Ciao Bella!

Week Seven: Firenze (Florence), Italia

October 11^th – 15^th, 2011

Before I begin describing the beauty of Italy, I must close the door on Paris – we left off with two days remaining. Among other things, these two days were important because the Lutheran Society (aka the CLU Oxford Program students + Dr. Brint) had a progressive dinner on the 9^th, and I experienced my first real train ride the 10^th-11^th . For the progressive dinner, we had appetizers at the other girls’ apartments on one island, the main meal of Risotto at the boys’ apartment on the other island, and dessert at our apartment on the main land. We finished with tea and coffee overlooking the city on our penthouse terrace. Too surreal. All the food was delicious, and the company was fantastic. This was one of my most memorable evenings of the trip. The next day I was prepared to lug my luggage around the Paris metro, up and down all the stairs and trying to get on the crowded coaches without getting stuck in the doors again. When we finally get on the train, I felt like I was on a combination of the Polar Express and the Hogwarts Express. Each tiny cabin of the coach had three beds, one stacked on top of the other, and a mini sink. It’s amazing how we all fit. Props to the engineers for that one. We rode for twelve hours overnight through the rest of France, then Switzerland and Italy. Just the shadows of the Swiss Alps in the dead of night were enormous.

Group picture after the progressive dinner on our rooftop terrace

“Finche c’e vita, c’e speransa” (Where there is life, there is hope)

That is my favorite Italian saying. I don’t remember where I found it though. Firenze is a beautiful Tuscan town stuck between a city and a suburb and nestled in a valley. Our hotel, the Grand Minerva, was on the eastern edge of the city near the train station, and we could see for miles from our rooftop terrace including beautiful views of Il Duomo and the city center. We arrived before the mist could be dissipated by the sun, so early that our rooms were not ready yet, which means the hotel upgraded us to apartment suites that were two stories each! The staff was great. Very accommodating. After getting settled, Dr. Brint took us on a brief walking tour of the city. Memories from the Texas Youth Orchestra’s 2006 Italy and Austria tour came flooding back, especially after passing the Uffizi, the piazza where we had performed with 500+ audience members, and the Pont Vecchio. The river is much lower than I remembered from five years ago. It was so disappointing that I wished I could have shown everyone the pictures I had taken to compare the two.

Well, my time in Florence was probably not as exciting as other experiences according to people other than myself haha, but it was surely a time of reflection. I spent most of my time wandering around the city by just picking a direction and walking, checking a map every now and then so I was never really lost. I’ve developed the pattern of finding the Jewish neighborhood, violin shops, and original artwork in each city I’ve traveled to, so walking around doing just that and soaking up the atmosphere consumed most of my time. Unfortunately, when I went to the Jewish neighborhood, it was on one of the High Holy Days (still haha), so the synagogue, museum, and kosher cafés were all closed to visitors. Since it took me about 45 minutes to walk there, I ended up just wandering around the piazza saying hi to all the families I had passed because they were just leaving the synagogue. Their thick Hebrew-Italian accent reminded me of being in a little colony of Tel Aviv, even though I know that this neighborhood was here much longer. Or not.

Tempio Maggiore Israelitico

Anyways, a few blocks away from the synagogue was one of the luthiers I had researched! The Vittori Family violin shop has been around for over 75 years. When I approached the shop, I could see silhouettes of violins through a pale curtain, and there was a little post-it note in English that said “Musicians ring doorbell à to play instruments.” Perfecto! So I rang the bell, and Signore Paolo Vittori himself answered the door. His wife was in the background packing up a suitcase for an exhibition in Singapore, and Signore Paolo called for his son, Lapo, to come tell me about his violas. Meanwhile, Paolo pulled one of his own violas out of a glass cabinet that he had created in 2001 for me to practice on. Incredible sound. I was afraid the instruments I found in Italy would be light and dainty like traditional baroque music, but this was very full and rich, and well, it was a viola haha. Then Lapo gave me a tour of their little workshop and showed me some of the violas he is working on. One is for a client in Tokyo, and another for Chicago. Every viola is custom-made, and Lapo stays in touch with his clients via e-mail do determine the style of the viola and staining of the wood. For €14.000 (Lapo’s) or €16.000 (Paolo’s), they would customize a viola for me to try out if I come back next October. They said if I don’t like it, I don’t have to buy it. I would of course bring my own viola from home to compare the two. Hmmm who knows! Maybe if I sell my car and get a full ride to graduate school haha…

The hotel had also directed me to a music shop that had violins, so I went ahead and checked them out as well. It was very commercialized. The violins had cheap wood and they were really shiny…like what we played in junior high. The most expensive one they gave me was about €400. I played a few notes and handed it back. The guy was very nice, but he didn’t speak much English, so we had to use a translator (aka another customer). He basically said that for five years they had a 1986 viola in the shop, but that they gave it back to the original owner in May 2010 because it never sold.  He called up the owner (who couldn’t play anymore because of problems with his fingers) and had it delivered via vespa the next morning! I begged the guy translating that I didn’t want to cause any trouble, especially because I am not planning to buy for several more years. So I went back the next day, and all the workers at the shop gave me the nod of recognition. The guy who had helped me so much helped everyone at the counter, and then he revealed the viola he had been saving. It didn’t feel 25 years old, but the strings were really old. The bow had the most damage though – only half the hair was still intact, and the rest of the hair was turning brown. He gave me a brand new bow to practice with, but he stressed that if I bought the instrument (for about €2.800), he would re-hair the bow and include it in the original price. I hardly even used the new bow – the old bow matched the viola so well that to perform with anything else would be cheating. The viola had a lot of sound, but I had a hard time keeping a consistent tone. I’m sure with new strings and hair the instrument would have sounded much better.

When I went on my original art hunt, I was afraid the only thing I would find is mass-produced watercolor prints. So, when I stumbled upon someone painting with watercolors but providing a more abstract perspective at a good price, I bought it haha.

Then lining the Museo Uffizi were more artists. I realized that all my paintings were oil on canvas. When I didn’t see any, I bought from a guy painting oil on glass instead.

Of course my lack of patience got the best of me, because along the river were more street artists. One of them did oil paintings on canvas, but with a very unique style. He took a photograph and meshed it with newspaper bits to create a very original piece of art. I fell in love with it! We got to talking a little more, and then exchanged business cards. He said he actually went to school with a Cardone (pronounced with a thick Italian accent haha) in Florence.

There’s nothing like relaxing the neck after a day of looking up to climb the city and look down. The first of these missions was to the top of Il Duomo, which Paddington Bear was a great sport for doing with me.

The second was up a hill to Michelangelo’s gardens (which were fairly non-existent) for a picnic overlooking the city.

And the third was when we had our Cityscapes class on the rooftop of our hotel at eye-level with the other roofs.

So here in Firenze I am in heaven because I can eat Italian food for every meal. There is no use in counting calories because it will just ruin the experience, but I do need to pay more attention to how I spend my money on food haha. Our “meal plan” covers breakfast + €20 per day for dinner, and lunch is supposed to be out of pocket. Some days I split the money between lunch and dinner, but one night in particular I went all-out. One skewer of the world’s best scallops: €28. Plus the cover charge and water to share, the total was approximately €33.  We then found some great gelato that was cheap and off the beaten path for only €1,50. I ordered the chocolate and lemon combo, and the lemon gelato had real lemon zest! Too good for comfort.

I did attempt to do laundry at a Lavarapido laundry mat here because my attempt in the sink was cut short when I had to put all my wet clothes into a plastic back for the trek from Paris to Florence. It was very efficient, but extremely expensive at €7 per load. When you add in dinner at the restaurant across the street so you could maximize efficiency of doing homework, watching the laundry, and eat dinner, the total cost of the experience was €20. I’ll take a day at Cal Lu’s dorm machines at five loads for $10 any day (versus $26 for two)!

There wasn’t much of a Tuscan night-life scene for me in Firenze. My dog, Molly, had a stroke that lasted several days in addition to being diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, so I skyped with her and my family nearly every evening. *Knock on wood* she is improving magnificently as I type this.

Arrivaderci Firenze! Off to Rome we go!

Je voudrais un Paris, s'il vous plait?

Week Five/Six: Paris, France

September 30^th – October 10^th, 2011

‎"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." ~Desmond Tutu

Several conversations/events have led to my recent discovery of this quote: Monsieur Tutu’s 80^th birthday was on the 7^th, discussions of international social injustice in Africa due to exploitation and colonialization for our Cityscapes class, narrowing of my Political Science Departmental Honors research thesis, and continuing the conversation from our Rectifying International Injustice tutorials. I won’t bore you with the details, but now you have a sense of what is prevailing in my mind as I explore Paris for the first time.

The Notre Dame at sunset

The train pulled into Paris like a rocket to the moon, the station’s like a circus, every face is a cartoon. ~Faith Hill

Our arrival was quite a whirlwind, lugging heavy suitcases through the different platforms and trying to fit them in the tiny barracks of the train coaches. The walk from our exit in Paris to the apartment was not among the most pleasant, so my first executive decision was to sleep haha. I woke up to everyone having left to explore already, so I took my own walk around the city to gain my bearings. The four apartments that the Lutheran Society is occupying spans two islands and the northern side of the river, so my walk around the block took quite a while discovering where everyone was staying for the next ten days. Communication was at its minimum with faulty cell phones and only two apartment keys in such a big city, so I ended up having dinner on my own at a Lebanese restaurant that I had stumbled upon just to the north of the Centre Pompidou. Traiteur Beyrouth was absolutely delicious, and my mouth watered at the smell of the familiar spices from the Ottoman territories of Israel, Palestine, and Turkey. I could not decide what to order because it was all looked so delicious, so I made friends with the restaurant waiters. One of them recognized my earrings because she had just visited Turkey as well, and the guys were hilarious because I speak no French, and they speak very little English haha. Eventually I ordered a kefta “sandwich” with orange juice and baklava, and they put all of the wonderful dressings that I love but have no recollection of what they are. When I finished, they brought me some complimentary mint tea to round off the meal.

The living room of our apartment

The next day we experienced the French supermarkets to buy some essentials: water, bread, gnocchi, and marinara haha. Trying to figure out which water to buy was certainly a challenge with some bottles 1/3 the price of others. And of course, the gnocchi was just a default lunch when I got sick of spending money on 1000kcal nutella and banana crepes, or really just got sick of eating nutella. That afternoon Dr. Brint and I took a walk around the Marais and into the Jewish Quarter while discussing my research interests. Our conversation focused on three different concepts of my overall topic derived from life experiences and observations. I am afraid to publish those ideas on a public blog prematurely, but I would love to speak with anyone individually and in person who are interested. Later that evening, everyone to my surprise wanted me to take them to the Lebanese restaurant! Absolutely, I would eat this for every meal if I could. They sat all 12 of us upstairs, and we ordered a huge variety of 14 different entrées, several other individual meals of falafel, kefta, and shawarma, and 6 different desserts. Everyone loved it! Huge success – I am so excited to be with people who share my passion for Middle Eastern tastes. We all went back to our apartment’s penthouse terrace overlooking the city of Paris for some wine, tea, and coffee.

October 1^st was Noit Blanche, or White Night/Sleepless Night, which I thought might have been similar to Tel Aviv’s White Night back in July. However, it was much different: rather than bringing all the artists to the streets, Paris imported exceptional artists from around the world to stage exhibits in buildings and museums around the city. Rather than being able to just walk around and experience everything in one stroll, Paris had strewn the exhibits in several different zones that dispersed spectators and ended fairly early in the morning. Tel Aviv was literally an all-night expo that brought the city together. This presents interesting dynamic differences between the two cities: high-end fashion and aristocratic art vs. magnifying the people’s art. Paris may have been more intellectually stimulating, but Tel Aviv’s was more engaging and widespread. Anyways, the main exhibit of Noit Blanche that we experienced (after waiting in line and then mobbing through the door) was Purple Rain. I haven’t taken the time yet to analyze the art, but that’s ok. The experience was exciting enough.

The next day we took a Fat Tire Bike Tour that began at the Eiffel Tower and lasted about 2.5 hours. What a great prospective job for post-grad if I wanted to spend my time in graduate school abroad! They have satellites in London, Berlin, and Barcelona as well. Our tour guide was great: this is her third year in Paris after graduating from university on the East Coast. We rode California Beach Cruisers (which I swore I would never do just a few months ago), which are eons different than road bikes or mountain bikes. I don’t know when the last time I rode a bike with a kick-stand was haha and it drove me crazy to not have my feet clipped in. I felt like a klutz. We did catch some great views of the city, though, and we even stumbled across a ramp named after Ben Gurion, founder and former-Prime Minister of Israel.

One of the beauties of Study Abroad is hosting class in unconventional locations – the Louvre, the gardens of Versailles, the Musée D’Orsay, and Centre Pompidou for our Politics and the Arts tutorials. At the Louvre, we split into groups to analyze paintings in each the Rococo, Neo-Classicism, and Romantic styles from France in the 17^th-19^th centuries. Then at the Musée D’Orsay we did the same for Naturalism/Realism and Impressionism paintings. That was my favorite museum with work from Van Gogh and Monet. Unfortunately the section with that originally contains my favorite pieces was under construction :( I guess I’ll just have to come back next year! At the Centre Pompidou we studied Modernism, Cubism, and Post-Modernism art. I’m curious to see how the global society will shape the next genre of artwork. The paintbrush and canvas has been one of the most constant modes of creative expression, but its application has changed dramatically. Our picnic at Versailles was a bit different than the other classes – we studied the political and artistic contributions of King Louis XIV while tasting wine and cheese from five different regions in France. Oh I forgot to mention one little detail…I kinda got stuck in the train doors trying to get to Versailles :) luckily my friends were paying attention and helped pry the doors back open.

Paparazzi for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

Me, Mira, Beth, and Nikki in front of the infamous triangular prism at the Louvre

Picnic in the gardens of Versailles

On my mission to buy artwork around the world, I found a lovely painting of the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately, I doubt whether or not the guy I bought the painting from was the original artist. We have a theory that students sell their artwork to street vendors, who in turn sell them to the tourists. Oh well. It is still original, and quite beautiful. I also purchased some water color cityscapes from a student we saw painting them from our café. The pictures are below:

Unfortunately blogspot is not allowing me to rotate my pictures :(

One of the students in the Lutheran Society is celiac, so I experimented a bit with gluten-free baking in our Paris apartment. I tried my best to find all the ingredients I normally use, but could not find any baking soda. A Naturalia market around the corner sold all kinds of gluten-free and organic products, so I did most of my shopping there. While everyone came in and out of our apartment for their tutorials on our apartment, I attempted to make some cookies without a recipe. I figured as long as the dough tastes good, the cookies will taste good. Plus, if I coat the dough in cocoa powder, anything will taste good. Once the dough was kneaded to my liking, I discovered our apartment does NOT have an oven!!! Well, I guess the “convection” setting of our microwave will do! In fact it did, and these cookies turned out better than the ones I tried to bake in a real oven at the boys’ apartment later that evening.

A few of the girls and I decided to explore a pre-constructed Street Art Walk that we downloaded from another blogspot account. It began in the far northeastern area of Paris and spanned the length of four metro stops. We only lasted about two of them haha. Of course, street art is the kind term for graffiti, which is illegal. The area of town we were in was extremely…cultured. In one direction was a group of young kids from a Jewish elementary school, and in the other direction were some adults dressed in the traditional Muslim-African garb with the brilliant colors and cloaks. Check out the “Artwork Around the World” album on my Facebook to experience the graffiti for yourselves once I get a chance to upload the photos. I did not take pictures of the people because it was bad enough we were wandering around taking pictures of their neighborhood. Note to self: print off the PDF with the directions and street art notes, because it is not smart to try to read off of an $800 iPad2 and attempt to walk at the same time in an unknown neighborhood. It was certainly an experience of a lifetime, and I do not regret it one bit. This is an area of France I would have never found had we not been on this mission. We could really see the clash of the classes and the effects of colonialism on native cultures in the colonizing country. One particular piece of fresh graffiti is shown below: “Alger, Tunis, Londres…Paris?”

Later on the same day as the Street Art Walk, I ventured back into the Marais Jewish Quarter that Dr. Brint had led me through earlier in the week. I stood in line for 45 minutes at a Yiddish Boulangerie to get some fresh Challah and pastrami. I was disappointed to claim the last two loaves of Challah, but to my pleasant surprise the bread was still warm. This week being bookended by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Quarter was very energetic and lively. I miss Israel! I wandered around for about another hour looking at the fantastic artwork and smelling the falafel as I picked at my Challah.

King Falafel Palace :)

One of the staples of the Parisian tourist experience is a hike up the Eiffel Tower, which ended up lasting over 2.5 hours between the 1300 stairs up and down and staying past sunset to watch the tower dazzle in LED lights at the top of the hour. We definitely earned our gelato and crepes that night haha.

I know that this blog is being posted before our stay in Paris is complete, but I do not want to have to worry about remembering everything when we move on to Italy on Monday. France has pleasantly surprised me. The people reflect a version of southern hospitality that is very kind and friendly, as long as you do not behave like an American tourist. They love sharing their culture with us, but we must be exceptionally and outwardly attempting to embrace it at the same time for them to acknowledge us. Look at everyone in the eye (very different from the Middle East) and always be overly polite. This is a lesson that is often lacking in large cities that tend to hunker down and alienate outsiders. The sense of community and pride is very high, and is very much a product of the French Revolution. I would enjoy the opportunity to spend more time here analyzing the political culture and study more about the relationship between the people and the government. Many people critique travel seminars like this that spend only a short amount of time in a variety of locations, but this type of traveling is perfect for students. It opens the doors to new cultures by giving us an abundance of opportunities for extended study. Being here in person provides for a better perspective while studying back home, and the introduction to the cultures makes coming back for extended periods of time less frightening.