Sunday, 3/2/03
What a day, what an eventful day, what a stressful day! I got up at 7am to catch the 8:38 train to Arezzo. It's been raining all day, but it's not cold so it's kind of nice. I went down to breakfast at 8, but here at Santa Chiara breakfast is at 8:30 on Sundays. Luckily Jesus (Hey-Zeus) had already set out the cereal (cereal!) and milk (milk!) so I got some, my first of either since I've been in Italy.
While I was waiting for the train an Italian man introduced himself to me. His name was Guiseppe, and he's been to Massachusetts and New York. When we got on the train I sat by an older couple and their daughter, who were American tourists on their way from Cortona, to Firenze, to Pisa. But something happened. The train didn't go anywhere. People started hanging out the windows trying to figure out what was going on, and suddenly there were two ambulances and a slew of police cars. We thought someone had gotten hit by the train at first, then we heard there was a fight (there were a few Italians who spoke a little English and filled us in best they could). People were getting off the train, getting on again, not knowing what to do. The conductors didn't even come by to let anyone know what was happening.
Finally, we saw the police bring out an Italian woman, a larger woman with dyed red hair, in hand cuffs off the train. It came out--she had taken a policeman's gun and shot two policemen. How the situation started, I haven't a clue. Next we saw the body bags coming from the train to the ambulances. The American man automatically jumped to the conclusion that she must be a terrorist. I think that is B.S. Needless to say, that train wasn't going anywhere. We had to wait for the next Firenze-bound, which was over a hour later.
Anna cheered me up after church with fun questions like what my favorite animal was, and we talked about food. Paola, a sister in the branch, asked me over to her house next Sunday which I am excited about, but also nervous, because she understands English but doesn't speak it as well.
Monday, 3/3/03
When I got home there was no way I was going to go to the Carnivale in Val di Chiana with everyone else. I went to sleep. It turned out however, that it was canceled anyway, because of the rain. So much for the puppet factory, and so much for the actual carnival.
After dinner Peter showed tow 15 min videos by the super studio group from the '60s and '70s, which were weird and a little over my head. He lectured after that, but I wasn't about to stay when I had work to do. I went to Morgan's room and sketched her camcorder plug. She asked me what my goals and dreams were, and I told her about wanting to be a writer. She said, "I think you will be a better writer for majoring in architecture." I nearly jumped for joy. She is the first person I've told that to, whose first reaction wasn't "Why are you majoring in architecture?" I was happy she understood the general concept of how design can apply to anything and that more than anything, this degree stimulates my creativity in a way not found in, say, an English degree.
I forgot to mention that I talked to Britt after dinner about what happened this morning. She heard about it on the radio and apparently just one policeman died. The woman probably had drugs or something guilty on her, so when the man asked for her identification she pulled a gun and shot him. And we think it happened while the train was in progress before Castiglion so it wasn't a local person.
That doesn't change the tragedy of the occurrence, though. When I went to Morgan's room I told them (Morgan, Kate, Omar, and Marie) what happened. Kate and Omar said that at Cafe Ignorante this morning they saw it on the news, that everyone in the cafe stopped what they were doing and watched it. They, of course, didn't know what was going on because it was in Italian. Peter was there and they asked him to translate, but he was on his cell phone so he just said, "Oh, somebody got shot. It's nowhere near here."
So, back in Morgan's room the conversation took a twist. Morgan and Dixie decided to draw her boobies. They were making fun of what flat chests they have. Then Kate came in and drew hers, with a very exaggerated hourglass figure. They came up with the idea for everyone to add to it, but laughed at what the cleaning ladies would think if they saw elementary pornography on their wardrobe doors (we've seen many more explicit things in the art museums). Idalia joined us and drew a ridiculous picture of herself. I figured I might as well do it too, so I drew a one line profile of my body, including my stomach pudge, and labeled it "Mountainous Horizon". Kate was "Mt. Vesuvius" and Dixie was "Mosquito Bites". When I came upstairs I told Cady and Karin that if they went to Dixie, Morgan, and Kate's room, to be prepared to draw their boobies. They decided that now was a good time, so we all went back down. Cady labeled hers "Swamp Thing".
What an activity for a Sunday night!
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