Gondola Gondola Gondola???

Oh man!! Its a beeeautiful day today! I feel so lucky. My Italian class this morning got cancelled so I took a nap, ate breakfast at a little indoor patio table in the sun (breakfast consisting of a chocolate stuffed croissant and a cappuccino..yum!) and started a new book because its just that kind of day! The old one is boring me out of my mind so I'm so ready for a little good ol' storytelling in my life, and decided to be quite frank with the old book--I'm sorry old friend. We just don't match that well. I'm also not attending my site visit lecture (a) because I can go tomorrow and enjoy right now more and (b) because I've been dying to tell you about Venice!!

Oh my god... what an adventure. I feel so blessed to have such insane opportunities thrown at me. I started off by going on a class field trip to Siena on Friday which was just...beautiful. The huge open square in the morning sun was a perfect place to sit with a coffee and happily bake, with the coolness of the air oh so refreshing. We went to a couple museums and were lectured at for a bit, but my favorite part of Siena was experiencing the beauty of the city. It was the PERFECT mix of medieval Assisi and urban Florence. For lunch some friends and I got pizza (mine had hot dog pieces on it and was delicious! Can you believe it?? Hot dogs and pizza... Oh Italy), and then we bought ourselves small cups of gelato and laid flat out on the huuuge brick square in the center of town. We cat napped and chatted and I did handstands just to prove to all the smoking, sitting, standing Italians that I was a crazy American (you'll see pictures of this soon. Check facebook). And once we finished we were bussed over to San Gimignano, a very small town with a beautiful church, and there my friends Marina and Travis and I ordered glasses of white wine and sat outside of the winery in the freezing cold toasting the sweet grapes of life.

No sooner had we returned to school (about 7:15 PM) that Travis and I caught a cab and raced to the train station to make our way to Venice. We met our friends, hopped aboard, found ourselves on the mainland and all dropped fast asleep in our tiny little trailer rooms at a hostel called the "Camping Fusina". It was very cute, and in the morning...very cold. We checked out and found ourselves a ferry to Venice and before we knew it, Venice itself--its small islands of claw like dead trees, abandoned, crumbling brick, church domes glinting and water sloshing against the bright green algae at its edges like a skirt--it all emerged from out of the humid morning mist, and I fell in love. People dressed in cloaks and bright masks, in clown costumes and pirate attire strolled down the streets as if it were any other day. Some of the costumes were extraordinary: full length gowns on both men and women, with their whole faces disguised behind white, other worldly masks. There was gauze and there were veils. There were beads, sequins, fabrics of all shades and shine. There were parasols and tall staffs decorated in ribbons, skulls, rhinestones and strings. The further we walked into the city, the more we saw.

The streets were absolutely packed for Carnivale. The entire day (and towards the end it got very old) you were pushed, bumped, squashed and bustled because of the enormity of the crowds. San Marco square, despite the fact that it was crawling with tourists and spectators, was absolutely unbelievable. It was like being in a dream. All the books and all the films I've ever read or seen that had made mention of this place suddenly were realized before me. The griffon on the pillar... The gilded horses on the church... The gondolas and gondoliers in their striped shirts and red ribboned hats beckoning to excited visitors. The canals glowed and looked like postcards even to your eyes, before you even snapped a photo. As we made our way through San Marco, five Italians stood on stilts within enormous giraffe costumes. Their faces midway up the long necks that they could bend down, pretending to drink from a surprised Italian woman's cappuccino cup, nuzzle pretty women's cheeks, and kiss me as I took a picture and exclaimed "Ciao!!!" while laughing histarically. They meandered past us, through the crowds, and we were left in a persisting state of amazement at the costumes and surprises of Carnivale around us.

We walked for hours and found dance parties to join, small children in tiger and lion costumes throwing confetti (the place was COVERED in confetti!! Which, by the way, is an Italian word!) and all kinds of amazing vendors of masks, cloaks, hats, beads, glass, and candies. Eventually we got hungry and found ourselves a small dock on the Grand Canal by the Rialto where we unloaded pre-prepared nutella sandwhiches, pistaccios, oranges and wheat cookies and we had our feast. The day was really such a blur. After eating I even ran into Lydia Deutch and Christine Carletta from Bowdoin in some random square! Just by sheer fate or coincidence or whatever you want to call it. We found each other all at once, in Venice, when we came from varying points of Italy and had no idea we would run across each other here. I almost cried from laughing.

By 10 PM we were pretty exhausted and found ourselves a small restaurant where the waiter repeatedly harrassed one girl in our group by sneaking up behind her and announcing "ONE LASAGNA!" or "HERE'S YOUR SALAD!" making her jump, and making us absolutely crack up. The food was good, but for lack of sleep that weekend I felt myself getting sick. So...for the rest of the night I dawdled in back, basically sleep walking and praying for 3 AM to come around when we'd catch our train back home. Luckily, no one noticed me being too much of a zombie, so I don't feel too bad. We got back to Florence at 6:30 AM and my roommate and I slept until 2. I'm still recovering from all that travel, but let me say, it was the weekend of a lifetime.

Anyway. Dad's here! He came in last night and we went to the four seasons to get good food. We ordered wine but decided it was too stuffy for us, so they gave us a recommendation for a noisier, wonderful restaurant and gave us the wine and some little dessert treats for free!! I'm loving how Italy is teaching me to speak up when I don't like something or when I want to do something else...haha, see what we got out of it? We found the amazing little place straight down the street from dad's hotel and had a wonderful meal. I even got dad to stay up a few hours longer to see me play the open mic at BeBop (although I've decided its not my favorite venue and I don't think I'll be going there again... too many bored Italians and loud Americans who don't care about who's performing). Although! I did run into Federico 1 from my last visit which was funny, even introducing him to dad although neither of them could communicate with each other. Anyway. I slept so well last night despite the sniffles and I'm thrilled that this week is going to be gorgeous. Gonna go get some errands done so I can study for midterms later...yikes! Love you all very, very much. Sorry this is so long. Thinking of you much. xoxo Em