Ciao, Venezia!

Today, this is the view from my window.  View from inside the Doge's Palace in Venice.

 Let me first begin this post by affirming that the world is a really beautiful place.  And, having traveled to Europe before and now having stayed here for a month, I've seen a lot of truly, truly beautiful sights: unforgettable orange and red sunrises laced with purple and pink; the most intricately decorated, beautiful cathedrals; sweeping mountain vistas lovingly guarding the incredible city of Florence...the list goes on.  But none of these things, even all combined, can even hold a candle to Venice, which has got to be the most beautiful city in the world.

I'm including some pictures, but keep in mind that pictures can't even begin to do it justice.

I don't know what it is that is so enchanting about the city of Venice- and it's a feeling that really can't be captured, neither in pictures nor in words.

Maybe the wonder of Venice is partially in the history, or the way that this history can be read throughout the city, in the art and the architecture.  The city of Venice was a powerhouse at one time, perhaps the greatest (and richest) trading city in the Western world in the late 1200s.  The interesting thing about Venice is that for so many years, because of trade, it sat as economic center of the East and West, but this intersection extends far beyond economics and also is apparent in the aesthetics of Venice.

The Doge's Palace

The simplest example, to be seen all over Venice, is in the arches. Around Europe, you will see Gothic pointed arches at certain points in the city.  However, the Florentines, for example, usually prefer rounded arches because they remind them of ancient Rome.  The Gothic arch (notice how the top is slightly pointed, not totally round), particularly in Venice, can actually be traced back to Islamic architecture in the Middle East and some of the buildings in Venice would have been less foreign to the great number of Islamic merchants who would have been in the city at any one time.  As I walk through the streets, I imagine what it must have been like when Venice was a huge trading center: people in every type of clothing, speaking every different language, running everywhere, loading and unloading ships, making business deals on the side streets in the restaurant and cafes!!!  What a sight!  Of course, the pace is a bit slower now and the many different kinds of people are all tourists headed by tour guides and flanked by large cameras, but the rich diversity in the architecture still reflects the diversity that would have thrived in this city centuries ago.

The interior of St. Mark's Basilica (this is not
actually my picture because you're not
allowed to take photos insdie)

Also interesting to note, while the Romans and Florentines prefer to see themselves as descendants of the great power and majesty of the Roman Republic or Empire (Florence was originally a Roman colony), the Venetians trace their heritage back to the Byzantines (the later, Eastern half of the Roman Empire, see my post about Ravenna or skim a Wikipedia article if the term "Byzantine" doesn't mean much to you).  Remember the rich, golden, beautiful mosaics from Ravenna?  The Venetians did the interior of their cathedral this way, and totally in gold!!  The Renaissance Florentines would have though this building to be old-fashioned, though I doubt even their critical eyes could deny the grandeur of it.  The Venetians, on the other hand, were very proud of their connections to Byzantium and were glad to display it for all to see.  Imagine stopping to say your prayers or go to mass in a church like this 500 years ago...it's truly awe-inspiring!!

From the 1400s on, Venice began to decline in importance.  Coming out of the Dark Ages, the rest of Europe was ready to participate significantly in trade and business again and pressures were also rising from the East.  However, for Venice, even decline was elegant, as it became something of a Las Vegas for Europe's wealthiest elite (Have you heard of the grand stories of Carnevale?).  The Venetians cashed in on their centuries of wealth and it was truly a city of luxury.  I picture 18th century men and women, traipsing around in their luxurious clothes during Carnevale, all wearing elaborate masks, so that they can, just for a few nights, be someone completely different.

Venice today is so crowded with tourists that it's ridiculous.  It's an act, to dodge the huge tour groups through the narrow streets and avoid the street vendors trying to sell you "Venetian" goods that were more likely made in China (a modern intersection of East and West, indeed!).  However, taking a second look and blocking all this out, this city has not lost that timeless Venetian charm.  I don't think it ever will.

Fare un sciopero

Today, this is my window on the world.
The view from the train as we travel to Cinque Terre.

When you are sitting in a classroom in Tallahassee, Florida learning Italian vocabulary words, there are some that you know you will use if you ever travel.  For example, una pizza, un'aranciata (an orange soda), and vorrei (a polite way of saying "I would like...").  Apart from that, you learn a few words that you don't think you will ever hear again.  I encountered one such word, a word that you hope you never have to hear, this weekend: sciopero (strike).

To start from the beginning, I spent the weekend with Michelle and Andrea in a group of five towns on the coast not too far from Florence known the Cinque Terre.  We stayed in Monterosso but any of the Cinque Terre will offer you the most beautiful beaches and views along with the laid back, fun atmosphere of a beach town.  We hiked and spent time at the beach, soaking up not only the sunshine, but also the beautiful views and incredible scenery.  Except for a couple of rude Italians and a run-in with an equally rude jellyfish (la medusa, another word you hope you never have to use), it was an amazing weekend!!

On the way to Monterosso, we had only words of praise for the TrenItalia system: it's cheaper than a lot of places in Europe, it runs efficiently, it gets us where we want to go....  Little did we know that we were about to run right into the middle of a sciopero,  a strike.  According to Rick Steves, my Comparative Politics professor and pretty much everyone else who has spent any amount of time in Italy, train workers strikes are a pretty common occurrence, hardly even worth noting.  

The thing that struck (no pun intended) us as funny was not that the strike was happening or that it was only in Tuscany, but that it only lasted for twelve hours.  There were literally signs hanging up in the station telling you that the strike would end at 9:00 PM.  It was scheduled, planned and definite.  The people at the information table told us that if none of the trains back to Florence came through before then, there would be a train after 9.  Somehow, this is such a foreign idea.  It seems to me that when I hear about strikes happening in America, we are talking about things that last indefinitely, until demands are met or conditions are changed.  Here, for the train workers, it seems to be just a way to make a statement and cause inconvenience for the travelers and the train companies, more of a light, nudging reminder, than a forceful demand....but that's just my opinion.  

In the end we got home around 10, catching a stray trais running through Pisa and another train passing through Florence on its way to another city outside of Tuscany.  It was more of a light inconvenience than a tremendous problem.  Andrea cursed Socialism for the three hours that we waited in the station at La Spezia and she's probably right to do that.  Regardless of the cause, however, this too is part of the Italian experience and I'm so glad to be here that I will take even the quirks and inefficiencies of this beautiful nation in stride.

Completely deserted train station in Pisa.

We couldn't resist savoring a small taste of efficient
and functional capitalism! 

This is the view from my window.

Since arriving in Florence, I have developed a peculiar fascination with windows.  The first thing I noticed when I arrived was the incredible view out my window.  I spent three of the first six hours I was here sticking my head out the window as far as possible and gawking in disbelief.  I look out my window the outside world, into windows at some other inside world and I've even started noticing windows that are not actually real windows.  Next time you are out and about, notice how many different types of windows there are, it's fascinating really.

This is an illusion, notice that half of the windows are painted.

Windows allow us to look out at the world.

Magritte

Windows allow us to look into someone else's world, if only for a moment.

Hopper


And finally, windows force us to contemplate the act of looking itself.

Dali

This blog is my framing of the world through my own eyes and I want you, amici, to see it as a window into my experiences here in Florence.  

So, without further ado.....

 Today, this is my window to the world:

If you think that, after all that, my window looks more like the interior of a church than an actual window, that's because it is the interior of a church.  But it's also a window, I promise.  

The interior of this church is in Ravenna, Italy, which was the capital of the Byzantine empire for some time. (We visited there last Friday)  Although the Byzantine Empire has long since been wiped off the face of the planet (and out of the memories of most of the planet’s people, I think), the amazing churches that remain in the city of Ravenna are a testament to the long-bygone glory of the largely forgotten empire.

The Baptistery of one of the churches.

The Byzantine Empire was one of the fragments of the Roman Empire left after its downfall and it was a holy empire, really holy.  The emperor was believed to have been an incarnation of Christ on Earth and much power was centered on Christianity.  As far as holiness goes, I don’t know much about 1500-year-old emperors being Christ-incarnated, but I do know the feeling that stepping into one of these churches gives you.  They are grand and, for lack of a better word, shiny, with mosaics that are so lushly colored that it feels like you are stepping into a mystical forest or garden.  They feel open and luminous, I think that this has a lot to do with the way the light reflects off of the individual tiles of the mosaics, it’s glorious, truly glorious.  

Somehow, I feel like these churches are windows for us to another realm, to something divine, heavenly and more beautiful that we can even imagine.  So beautiful, in fact, that we couldn't handle more than the sneak peak that a window provides.  Maybe this is a small taste of heaven: lush, glorious, colorful, luminous, with every individual soul glowing with infinite light and joy…

         

Honestly, I never wondered what heaven looked like until I saw the inside of this church, but now I think I have a pretty good idea.

Un giorno nella citta' bellissima

Ciao amici!

Classes started yesterday and it's crazy because, after less than a week, Florence is really beginning to feel like my home.  The city is surprisingly very manageable and although I don't know my way around the city in its entirety yet, I feel pretty confident walking around in the corner where we live and study.  It helps that there are so many huge, memorable landmarks (i.e. il Duomo and the other large churches and buildings).

Last night, I spent the nicest evening I've had so far in Florence just walking around the city with Michelle and Andrea, le mie compagne di stanze.

Our journey started out just a few minutes from our home in a church that we were just going to look at.  The church we went to for Sunday mass, Santa Felicita, was much newer than this was and was very clearly in a late Rennaisance/Baroque style.  This church, on the other hand, had art spanning from the early 1000s when it was built to one sculpture that had the year 1982 inscribed on it.  Really, it looked something like an antique  sale at first, as if everything in the building were just randomly placed there for storage.  However, the more time I spent there, the more I grew to love the little church and appreciate the eclectic pieces.  Really, this church, by itself, could probably tell the whole history of Florence, which is an unfathomably amazing thought.

Even more beautiful than the art, however, were the people in the church.  There was a group of about eight old women praying the rosary at the very front of the church when we walked in and it was just a really beautiful sight.  When mass started as we were about to leave, we couldn't resist joining them.

Wanting to truly join in the mass with our new nonne italiane (Italian grandmothers, they don't know that they have already adopted us, but I do), we went on the hunt for an Italian missellette, that took us literally all around town to different book stores, many of which were closed because it was about 5 or 6 in the evening.  Although we didn't find our missellette (we did buy them this morning when the other stores were open), we spent the afternoon walking around the city, going back and forth between English and Italian and seeing a part of the city I hadn't seen before.  I really am starting to feel much more like a local than a tourist and, although I still have a long way to go, I really think that I am going to grow and learn a lot while I am here and I'm beyond excited for these next few months!

On another note, we had our first Art History class today and I felt like a few of the different sectors of my life started coming together.  Because we talked more about History than actual art, I learned that Florentines from the late 1200s/early 1300s onward were tremendously innovative not only in art and literature but also in the political sphere (Florence was one of the only, if not the only Republic since Rome fell) and (get excited) the realm of Economics (my favorite thing).  Did you know that many of the thirteenth and fourteenth century Florentines were among the first international bankers?  And that, long before the Euro, the Florin was a single currency that united many places?  These bankers even invented a system similar to credit cards where people could deposit money in a bank in, for example, Florence and withdraw it so that they could trade, even in large quantities, from a connected bank in, for example Switzerland or France.  Can you even imagine what an invaluable, indispensable tool an international bank would be to long-distance trade?  It's totally unbelievable!!  Now that I know that Florentine history has such vasts amounts of Economics as well as art, I don't know if I will ever be able to leave!!!

But, fortunately, that day is very far away.


Ciao for now!

Ciao, Firenze!

Ciao amici!

These last few days in Florence have been truly, truly incredible.  I CANNOT believe that there I am in this incredible place, walking the same streets as Michelangelo and Lorenzo de Medici EVERYDAY.  There is art and churched with well-known art and architecture EVERYWHERE.  Some of the most famous buildings, paintings and sculptures ARE RIGHT HERE and that is no exaggeration!!

Yesterday, I went to mass in the morning with Michelle and Andrea (two of my lovely roommates) at a church that is literally a five minute walk from our house.  Directly on the right, one of the first things you see when you walk in, was a painting called The Deposition by Pontormo, un artista working in Italy in the mid-1500s.  This is a work that I had studied in my Art History class Senior year of high school.  I never remembered the name of the church the painting was in (it is relatively small compared to, say, Il Duomo) and, of course, never even thought of trying to find it.

 I was so shocked and I tried to stay quiet but it was so hard!!  I kept saying to Michelle, "Questa e' cosi' famosa!! This is so famous!!"  To prove it, when we got back I opened one of our Art History books and it was re-printed on a whole page!

I guess that if I had to pick only a few words to describe my trip so far, it would be a stroke of buona fortuna, good luck, just like that.  This semester, all the FSU students live in the same building and guess who got the best apartment in the building??  We are on the fourth floor and we have THE BEST VIEW EVER.  From my window I see the top of some darling Florentine houses, some lovely gardens and, the best part, in the really distant horizon, the very tip-top of big tower which I lovingly refer to as "my castle."


And wait, it gets better.  I have AWESOME roommates.  I definitely feel like throughout my whole college career, I have really lucked out with respect to my roommates. (Dear Anne, Cait and Paige: I love and miss you all a ton and wish that you were here!)

We have already have several excursions and i don't have time to write about all of them, but the highlight was probably yesterday when we went to a church called San Miniato al Monte (St. Minias on the Mountain).  It's dedicated to Saint Minias, who is considered to first Florentine martyr.  He was actually an Armenian prince who was converted to Christianity when he had a vision while staying in Florence in the early first centuries AD, when Florence was still a Roman colony.  He began preaching in the streets and, as the story goes, when the Roman leader tried to boil him alive in hot oil, which was miraculously cooled the second his body touched the oil.  When lions were sent in to maul him, the lions stopped before Minias and bowed down.  Finally, the Roman leader ordered that Minias be be-headed and after the guards had done their job, Minias picked up his head and walked back to the mountains of Florence where he later died.  San Miniato was built in that spot to honor him and has grown into a reasonably large church

How Minias made that trek without his head, I can't fathom, because it was quite long and arduous for me with my body intact.  However, it was definitely worth the climb to see such a beautiful church and for such a great view of the city of Florence.

For any of you who are planning to come visit me, please bring your hiking boots because this is a trek that WE WILL be making!!

I wish I had time to write about everything that I have experienced, but it's time for me to go out and make some new memories so that I will have more to write about later...I must say ciao for now!

A Psalm of Life
What the heart of the young man said to the psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.


Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.


Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.


In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !


Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !


Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;


Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.




Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)