FAI Sunday

This past weekend, many of the historic buildings in Arezzo were open for the public to enter. The event was funded by a group called FAI and took place in many other cities in Italy as well. The group’s goal is to maintain and restore historic buildings and landmarks that aren’t as well known and to educate the general Italian public about their heritage.

And just because I’m not Italian, does not mean that I didn’t end up tagging along!

In the morning, after waking up to discover that I had lost an hour without noticing, I ran out the door and headed out into town with a list of all of the places open. The first place I tried, in the Piazza Grande, apparently needed a ticket to enter so I ended up not going in. Luckily, as I walked down Corso Italia, it turned out that not all of the other sites needed a ticket. I ended up going into a church, a private house, and the bank on that street. The church I didn’t stay long in since they were having mass and the bank was pretty boring (though they boasted an impressive art collection), but the private house was really fun. I began alone in the entrance where the ceiling was covered in a fresco filled with angels and monsters. I then continued up into the house where I met a woman who told me I should go back downstairs because the next tour would be soon. I tried to tell her I wanted to not take a tour and just explore on my own. My poor Italian caused her to switch to English, give me a private tour, and then she plopped me down into the tour going on at the time. Oh well! Anyways, the walls and ceilings of the rooms I saw were all simple (compared to some), but interesting and I enjoyed tuning out the Italian commentary to just look around.

Inside the entryway to the house

Inside the entryway to the house

Inside the entryway to the house

Between the house and the bank, I actually ended up seeing some more sights and spectacles. In the Piazza San Augostino, I tiptoed into that church and again left quickly due to mass. However, I exited just in time to see a parade of drummers and flag bearers coming marching through. It was very enjoyable to watch them, and I later discovered (as I went down the escalator to leave town) that the flags represented all of the knights/jousters of the area…I think!

The parade

The parade

 I also went to the Roman Amphitheater in town, which was lovely.  All I wanted to do was sit in the center, lie down in the grass, let the sun shine down, and picnic.

Roman Amphitheater

Roman Amphitheater 

After the bank, it was definitely lunch time so I headed towards my now favorite kebab shop and from there to Gianni’s pastry shop. Along the way, however, I discovered a HUGE market going on behind the post office, which I then had to explore.

Surprise market

Surprise market

I swear it has never been there before (I would have noticed since it spilled out onto some main streets) and I wonder if it will be back there next week. Hmmmm, mysteries…

Until next time! Ciao

Butoh Ends, But the Adventures Continue!

To sum up how the rest of the week went, Butoh, was great and I didn’t write about it due to having a Italian midterm mid-week (it went fine) and needing to memorize my part for acapella. Some highlights from the Butoh classes include finding our fishies (an exercise where our center of gravity was controlled by a fish swimming in our body that we had no control over. This ended up being a lot tougher than it sounds, especially with all of the modified versions we did too), Mark telling us stories from his past (like how Pina Bausch would notice any little fidget they would do and then have them repeat it a ton or make a dance from it and the time that he was taking a dance class and suddenly realized that the classmate who was dripping sweat during plies, doing one pirouette and then seven, and jumping very high was Baryshnikov), doing slow no-contact rolls over each other while two people walked behind being old ladies, having ballet barre work on Thursday and Friday, and pulling literally everything we did together on Thursday to make a show for Friday.

For the show, we ended up doing the singing exercise, some sternum rolls on the wall, our four floor movements, the slow rolling and two old ladies walking, improvs based on movement we did, slow walking with butterflies for one hand, various fish exercises, a circle dance of small fidget gestures in homage to Pina, a combination Mark taught us combined with a name exercise, and a slow walk to bow. Overall the show went very well and everyone in the audience seemed to absolutely adore it (I’ve never received such a long applause before in my life!). However, during the slow walk with butterflies, I was concentrating so hard on my gaze that my eyes started to water so badly that it looked like I was crying the entire time I was walking…and then my nose started dripping too from the stress of holding the gaze. However, due to the mood of the piece, I could definitely not move at all to wipe anything so the long walk became absolutely torturous as I tried keep my concentration up without dripping to much or laughing from the absurdity of it all. Luckily, everyone I’ve talked to didn’t notice a thing, and I’m hoping that the video doesn’t show it clearly either.

Afterwards, Mark and Mitsuru gave us all carnations and we gave them a card with our names and fish to thank them for such an amazing week. I’m so sad to see them go; it was such an enlightening and enjoyable week.

Group photo before the performance. Mark is front left and Misturu front right. 

However, today I didn’t get a lot of time to mope since I took a day trip to Assisi!

From Arezzo, Assisi is about an hour and a half by train. Since I wanted to get there before noon, I ended up getting up pretty early to take the 9:14 train. It turned out to be really good that I did since, once I arrived, I then had to wait about 30 minutes to catch the bus into town, then decided to hike to the complete opposite side of the city in order to begin to follow the path suggested by my guide book (and which would also end back where I needed to catch the bus to the station), and then got really lost trying to find the first landmark.

After walking up and down one street over four times, finding a really nice Umbria viewing point, and bumping into an Italian couple looking for the same thing (I couldn’t give them directions, but they found it first anyways), I finally found the old Roman amphitheater. It turns out that it actually is an old amphitheater turned into a neighborhood, which may be part of the reason I walked right by it twice (I was looking for signs and there were none!). However, it was pretty and charming, but not worth the trouble it took to find it.

The roman amphitheater

From there, I then walked back the way I came (I now was absolutely sure of where I was) to reach the Cathedral of San Rufino. Unfortunately, my getting lost meant that I arrived at the Church just as it was closing briefly for lunch so I decided to go with the flow and do lunch then (it helped that I was REALLY hungry at that point too). I ended up stopping in a café for a sandwich and fries and then getting gelato nearby. By the time I had bought the gelato, I still had a good 30-minute wait till the church opened again, so I decided to hike up the hill to Rocca Magiore to see the supposedly great view.

And it was not only a great view; it was a phenomenal view! From the front, you could see Assisi spread out below you and then Umbria flow out from it. If you then hiked down around to the side/back you could see the valley below and the great hills rising up from them nearby. Both were great views, and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the sun, eating my gelato, and basking in the wonder of the scenery.

View from the front

View from the front

View from the back

Eventually I had gone past the 30-minute timer I had set, and I climbed back down the hill to go to the church. I honestly enjoyed the outside decorations to the inside, but it was really interesting to see the glass panels in the floor that showed some of the original structures from the old 9^th century church that used to be in that space.

Cathedral of San Rufino

Inside the church

Fun statue outside of the church

Continuing on the route the book suggested (I really wasn’t a huge fan of the book’s suggestions and poor directions at that point, but didn’t really care where I went so I followed it anyways), I then went through some medieval back alleyways where I saw people of about my age measuring things with tape measurers for the upteenth time. I attempted to find out what they were doing, but my poor grasp of Italian got me as far as “it is for school.” Oh well!

I then walked to the Basilica of St. Clare. Inside I was again rather not impressed, though I was a little saddened to see how little remained of the original frescos and how the paint had faded over time (this turned out to be a problem in every church I went to in Assisi). Downstairs, in the tomb of St. Clare, the frescos looked better maintained, but still weren’t that exciting. Besides the bones and creepy wax version of St. Clare, there were also clothing she owned, a lock of her hair (…is it bad that I find that a little gross?), and a tunic of St. Francis stained by his blood when he received the stigmata (also ew and ow). 

Basilica of St. Clare

Feeling a little creeped out by and feeling sorry for the saints, I then took the road back to the main center of Assisi, Piazza del Comune. Besides the view from Rocca Magiore, this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The Temple of Minerva/Christian Church in the piazza ended looking like it was trying too hard to be interesting (though the old columns outside were pretty), but I ended up finding a cool fountain, a giant horse statue, and a random side tunnel street with old frescos all over the ceiling that were amazing.

Fountain

Temple of Minerva/Christian Church

Horse Statue

Tunnel with amazing old frescos

From the piazza, I then took some side streets down to the church of Santo Stephano (the church wasn’t that impressive but the walk there was gorgeous and their garden was adorable), and, from there, took Via San Francesco to the Basilica of St. Francis.

Santo Stephano

Santo Stephano

Now the basilica was really impressive from the outside and inside just due to sheer size (I really want to know how long it took to cover both the upper and lower basilica entirely with frescos), but the style of the frescos was pretty boring so I ended up moving through the building pretty quickly. However, there were a few points of interest that I noted. The first was a fresco of St. Francis receiving the stigmata that I had seen in another church earlier but couldn’t remember which one, a fresco of a crucifixion done upside down (I don’t really know my Christian symbols, but isn’t that one considered bad?), a fresco where it looked like baby Jesus was asking Mary for something and she was saying “No, and get the hell out of here” by jerking her thumb in one direction, and a room near the tomb of St. Francis completely covered in Stars of David.

Basilica of St. Francis

Star of David in Lower Basilica

Once outside, however, I found a door completely covered in monsters and grotesque figures that I completely adored. 

On the door

On the door

On the door 

I then walked around the rest of the grounds of the basilica and then headed back to the bus stop. After waiting a bit, I then rode the bus back to the station. Unfortunately, when I bought my ticket, it turned out that I had about an hour to kill before the train arrived. So I walked from the station to Santa Maria degli Angeli, which was about five minutes away.

Santa Maria degli Angeli

Santa Maria degli Angeli

Again, the inside of the church was not that impressive (too much plain white), though I really enjoyed the random small stone church within the church (INCEPTION!) that housed a lock of St. Clare’s hair (again, ew) and a beautiful old painting. The painting contained several scenes, but the one I loved was of an angel kneeling near a woman who was posed like a shy young lover being flattered. Besides the wonderful expressions, the angel (and all of the angels in the painting) had wings as colorful as a tropical bird (mostly orange in his/her case though I saw one with blue wings).

Besides the wonderful painting, I also had fun people watching since there turned out to be a TON of little girls in uniforms with ladybug yarmulkes and flags walking around. Apparently, they are the Italian girl scouts, but I only just found this out by searching online.

From the church, I still had some time left, so I sat by a fountain nearby and read my tour book for a bit. I then went back to the train station, waited, took the train back (with a full-blown migraine blossoming, unfortunately. I almost fell asleep a few times because of it), and then got a panino kebab and a croissant for dinner (both were so good) before heading back to the villa.

Luckily the headache is gone now and I’m just relaxing in the villa (though I need to go do work soon). Look out for another post very soon, exciting things are happening tomorrow in Arezzo!

Ciao!

Butoh Boot Camp Begins!

Today we began our week-long Butoh intensive. For five and a half hours each day, we will be taking class only on Butoh with the same two teachers.

At Beloit, I had taken a workshop on Butoh before and had really not enjoyed it. In that class, it had been much more like meditation than dance, and, due to not loving to meditate personally, I didn’t end up enjoying it. So I entered this week filled with trepidation, and the belief that, by Wednesday, we would all being having strong reactions to only doing slow movement all of the time.

However, our class was definitely not what I expected, and I really enjoyed what we did. In the morning, we warmed up with the instructor who was in Pina Bausch’s company in Germany (how cool is that?!), and then the other instructor had us walk slowly through the space, walk to a partner and hug them without contact, and then do a group improv. Honestly, the only things I found unenjoyable were that my knee pain really limited my movement (like how in the partner hug exercise we had to slowly go to the ground and then back up while still connected. Ow) and one piece of imagery that I think is going to be used constantly this week. The imagery is that, whenever you move, your gaze reaches so far out that it eventually comes back around and you see your own back. Now I know seeing around the globe wouldn’t work because the spherical shape would cause the straight sight line to break. However, if my line of sight lines tangent to the earth and goes off into space, then it will eventually continue in a straight line back to me. And I don’t think I can handle that many light-years every time I shift my gaze.

Anyways, in the afternoon, we did a new warm up (one that was much easier on my knees) and more partner hugs. Only this time, we got to physically touch our partners, and, when we were told to pretend the exercise was the last time we would see each other, a lot of people got emotional. I know my partner ended up crying, and I nearly cried myself. We then repeated the exercise but with singing (not nearly as powerful) and then chose a song for ourselves (I picked an old lullaby that I love). The instructors then had us walk to a set spot in the room while singing, then stop and say our name and where we were from. Once everyone was clumped together, we then had to smile and shuffle foreword as a group. We ended up doing this quite a few times, and I was always the first in the group to walk. After that, we used a previous warm-up exercise as improv material (as a group, as a way of locomotion on the floor, and as a soloist in a circle) and then used that to come up with four floor movements to do on repeat across the floor. These four movements were then added onto the group-singing thing from before. After that, we did a cool down, and we were done for today.

Overall, I had a pretty enjoyable day (probably because everything we did was nothing like what I expected), and I ended up learning some important things too (like I was holding my weight over my heals while rolling up instead of evenly throughout my foot—it’s so nice to have another good technique teacher).

Now let’s see how the rest of the week goes…

Ciao!

Beautiful Cortona

Yesterday, after I woke up and became a slightly functional human being, I headed into town alone. Most of the other students were at a talk being given by some semi-famous independent jugglers, but I hadn’t been interested so I walked to the market. 

Market in Arezzo

Market in Arezzo

After pushing through most of the clothing section (which felt a lot more crowded now that it was warm out), I ended up getting a piece of chicken, some fries, and some free fried squares of something at a stand in the food row that I liked. I then walked to the train station, only stopping to get a chocolate croissant at a bar nearby. I then ended up sitting on a wall and eating my food while watching out for other Accademia students.

The previous night, a bunch of people had talked about going to Cortona after the talk, and, since my phone was being difficult again, I wasn’t sure the exact time people were leaving, only that they would be there soon. After I finished my chicken and had moved onto the fries, I saw Little Rock (one of the Emilys) and Jake, and I walked over to chat with them and share my fries. It turned out they weren’t going to Cortona but were meeting up with a friend of Jake’s at the station. However, Little Rock did use her phone to find out when people were planning to leave (around 1:50), and Emie and Emily showed up soon after to chat and share more of the fries. After Emily, Little Rock, and Jake left, Emie and I decided to take the 1:15 train to Cortona. At the station, while buying our tickets, we met up with Nick, Meredith, Awesta, and Catherine who were also planning to take that train.

We then all got on the train and went to Cortona (which was literally two stops away from Arezzo). At the station, we then attempted to call a cab (since the city is up on a hill from the station), failed at calling a cab, had one randomly show up, and rode it up the hill.

Once we reached Cortona, we all paid 2 euros and set off to explore. With Meredith leading the way (since she had been there before…in the rain), we went into the city, got some amazing gelato at the Snoopy gelateria (I got chocolate and cookie flavors and the cookie flavor was sooooo tasty), walked into and past quite a few churches, and climbed up and up and up the hill.

A piazza in Cortona

One of the churches in Cortona

My amazing gelato

The walk up

Another church in Cortona

A view from the top

Chilling at the top

When we made it to the top, we all took a long break to just sit and stare at the view, lay down in the grass, and to play on the big stones on the hill. After an hour, we all started getting cold and decided to leave, though Catherine had us make a wish on a rock and then chuck it as far as we possibly could first. Then the other group who were coming to Cortona walked up the hill. After chatting with them for a bit, Awesta, Emie, Nick, and I headed back down the hill to explore the town a bit more. We ended up just going back through parts we had seen before and window-shopping a bit, though we did learn from one shop owner that the scenes from Under the Tuscan Sun filmed in Cortona used a fake fountain so we had most likely already seen the piazza in the film already. We then decided to stop in a bar for a snack, but only Nick and I ended up getting food from an amazing pasticceria we found (I got a slice of chocolate cake that I saved for later). We then split up with Awesta following a random friend she knew in Cortona that we just happened to see and Emie, Nick, and I deciding to head back to Arezzo.

We quickly realized that all of our phones weren’t working and couldn’t call a cab to get back down, but luckily there was a shuttle bus at the piazza we originally arrived at, and it kindly waited for us while we bought tickets at the tabacchi nearby.

Once we reached Arezzo, Emie really wanted to have a sit down dinner at Mazzoni, (one of the better restaurants in town) which sounded good to all of us, so we went there directly. However, it ended up not being open yet, so we waited 30 minutes for it to open. Though we did see one of the mfa students during the wait and had a nice chat with him for a bit so the wait didn’t feel too bad. Eventually, the restaurant opened, and we went in and sat down. One of the owners took our food bags (Nick and Emie had bought some groceries during our wait, and I still had the cake), and stored them somewhere to give us more table room. We then had a very good and very long meal (I had some very good Gnocchi al ragú and some very weird potato thing). 

Gnocchi al ragú

We ended up seeing some other Accademia students come in, but by that time we were done, so we only chatted a bit with them before we left. We then retrieved our food bags and walked back up to the villa.

Ciao!

Ladies and Gentlemen, May We Present...Venice!

Please excuse the long wait, but here it is! Venice!

The Thursday we left, I got up a little bit earlier than usual since breakfast had been pushed back to accommodate our early departure. After eating, I headed out to the Limo to pick up some snack bars in case we didn’t get breakfast at the hostel we were staying at in Venice. When I went back to the villa, however, I discovered that the early hour meant that the door I had gone through was locked for those trying to re-enter. Bad omen, eh?

It was pretty cold outside in my t-shirt and pants, and it seemed that, no matter how loudly I yelled for help, no one could hear me. So after quite a few minutes of desperately worrying about being left behind, I finally went to the door leading to the living room (which doesn’t open) and called in through there. Luckily, someone heard me and let me in through the other door. However, they couldn’t help mentioning that the other entrance to the villa was currently unlocked.

Ooops!

So I went back up to my room, finished packing, and walked down the hill with the other students. At the bottom, we boarded a big bus (I got two seats to myself to stretch out on!) and set off for Venice.

For the first half of the four-hour journey, I mostly drifted in and out of full awareness (though not quite sleeping) while listening to music. The bus stopped at a gas station close to noon, and we all got out to buy food or to use the facilities. I ended up buying a chicken sandwich and a chocolate muffin, both of which were good and very filling. I ate them at the station and chatted with Claudia, Gianni, and some of the other students.

After 30 minutes, it was time to get back on the bus, and we started off again. Eventually we reached the bridge to cross to get to Venice, and the bus stopped for a bit. We speculated that maybe we had to walk from there on in, but luckily the bus began moving again soon.

And then we were on the bridge and could see the water stretch on for miles. It was spectacular and we all really woke up and got excited at that point. When we reached the bus drop off point (just up the Grand Canal from the train station), we got off the bus to discover that the sun was brightly shinning and that the weather was wonderfully warm compared to Arezzo. This caused a little discomfort for me since I was still wearing a thicker jacket because of the temperature in Arezzo, but I was definitely not going to complain!

From the bus stop, we then proceeded to walk a very long way down alongside the Grand Canal (to a little past the Rialto, but I didn’t know that at the time) and then away from the canal into the main island. Everywhere I looked on that walk, I saw so many shops, restaurants, street vendors, and, of course, spectacular views.

Our first sights of Venice

Our first sights of Venice

Our first sights of Venice

Our first sights of Venice

Our first sights of Venice

Eventually we reached the hostel, and I know that everyone’s jaws dropped when we saw it. Both inside and out, it looked like a very old building, and the facilities inside were spectacular. In the room I shared with six other people, our ceilings and walls had frescos all over them, which completely made up for how tiny our cots were. We also had bath/restrooms that were separate and down the hall from our rooms. However, this never really was a problem and the only unenjoyable part of our rooms was how there was no way to block out noise and that the beds squeaked.

Our hostel 

Our hostel

My room

On the wall of my room

On the ceiling of my room

 After dropping our things off, Claudia and Gianni invited everyone to go to the Guggenheim with them, so we all decided to meet in about an hour in a nearby plaza to do so.  Nick and I headed out to explore a bit (as opposed to going and getting food) and ended up finding a really famous shoe shop that I had read about online. Before coming to Venice, I had done research online about what to do while there and had found a ton of shops that looked interesting. This shoe store was one of them. The store ended up having a ton of interesting shoes, but I knew they were all custom made and extremely expensive so I didn’t want to buy anything.

Nick and I then found a pizza shop where he bought a slice, and we then went to the plaza to meet up with everyone else. With Gianni and Claudia leading the way, we then walked to the Ponte Accademia, across the Grand Canal, and to the Guggenheim. After exploring half of the museum, I wasn’t that impressed by the art (though the collection was amazing); however, when I crossed to the other side of the museum, I ended up finding some paintings that I was blown away by. In the collection, there were a few paintings by Maxwell Ernst, who I had never heard of before. He did very fantastical paintings of humanoid creatures, and I absolutely fell in love with his paintings “The Antipope” and “The Bride.” I ended up staring at them for quite a while, but I eventually was ready to go and began to look for others who would want to leave.

Unfortunately, my search was fruitless, and I ended up hanging with others for a while (and taking pictures on the outside of the museum facing the Grand Canal). 

The Guggenheim 

The Ponte Accademia

Eventually, some people went to leave and I joined them. However, soon outside, they stopped in a few shops, and I decided to head out on my own in hopes of finding two shops on my list that were nearby.  I eventually found the street that one of them was on, but everything was closed and it was getting dark so I headed back across the Ponte Accademia. Once across, I actually bumped into another group of Accademia students, and I walked back with them to the hostel.

It was good that I found them since it actually ended up being really difficult to find the hostel again. We ended up accidentally walking to the Rialto (where the girls found a jewelry shop they loved. I was not as impressed—the beadwork was really cheap) before we were able to re-orient ourselves and find our way back. Unfortunately, Venice never got really easier to navigate. None of the streets are straight, there are so many side streets that are not on any map, and the signs pointing you to important places never are frequent enough to be helpful. I have a great sense of direction, but Venice completely baffled me, and I got lost numerous times. However, after Venice, my sense of direction has improved a ton.

From the hostel, everyone then headed out again to go to dinner with Claudia and Gianni. They took us to a restaurant on the other side of the Rialto and around some twisty passages. Once there, the fare proved to be very bare but expensive (15 euro for plain pasta and some cookies. Bleh). However, Claudia and Gianni made the night so entertaining that it was worth it. During dinner, Claudia had us play a game of charades where we acted out the qualities of foods and had people guess what we were, and Gianni sang to us a song in Spanish, which was beautiful.  There also was this random guy who would occasionally stick his head into our room and yell trying to get us to yell back (which ended up being more funny than annoying).

Once we left the restaurant, Gianni and Claudia decided they should lead us to a club. After getting advice and directions from several different people, they began to lead us on one of the strangest walks I’ve ever taken. In the dark of the night, Gianni lead us through twisting alleys all the while having us repeat chants after him or copying his movements like ducklings. There was also a plaza where the entire group ended up doing a Greek circle dance (and some native Venetians stopped to watch us) and another where there was a large fountain or ice-skating rink that still had ice on it that we all decided to climb over the metal railings to play on.

Eventually, we reached the club/bar area, and Gianni and Claudia left us to determine our plans. I ended up heading back immediately with some people who weren’t interested in staying out. We got very lost attempting to find our way back (bumping into the yelling guy from the restaurant on the way), but eventually the combined powers of Meredith and I eventually found the Rialto, and we were able to easily get back from there.

The next morning, I got up after 8am and went to breakfast at the hotel (I had cereal and some bread). Since we already had to buy a waterbus ticket to get to our one and only class that afternoon (which we would be compensated for), almost everyone opted to spend 3 euros more to just buy a day pass for the waterbus (which we would not be compensated for) and to see the outer islands. Nick and I headed out earlier than everyone else and found a waterbus station close to the hostel. We then took the waterbus to the cemetery island. 

The cemetery island

Although there were a few famous people buried there, we ended up just wandering around and checking out some of the churches on the beautiful grounds. Eventually, we went back to the waterbus stop and went over to Murano.

Murano, in case you don’t know, is an island that is famous for it’s glassmakers. However, once we reached the island, we learned that this basically only manifested through shops. There apparently was a glass museum somewhere and I ended up finding a giant glass statue, but otherwise it looked like the island ‘s main attraction was shopping. This wasn’t bad though, and Nick and I enjoyed going into all of the stores. He ended up buying some gifts for his girlfriend and his mother, and I ended up getting some gifts for friends (again, not telling!) and a beautiful glass ladybug at a really tiny shop where a man was molding glass in the store.

On Murano 

Murano

Murano

Eventually, we began bumping into other people in the group, and then it was time to take the waterbus to class. Nick, Arthur, and I ended up quickly stopping in a very fast food pizza place (which also, amusingly enough, had a guy blowing glass in the shop next door) and then grabbing gelato before we got on the waterbus. From there, the bus took us completely around the main island of Venice and down to Giudecca, where we would have class. 

View from the waterbus 

View from the waterbus

Giudecca

We met Gianni and Claudia at the waterbus station, and they took us to a really nice dance studio to have class in for three hours. In class, we did partner improv with Claudia (mostly using body parts to lead someone around), a god and creation exercise with Gianni (which the dancers had done before), some tarantella with Gianni, and an exercise where we created improv pieces based around paintings given to us.

The studio where we had class 

Once we were done, we headed back to the top of the Grand Canal. I was interested in seeing the Jewish Ghetto, some others were interested in exploring, and another group was interested in going to Chabad. So a rather large group ended up getting off at that stop. I stuck with the non-Chabad group planning to just wander, but I really wanted to find a synagogue before we left. Unfortunately, most of the non-Chabad group just wanted to wander in general so I ended up leaving them and attempting to join up with the Chabad group. To my bad luck, they were already gone, so I wandered back through the piazza and streets of the ghetto. Luckily, I then found a group of Jewish American tourists (clearly all from one temple) who were leaving a synagogue after Friday night services. By listening in on their conversations, I was able to locate the two main temples in the area (I even tried to go in one, but access was denied), and I left feeling much better.

Entrance to the Ghetto 

Synagogue in the Ghetto

The piazza in the Ghetto 

While walking back towards the hotel, I bumped into the non-Chabad group and, after a short snack for some of the group, we took the waterbus down the Grand Canal to the Rialto. We then walked back to the hostel (where I took a shower) and then Arthur, Nick, Mimi, and I headed out to dinner together. We mostly wandered without direction and eventually found a really nice restaurant down some twisty backstreets. The prices ended up being really good, the portions big, and the food tasty so we ended up spending a few hours there and basically left after the restaurant closed. Heading back to the hostel proved to be slightly difficult since we had ignored directions while looking for a restaurant, and, after heading in what we thought was the right direction, we actually ended up in Piazza San Marco! However, from there it was easy to find the hostel and we got back with no more problems.

The next day was my last day in Venice, so I got up early to have the most time to explore. After eating breakfast and making plans to later meet Nick at Piazza San Marco, I headed out alone to find some of the shops on my list. And, for the first time in Venice, I had quite a bit of luck finding things and not getting lost. From the Rialto, I was able to find not only two shops on my list, but two cool mask shops, and the purse shop I had seen before (and never thought I’d see again) that had right color flower purse that I wanted (there were these flower purses all over Venice, but none of the colors appealed to me except the one in this shop).  Soon after, Nick called me, but I wasn’t fast enough to pick it up, and he forgot that I couldn’t call anyone back at that time. I assumed he was headed to the piazza so I headed in that direction. This proved a little trickier than expected, but I eventually reached the piazza without any backtracking. Luckily, when I reached the piazza, Nick was there too, and we chatted and took pictures while waiting for Mimi to meet up with us.

Eventually, she called to tell us that she would just meet us in the church, so we went in. And it was amazing! The mosaics and gold tiles covering the ceiling were absolutely incredible, and I’m really surprised that I did not get a crick in my neck from staring up so much! Nick and I ended up seeing a lot of other Accademia students while walking through the church, and, by the time we did the full circuit, Mimi had arrived and we did it again. (Not that I was complaining.)

After Mimi had a chance to look around (and I took some covert pictures—there was a sign saying no photos, but everyone in the church was taking photos and not getting yelled at so I thought, “Why not?”), we left the church and decided to stop back at some of the previous shops I found before going to lunch.

We quickly found the hat shop (which was now open, but turned out to be very boring), but the favorites for Mimi and Nick were the mask shops I found. The first had your standard variety of well-made but not ridiculously expensive masks and we all took their card before leaving. The second had some typical masks too, but they also had a ton of amazing animal masks. While Mimi debated getting a cat mask there, Nick headed back to the first mask shop to buy one for his girlfriend. Eventually, Mimi bought the mask and we went to go find Nick and get lunch. Unfortunately, we got completely lost and had to back track a few times before we finally found the shop.  We then all headed out to lunch and then had gelato at a fancy gelateria near our hostel. From there, we then headed across the Ponte Accademia to try and find the jewelry shop I had gotten lost trying to find before.

Along the way, we made a surprise find. On the other side of the Ponte Accademia, we found the mask shop that supplied the masks for the Tom Cruise film, Eyes Wide Shut. Inside there were a ton of amazing masks, but my attention was quickly captured by the hats in the shop. All of them had bases of top hats or three-cornered hats and feathers and lace galore, and I was completely enraptured by them all. I’m pretty sure I ended up trying every hat in the shop, but I quickly fell in love with a red and black hat that fit me perfectly. Of course it was hand made and expensive, but, after a discount and talks about transporting the hat with the owner, I decided to buy it. And I’m so happy I did.

The mask shop

The mask shop

From there, we all combined our powers of navigation with my map, but were unable to locate the jewelry shop. We eventually reached an unnamed piazza and happily decided to give up. Amusingly, as we turned around, it turned out that the shop was right there and that the unnamed piazza was the piazza we had been looking for. Unfortunately, the shop was closed, but the jewelry ended up being really ugly, so no loss there.

We then headed back to San Marco where we took some time to just sit by the beautiful water and chat.

Eventually, it was getting to be close to the time of the train we wanted to catch, so we headed back to the hostel to get our bags. However, we (coughNickcoughcough) sort of misjudged the distance between the hotel and the train station, so we ended up walking fast/running to reach the station in time. Even though we nearly lost Mimi twice (the first time in a crowd when she dropped something and a nice stranger retrieved it for her and the second time when she nearly missed getting on the train attempting to validate her ticket), we all made it on the train we wanted. (Mimi ended up validating her ticket at the next stop by quickly jumping off and then back on again once it was stamped). The train then took us from Venice to Bologna (where Nick and I grabbed a quick McDonald’s for dinner in the 20 minutes we had before we switched trains) and then from Bologna to Arezzo. Due to the late hour, Nick, Mimi, the other Accademia students who had taken that train, and I took a cab back to the villa.

And that was our wonderful trip to Venice!

Ciao!