Friday, 3/14/03
It's actually Saturday morning, 3am. We are in a scary hostel.
Monday, 3/17/03
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Kate, Dixie, and Marty must be living it up right now. How cool would it be to have your 21st birthday on St. Patrick's Day, in Dublin? We're on the Gatwick Express, leaving London for Gatwick airport. I can't believe I let myself get 5 days behind.
Okay, so Thursday was our proclaimed idiot's day. We did so many stupid things, I just have to call that day dumb. In order to have fond memories, I just have to make a joke out of it.
Carmen, Valerie, and I went to Verona. We didn't have too much of a hassle catching a train, but Verona was a much bigger city than we anticipated. We had to catch a bus to the old part of town where the arena, Juliet's house, and the other sited were located. The problem was that we didn't understand the bus system. We got on the route we thought was right, but it took us all through the residential part of the city. We knew something was wrong when we wasted an hour and ended up back at the train station. We got on another bus and it took us to Piazza Bra, where the arena is. I finally figured out that the bus routes were linear and not circular, the station was in the middle of the route, and we had just gotten on the bus that was going the wrong way. How were we to know when there wasn't a sign anywhere?
We finally got to the arena, the third largest in Italy after the Colosseum, and the one in Napoli. I loved it, not having been able to go inside the Colosseum in Rome. Valerie and I fenced with sticks and wires and then Carmen ran across the floor yelling! A group of students on a field trip were up in the stands and they clapped for her. I felt like Roberto Benigni in La Vita E Bella, saying that you can yell and cream in the city and nobody cares, then you do it and suddenly your self consciousness says it isn't okay anymore.
We climbed to the top, laughed, then left. Next we walked to Giulietta's house, or the Renaissance house that someone decided to have represent Juliet. It isn't a must see, because of course Romeo and Juliet didn't really happen. But it still was a nice house, with wooden ceiling beams, 4 stories, little exhibits (my favorite was the renaissance costumes for R&J in glass cases) and of course the balcony.
Next we went to the Castel Vecchio, the local castle that's been converted into a museum. A lot of religious art. I've discovered my taste. Religious art and all that jazz is all and well, but it doesn't interest me overly much to see a picture of a person or story I already know. I like art that I can interpret, or question. Some earlier art I can do that, I don't need to stereotype, but in general I think I like impressionistic and on. If I learn more about the history of art (instead of architecture) I'm sure I'll love Renaissance and earlier art, though. I do like light quality in paintings like Caravaggio or Vermeer. We had a lot of fun imitating the expressions of the painting portraits.
At one point I remarked to Valerie that ---- would probably want to write a new interpretation of Romeo and Juliet where Juliet climbs the balcony. That stemmed from conversations with ---- earlier. She is obsessed with feminism. She was so excited about seeing the black Madonna in Santa Maria della Salute, then mentioned that Marco was "pretty good about giving the Madonna her due." First of all, we're talking about art here. How could Marco skip over her? She's in 50 million representations in every church we go to!
Anyway, after the castle we hopped on a bus, but IDIOTS THAT WE WERE, we got on the one that was going the wrong way. And this time it was obvious it was going to wrong way. It was on the wrong side of the street! So we wasted another hour and missed our train by five minutes. To make ourselves merry we went to the McDonalds (they have one in almost every big station). I got a milkshake (chocolate, because they didn't have strawberry), then I indulged anew in a fudge sundae!
A lot of our girly conversations have revolved around "old man crushes" stemming from Freud's reverse oedipal complex (we want to kill our mothers and marry our fathers). ---- has a crush on Marco. Almost everyone else is Dr. R. The funny thing is that as a psychologist Dr. R isn't even Freudian, he's Jungian!
So I forgot to write that after we left the Castel Vecchio I reached into my pocket to get something, but my ticket blew away. The only reason I needed the thing was to get my refund, but it blew in the moat! I didn't think it would be very smart to climb (or roll) into the moat, even if it was dry. So I fished another ticket out of the trash. Haha.
I'm going to try to sum up the last few days as soon as possible because it's late and some really important things have happened. In a little town outside Venice there was a cemetary that Carlos Scarpa, the architect we've been following with Peter, designed in the '60s. It was really neat, a lot of square geometrics in 3 dimensional patterns. But when Kate, Omar, Chase, and I went into a nearby cafe to find a restroom, the little old lady there started babbling really fast in Italian. We made out that she was asking if we were architectural students come to see Scarpa's work. Then she grabbed Omar's arm and made him sit down at a table, still chattering. Kate thinks she said that Omar looked like Scarpa and that Scarpa had sat there when he was 8 years old. We were weirded out so we left, confused.
Kate and I ended up paying €1 each for gross sandwiches so we could use the gross bathroom at another restaurant. It was the first time I'd used a hole-in-the-ground potty.
Next, we stopped at the Villa Rotunda outside Vicenza just to take pictures of the outside. Kate and I took the first train back to Venice once we got into the city of Vicenza. We had to have plenty of time to catch our shuttle. We visited San Giorgio and San Marco really quick then caught #1 to the Autobus statione (Piazza Roma). We had to run all over the square to find where to get our shuttle tickets, then where the bus was. Dixie and Marty weren't sure if they would make it by 7, and were freaking out. But all of us made it on time. Our shuttle, check in, and flight all went smoothly. While we were waiting, the airport played North by Northwest in Italian. We met two American girls who were studying in London and had gone to Italy for their Spring Break. Thank goodness. When we got to London Stansted, it was midnight and we had no clue how to get anywhere. Dixie, Marty, and Kate spent the night in the airport because their flight to Cork left early the next morning, but Valerie, Carmen and I had to get to our hostel. The two girls helped us find the Stansted Express train (the only train running that late), then a bus to Trafalgar Square, then we caught a cab to the hostel. It was a huge hassle, but at least we got there. To be continued...
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