommate is also wanting to be very intentional about learning Italian, so we’re going to institute “Italian night” in our room - if you want to say something, you have to say it entirely in Italian.
I’m so glad Katie and Elena are here. They pretty much rock, and we get along really well. I keep wondering if Skillen will get annoyed that we are together so much when we’re all from Messiah, but I think it will be OK.
And now, I have to go get ready for pranzo (the main meal of the day is at lunch, and is called pranzo) and a trip down the funicolare (a kind of mini-train down the cliff and into Orvieto Scalo) to the coop with Federica (our R.A. and Italian teacher).
A dopo (until later),
Kenzie
Tuesday 3-6-07
Whew! Feeling overwhelmed like nobody’s business yesterday and today. The day definitely had flashes of good things - communication, mostly, with Katie and Elena here, and Alessandro (the tutor for my Italian small group), and with people back home. If a week has lasted this long, I think, then the next four months are going to be like three utterly incompetent years. I guess it’s pretty normal to freak out when you’re jumping headlong into a new culture. I feel like a chronically cranky two-year-old who just can’t manage to make herself understood. It must be even more difficult for Maria Louisa and Juanita, who are from Colombia and just out of high school. They’ve never even lived on their own before, let alone with a bunch of Americans in a foreign country. I hope to goodness that this sense of insecurity and inadequacy fades soon. Pretty much I spend half the day happy and half the day flipping out. And it’s just plain hard to study when you’re flipping out.
Thank goodness for Katie and Elena, who are fun to be with even when I can’t tell from moment to moment when I’m going to laugh or cry. We usually spend three or so hours in the kitchen making the food, and then eating the food, and then talking after the food, and then cleaning up the food. And they usually wait until after I get out of tutoring to eat, which is totally sweet of them, but it means that we’re eating at like 9 p.m., so we’re leaving the kitchen at like 10:30 or 11, and have only a little time before we’re in bed.
The good thing about communal breakfasts is that one is forced to get up at a regular time, and therefore to go to bed at a regular time. Otherwise I’d probably be freaking out even more than I am already, because I would never get on a regular sleep schedule, and that always throws me haywire.
Tutoring is totally blowing my mind. Today we had Italian class for two hours in the morning, then tutoring for two hours this evening. I’m wondering, did I flip out this much when I moved to college? I feel like I didn’t - but maybe that’s just selective memory. Maybe I did flip out this much, which would be kind of hopeful. Because if I could make a place for myself at college, I can make a place for myself here. Granted, at least at college everyone spoke English, but I think it might be sort of the same principle.
I went to Vespers on Wednesday, did I tell you? It was amazing. I really want to go back, although this week looks so crazy busy in the evenings I don’t think I’ll be able to until next week at least. There’s an Italian holiday called ladies’ day, which is kind of like our mother’s day. It’s coming up on Thursday, and we’re all going to go out to dinner. Even Jeff, the lone guy on the program. The Italians cut a bunch of mimosa and give it to all their female relatives/the women in their lives. Hopefully it will be fun and not actually awkward and humiliating. Then Federica is also going to start an Italian film series with us, and Alessandro gave us a cultural lecture (which I have to say was intensely boring, as much as I like Alessandro in general), and of course tutoring and a field trip to Siena on Friday....
The Skillens had us all over for a dinner/party thing on Sunday night, and that was good. It was nice to see their house, even if they do have a lot of really ugly art on their walls (it came with the apartment). They also have a lot of good art from professors on the program, including Don Forsythe, my Photo 1 teacher. Katie, Elena, and I decided that we were going to start trading our work so that we could have rocking art collections when we grow up. I’d definitely love to hang some of their work in my house!
Laura made us some tiramisu tonight, which was pretty much amazing. She says she’s going to teach us how to make it this weekend, so I might just come back with some rad amazing cooking skills. If Elena, Katie, and I do end up getting an apartment together next year (which we’re considering now, seeing how well we get along together), we would have the best food all the time. It’s kind of becoming a joke, now, for people to wander into the kitchen when we’re making dinner and ooh and aaah over what we’re making. Juanita and Maria Louisa have fun mocking us for being so obsessed with our food and calling us alcoholics (because we’ve been cooking so much with wine lately), and on Saturday we’re planning a cooking party with them. They really miss their home food more than we do, I think. Italian food really isn’t all that different than American food, except that we never have beef or casseroles and a lot more pasta of varying kinds. So... yeah, it’s different, but not that different. You know what I’m craving, though? Fried chicken fingers. Like from Arbys or something, with some honey mustard? That would be great. Elena craves Japanese food all the time, so we’re thinking of hitting the one Chinese restaurant in town this week sometime. Not the same, obviously, but it might be a good taste of home for her.
Man, it is super late right now, (11:30 my time, although only 4:30 your time) and I am going to head to the bed, and maybe do a teeny bit of reading beforehand. I really want to finish the Purgatario, just to say that I have.
Love,
Kenzie
A few things, my loves: here's a conglomeration of e-mails I wrote in the past couple of days and also a blog post that I wrote. So there's a lot going on. Italy is pouring rain today, and this week is the emotional insanity week Skillen says, so I am eager for it to be over. Ciao, ciao, ciao.
“the slowness that oppresses us in dreams” - Dante
I’m trying to focus and take joy in the small things that denote progress. Today, in our tutoring session, Alessandro told me that I said something “perfetto,” in a very Italian way. I felt like I would cry earlier that afternoon, and I really almost did start bawling right then. I feel so stupid, all the time, and inadequate, and unhappy to be in my skin. I am pessimistic about how the Italians perceive me, and I am uncertain about how my fellow American students perceive me.
There have been flashes of goodness in today, even though it has been heck of frustrating, I don’t intend to deny that at all. I got to talk to my parents on the phone (and if I can brag on my little brother for a second, he got offered a great scholarship at Hope College!), and I got to talk to Greg on the phone. Alessandro complimented me in tutoring, and I got to prepare and eat dinner with Elena and Katie again, which is always a lot of fun for as long as it lasts. We’re usually the last ones out of the kitchen, if that says how much we enjoy being in there eating and talking. Today I understood more Italian than I did yesterday, and twice as much as I did last week. Today I did more listening than yesterday. Today I made it through canto XXIII of Dante’s Purgatorio.
But you know, in the face of the mountain of information I have to assimilate, I’m overwhelmed. No way I can ever be culturally competent. No way I can ever speak Italian coherently. No way any of these little victories mean anything! How can I ever expect to be a person of integrity or have a great job or make good work or have successful relationships or anything? There’s not enough in me to do even one of those things. If a week has lasted this long, then four months is going to be like three years, and by the time I leave I will be worn down to a culturally incompetent nubbin. You’ll be able to find me gibbering in the corner of the terrace and looking up at the sky for some kind of rescuing angels.
In conclusion, to be quite honest, I’m a wreck (and the continual invasion of my space by dramatic girls is not helping, nor is the onset of PMS, nor is the drama of attempting to communicate with the outside world from this gosh-darn convent). But I am going to focus on tomorrow, and the fact that it is a new day, and tomorrow I will understand more than I did today, and more than yesterday, and twice as much as last week. And maybe saying these words is going to make them happen, yes? A new day means new possibilities, and it is just possible that I will not flub at least one of these fabulous new opportunities.
Hugs from Orvieto.
Saturday 3-3-07
Hey guys!
Italy continues to be pretty fabulous. I’m enjoying my first weekend, and all the available time to write to people and work on my own writing, and of course catch up on memorizing all of that Italian. These first few weeks are going to be really busy, I think, between beginning Italian and culture lectures, and movie nights, and weekend field trips. Yesterday we went to Assisi, and it was so amazing.
Assisi is about an hour and a half from Orvieto, so we just got some busses and all piled in to make the drive. Everyone slept on the way, of course, because we’re college students and that’s what we do, but the countryside was beautiful. Even in the winter there’s a lot of green, some of it really almost a lime green: very brilliant and catching the light. It was a cold day, unfortunately, in Assisi, and a warm day in Orvieto, so I was woefully underdressed. = ( It wasn’t so bad, though, as long as we kept moving.
We saw four churches/monasteries related to St. Francis of Assisi. Most of them were the typical huge renaissance cathedrals. We had a great tour guide through the Basilica of St. Francis, though, who made it much more interesting. He was an American Franciscan monk, on assignment in Assisi for the next three years. If every place we go to is as interesting as that, I might not hate Renaissance art after all! Skillen’s class, which is the Renaissance art history one, is driving me bonkers! He’s a great conversationalist, and as a person I like him a lot, but when it comes to his lecturing, man, it makes me crazy. Pray that I can pay attention through six hours a week of him going off on tangents!
My favorite place in Assisi, though, was St. Francis’ hermitage up in the hills. People still walk barefoot up the path he used to pray at the altar he built. He used to retreat there to a cave to meditate and pray, but the poor guy couldn’t get away from people even there. Other monks kept following him up, and a small monastery grew up over his cave. It’s beautiful, so simple and filled with stone carvings. Everywhere you look along the path to the altar on the hillside, people have scratched crosses on the rocks, and made small twig crosses and set them along the stone wall, or even piled up rocks in the shape of a cross on the ground. I understand their desire to either take away or leave behind something from that place - it was so beautiful and quiet, and yes, a sacred space. I’m certainly not Catholic, but I’m beginning to have more sympathy for a lot of their liturgical practices and the idea of pilgrimage. If you ever, ever get a chance to go there, do it. But give yourselves a couple of hours! We only had 45 minutes there, hardly any time at all to look around. Everywhere you look there is someone sitting along the path reading or writing or praying, and it really does seem like it would be a nice place for that. Probably anyone who’s catholic would skin me alive for saying that it reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Waters house, but it does. = ) Just the same sort of closeness and fitting, you know, with what’s around it? Maybe the cave and the monastery serve the same function of Falling Waters in provoking us to a new awareness of our surroundings. That’s my theory, anyway. And it sort of makes sense that as a place of prayer it would also be a place of attentiveness.
I’ve now had my first Italian wine, cappucino, and gelato. I confess I liked the cappucino and gelato better than the wine! (although the fish we cooked with the wine turned out to be absolutely amazing) They have the best coffee here. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to go back to American coffee! Even specialty coffee shop stuff just pales in comparison. It’s really full and strong and most of it has a sort of nutty flavor. Oh, it’s amazing. I may break down and buy one of those little espresso-makers Greg told me about to take home, just so I can try to replicate this stuff. And the gelato... mmm! I don’t really like ice cream, but gelato is less creamy, and thicker, more like frozen yogurt. SO GOOD! I want to try the pistachio kind next time, just because it’s green and absurd and I’m feeling adventurous. = ) Coconut gelato also turns out to be great, as are these coconut candy bars they have here, called Bounty Bars. If I don’t get fat, I’ll be surprised.
I have now met all three of the nuns here, and they seem pretty tolerant of my lack of Italian ability. Suar Franca is really nice, as is Madre Giovanna, but Suar Therese is way intimidating and hardly ever smiles. Suar Therese is apparently a scout master here in Italy! I had no idea they even had that kind of thing, much less that a nun would lead a troop! Madre Giovanna is a great cook, and is apparently the one we have to thank for the wonderful menus here. It’s a good thing I love carbs, though, because we don’t eat meat very often. It’s a lot more expensive here than it is even in the U.S. And gas is almost 7 euros a gallon! Can you believe it?!?! It makes me feel like we don’t have it so bad. And all the cars here are stick shift.
Also, my schedule has changed a little bit. My tutoring session got moved up on Tuesday, so would it be OK if you called at 9 rather than at 10? Then I’ll have time to talk for an hour and still have time to make dinner before tutoring. Also, I gave you the wrong country code for Italy! Alessandro, my tutor, informed me that it is 011 for Italy. So you’ll have to dial that, I think, before you dial 039 and the convent number. So complicated! Greg tried calling me on Thursday and the number didn’t work, so it sent us scrambling to figure out the right sequence to actually reach the convent. I wish they’d orient us more clearly to these sort of things.
Oh, funny story: Yesterday in Assisi, Katie and Elena and I went out to eat at a trattoria we saw near the basilica. We each ordered a different kind of pasta and salad, because frankly we couldn’t read the Italian menus, and we decided to try and broaden our horizons. So when we got them, we passed them around to each try a little of every dish. Well, apparently that’s a no-no in Italy... the Italian couple sitting next to us started laughing hysterically. = D At least they laughed, though, and didn’t yell at us that we were rude or something. And we, in our broken 10 or so words of Italian, managed to order and get the check and everything. Whew! I’ve decided, though, that it’s no use being shy, and if I’m going to learn Italian I’m just going to have to go for it and ask a bunch of questions like “Come si dice” while I’m in stores to try and expand my vocabulary as rapidly as possible. I doubt if I would ever be fluent by the time I leave Italy, but my goal is to be able to understand most of what is said to me, and maybe even carry on a real conversation. Luckily, my roommate is also wanting to be very intentional about learning Italian, so we’re going to institute “Italian night” in our room - if you want to say something, you have to say it entirely in Italian.
I’m so glad Katie and Elena are here. They pretty much rock, and we get along really well. I keep wondering if Skillen will get annoyed that we are together so much when we’re all from Messiah, but I think it will be OK.
And now, I have to go get ready for pranzo (the main meal of the day is at lunch, and is called pranzo) and a trip down the funicolare (a kind of mini-train down the cliff and into Orvieto Scalo) to the coop with Federica (our R.A. and Italian teacher).
A dopo (until later),
Kenzie
Tuesday 3-6-07
Whew! Feeling overwhelmed like nobody’s business yesterday and today. The day definitely had flashes of good things - communication, mostly, with Katie and Elena here, and Alessandro (the tutor for my Italian small group), and with people back home. If a week has lasted this long, I think, then the next four months are going to be like three utterly incompetent years. I guess it’s pretty normal to freak out when you’re jumping headlong into a new culture. I feel like a chronically cranky two-year-old who just can’t manage to make herself understood. It must be even more difficult for Maria Louisa and Juanita, who are from Colombia and just out of high school. They’ve never even lived on their own before, let alone with a bunch of Americans in a foreign country. I hope to goodness that this sense of insecurity and inadequacy fades soon. Pretty much I spend half the day happy and half the day flipping out. And it’s just plain hard to study when you’re flipping out.
Thank goodness for Katie and Elena, who are fun to be with even when I can’t tell from moment to moment when I’m going to laugh or cry. We usually spend three or so hours in the kitchen making the food, and then eating the food, and then talking after the food, and then cleaning up the food. And they usually wait until after I get out of tutoring to eat, which is totally sweet of them, but it means that we’re eating at like 9 p.m., so we’re leaving the kitchen at like 10:30 or 11, and have only a little time before we’re in bed.
The good thing about communal breakfasts is that one is forced to get up at a regular time, and therefore to go to bed at a regular time. Otherwise I’d probably be freaking out even more than I am already, because I would never get on a regular sleep schedule, and that always throws me haywire.
Tutoring is totally blowing my mind. Today we had Italian class for two hours in the morning, then tutoring for two hours this evening. I’m wondering, did I flip out this much when I moved to college? I feel like I didn’t - but maybe that’s just selective memory. Maybe I did flip out this much, which would be kind of hopeful. Because if I could make a place for myself at college, I can make a place for myself here. Granted, at least at college everyone spoke English, but I think it might be sort of the same principle.
I went to Vespers on Wednesday, did I tell you? It was amazing. I really want to go back, although this week looks so crazy busy in the evenings I don’t think I’ll be able to until next week at least. There’s an Italian holiday called ladies’ day, which is kind of like our mother’s day. It’s coming up on Thursday, and we’re all going to go out to dinner. Even Jeff, the lone guy on the program. The Italians cut a bunch of mimosa and give it to all their female relatives/the women in their lives. Hopefully it will be fun and not actually awkward and humiliating. Then Federica is also going to start an Italian film series with us, and Alessandro gave us a cultural lecture (which I have to say was intensely boring, as much as I like Alessandro in general), and of course tutoring and a field trip to Siena on Friday....
The Skillens had us all over for a dinner/party thing on Sunday night, and that was good. It was nice to see their house, even if they do have a lot of really ugly art on their walls (it came with the apartment). They also have a lot of good art from professors on the program, including Don Forsythe, my Photo 1 teacher. Katie, Elena, and I decided that we were going to start trading our work so that we could have rocking art collections when we grow up. I’d definitely love to hang some of their work in my house!
Laura made us some tiramisu tonight, which was pretty much amazing. She says she’s going to teach us how to make it this weekend, so I might just come back with some rad amazing cooking skills. If Elena, Katie, and I do end up getting an apartment together next year (which we’re considering now, seeing how well we get along together), we would have the best food all the time. It’s kind of becoming a joke, now, for people to wander into the kitchen when we’re making dinner and ooh and aaah over what we’re making. Juanita and Maria Louisa have fun mocking us for being so obsessed with our food and calling us alcoholics (because we’ve been cooking so much with wine lately), and on Saturday we’re planning a cooking party with them. They really miss their home food more than we do, I think. Italian food really isn’t all that different than American food, except that we never have beef or casseroles and a lot more pasta of varying kinds. So... yeah, it’s different, but not that different. You know what I’m craving, though? Fried chicken fingers. Like from Arbys or something, with some honey mustard? That would be great. Elena craves Japanese food all the time, so we’re thinking of hitting the one Chinese restaurant in town this week sometime. Not the same, obviously, but it might be a good taste of home for her.
Man, it is super late right now, (11:30 my time, although only 4:30 your time) and I am going to head to the bed, and maybe do a teeny bit of reading beforehand. I really want to finish the Purgatario, just to say that I have.
Love,
Kenzie
Thursday, March 01, 2007
hello loves... from ORVIETO!
My First Orvieto Shower
My first night’s sleep at Orvieto went like a dream. Or it would have, if I had been conscious enough to dream. I did wake up once, when my roommate’s alarm went off, vaguely registering that she had not, in fact, gotten up to take a shower like she had intended, and then I myself passed out, assured that my own alarm would go off half an hour later for my shower.
The temperature in our room is perfect. What I mean is this: when you’re covered in all the heavy down blankets and curled up in bed, the air is pleasantly crisp on my face. Getting out of bed, however, I knew that the cold tile floor waited for me, and although my mom’s slippers (with the leather bottoms) waited right at the edge of my bed, I was loathe to move.
But my alarm went off, just as planned, at 8:30 Italy time - otherwise known as 1:30 a.m. Alabama time - and I began to hear a few mutters as my fellow Orvietani drifted down the corridor toward the refectory. I might miss something, I thought to myself, and that did it. I was wide awake.
I felt a profound sense of disconnection as I sought my clothes for my first real day in Orvieto. What do you wear when as a stranger in a new country, desperately not wanting to offend? Is there a color which says Hi I’m not really an annoying American and I’m trying very hard to be aware and sensitive to your cultural prejudices? Or how about a cut of pants that says Please don’t speak to me, I don’t want to show all my ignorance? Or how about a sweatshirt which says Hey, look at me, I fit in with my American classmates and with the Italian countryside. Look how versatile I am!
Undressing in the tiny 5x5 square which is our bathroom, I began to understand that the air in the convent is cold - around 50 degrees. Well, I thought, probably the water will be hot and everything will be fine. But man, this tile floor is cold.... Just like at home, I disrobed, turned on the water, and leapt in, stealing myself for the few seconds of cold until the hot water kicked in -
it didn’t.
I don’t know the words to convey to you the cold of that first burst of water. I almost shouted. This is going to be the quickest shower of my life. Of all the monastic disciplines I had prepared myself for, holding the freezing cold water over my head and shampooing was not one of them.
I resolved: I am never showering again. If I do, I am going to die of hypothermia.
Thankfully, on my second day in Orvieto, I discovered that when not all 20 people try to shower at the same time, there is hot water. The rule is, though, 5-minute showers. I am going to be so super efficient at getting ready in the mornings!
The cold shower, however, fits right in with our itinerary: on Friday we’re going to Assisi, home of Francis of Assisi, who took a bath in the river every morning even in the winter. Let me tell you, that is some heck of penance.
Lots of love from the fabulous, confusing, overwhelming and fun Orvieto,
Te h Kenzie
My first night’s sleep at Orvieto went like a dream. Or it would have, if I had been conscious enough to dream. I did wake up once, when my roommate’s alarm went off, vaguely registering that she had not, in fact, gotten up to take a shower like she had intended, and then I myself passed out, assured that my own alarm would go off half an hour later for my shower.
The temperature in our room is perfect. What I mean is this: when you’re covered in all the heavy down blankets and curled up in bed, the air is pleasantly crisp on my face. Getting out of bed, however, I knew that the cold tile floor waited for me, and although my mom’s slippers (with the leather bottoms) waited right at the edge of my bed, I was loathe to move.
But my alarm went off, just as planned, at 8:30 Italy time - otherwise known as 1:30 a.m. Alabama time - and I began to hear a few mutters as my fellow Orvietani drifted down the corridor toward the refectory. I might miss something, I thought to myself, and that did it. I was wide awake.
I felt a profound sense of disconnection as I sought my clothes for my first real day in Orvieto. What do you wear when as a stranger in a new country, desperately not wanting to offend? Is there a color which says Hi I’m not really an annoying American and I’m trying very hard to be aware and sensitive to your cultural prejudices? Or how about a cut of pants that says Please don’t speak to me, I don’t want to show all my ignorance? Or how about a sweatshirt which says Hey, look at me, I fit in with my American classmates and with the Italian countryside. Look how versatile I am!
Undressing in the tiny 5x5 square which is our bathroom, I began to understand that the air in the convent is cold - around 50 degrees. Well, I thought, probably the water will be hot and everything will be fine. But man, this tile floor is cold.... Just like at home, I disrobed, turned on the water, and leapt in, stealing myself for the few seconds of cold until the hot water kicked in -
it didn’t.
I don’t know the words to convey to you the cold of that first burst of water. I almost shouted. This is going to be the quickest shower of my life. Of all the monastic disciplines I had prepared myself for, holding the freezing cold water over my head and shampooing was not one of them.
I resolved: I am never showering again. If I do, I am going to die of hypothermia.
Thankfully, on my second day in Orvieto, I discovered that when not all 20 people try to shower at the same time, there is hot water. The rule is, though, 5-minute showers. I am going to be so super efficient at getting ready in the mornings!
The cold shower, however, fits right in with our itinerary: on Friday we’re going to Assisi, home of Francis of Assisi, who took a bath in the river every morning even in the winter. Let me tell you, that is some heck of penance.
Lots of love from the fabulous, confusing, overwhelming and fun Orvieto,
Te h Kenzie
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