So, as I'm sure you've heard, Italy was hit with a pretty bad earthquake on Monday. As of tonight, they're still trying to find people in the rubble. And while it's all very saddening, I did find one tidbit of the story that I thought you might enjoy...
From BBC:
"A 98-year-old woman was pulled out alive in L'Aquila after being trapped for 30 hours, local media report. She spent the time crocheting"
That is one tough Grandma. Or Nonna as they say in Italia.
Tuesday, April 7
Monday, April 6
tmam: parte duo
Today's "to do list" is quite long, but I know you're waiting for the second installment of the story I started on Friday, so I'll tell a bit more to hold you over til I have more time.
M and I often joked that we spent the first year of dating apart more than together. Leaving him at the end of sophomore year was hard, and I immediately began counting the days until he would visit. He was in Colorado most of the summer so it wasn't like we could just drive to one another on the weekends. I have many wonderful handwritten letters from that summer, exchanged back and forth across the many miles.
He came for about a week just before school started and before I was to fly off to Italy. I was on cloud nine. I probably had the biggest smile plastered across my face all week. Watching him drive away at the end of that week nearly broke my heart (and his, I'm sure). My poor mother spent the rest of the following week trying to comfort my tear stained self. As any normal melodramatic young love, I was sure I was going to curl up and die without him for the next 4 months.
About a week after he left I received a package in the mail, that along with other things, contained a dated letter for each week I was in Italy. I wasn't supposed to open them until the date written on the outside. Each week was filled with anticipation of opening the next letter. It was a way of counting down the days til I was home and could see him again. I distinctly remember getting to half way and thinking, "finally... it's downhill from here."
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and tell you about Orvieto...
(next time!)
M and I often joked that we spent the first year of dating apart more than together. Leaving him at the end of sophomore year was hard, and I immediately began counting the days until he would visit. He was in Colorado most of the summer so it wasn't like we could just drive to one another on the weekends. I have many wonderful handwritten letters from that summer, exchanged back and forth across the many miles.
He came for about a week just before school started and before I was to fly off to Italy. I was on cloud nine. I probably had the biggest smile plastered across my face all week. Watching him drive away at the end of that week nearly broke my heart (and his, I'm sure). My poor mother spent the rest of the following week trying to comfort my tear stained self. As any normal melodramatic young love, I was sure I was going to curl up and die without him for the next 4 months.
About a week after he left I received a package in the mail, that along with other things, contained a dated letter for each week I was in Italy. I wasn't supposed to open them until the date written on the outside. Each week was filled with anticipation of opening the next letter. It was a way of counting down the days til I was home and could see him again. I distinctly remember getting to half way and thinking, "finally... it's downhill from here."
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and tell you about Orvieto...
(next time!)
Friday, April 3
tell me a mitzi
Today I'm feeling a bit like an antsy student in a Friday afternoon B quad class. The sun is out, my brain is with it and my focus is... well, unfocused.
I've been ruminating about how to share all of my Italy experiences with you and I've come to the conclusion that instead of just pictures, I really should start telling some stories along with them. You can't truly appreciate what this last visit there meant to me if you have no knowledge of my first memories there. So I will do my best at trying to give you a glimpse at what it looked like then and how it appears now and the life time it feels I've lived in between those visits.
---
From the moment I started looking at colleges, I knew I wanted to do a semester abroad. My college choices were narrowed down largely based on their "study abroad" programs. If they didn't have one or it was very small, they were off the list. I'm not sure when I decided on Italy, but it was early on in the process. While Wheaton did not have program going to Italy, I found Gordon College did. I had no idea at the time that picking Gordon, who had a program in Oriveto, would end up giving me such a unique experience as opposed to a program set up in Rome or Florence. I liken it to studying in NYC vs a small town in rural America. I'm not saying one is better than another... just totally different.
Sometime during the spring semester of my sophomore year I was accepted into Gordon's program for the following fall. I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to go and experience all the stereotypical things you think of when you envision Italy... food, ancient ruins, quaint shops, another language etc. Having never lived outside the country I had no inclination of how things would actually end up transpiring. While some daydreams played out nearly by the book, others were so far off the mark I had a hard time believing I'd been so off base (read as: naive).
The anticipation of my semester abroad pushed me through that spring semester. I was ready to go and have my Sabrina moment, just in Italy, not Paris. She went over there a little nerdy girl and came back this sophisticated woman! I would be untethered and free to experience it to its fullest.
HA. Oh was I ever wrong.
Towards the end of spring semester it became blatantly clear (no matter how much I tried to deny it) that I was falling for a guy. Let me correct myself. I was fallen. I fell. I was down for the count. In the beginning I had tried to say "I'm going to Italy, I don't want to be attached." But the more time we spent together and the closer we got to summer, it was evident that I would be leaving for Italy that coming fall, but my spirit was going to be wishing I was still in Wheaton.
And so my vision of what Italy would be was already changing before I even stepped foot off the plane.
(more to come next week...)
I've been ruminating about how to share all of my Italy experiences with you and I've come to the conclusion that instead of just pictures, I really should start telling some stories along with them. You can't truly appreciate what this last visit there meant to me if you have no knowledge of my first memories there. So I will do my best at trying to give you a glimpse at what it looked like then and how it appears now and the life time it feels I've lived in between those visits.
---
From the moment I started looking at colleges, I knew I wanted to do a semester abroad. My college choices were narrowed down largely based on their "study abroad" programs. If they didn't have one or it was very small, they were off the list. I'm not sure when I decided on Italy, but it was early on in the process. While Wheaton did not have program going to Italy, I found Gordon College did. I had no idea at the time that picking Gordon, who had a program in Oriveto, would end up giving me such a unique experience as opposed to a program set up in Rome or Florence. I liken it to studying in NYC vs a small town in rural America. I'm not saying one is better than another... just totally different.
Sometime during the spring semester of my sophomore year I was accepted into Gordon's program for the following fall. I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to go and experience all the stereotypical things you think of when you envision Italy... food, ancient ruins, quaint shops, another language etc. Having never lived outside the country I had no inclination of how things would actually end up transpiring. While some daydreams played out nearly by the book, others were so far off the mark I had a hard time believing I'd been so off base (read as: naive).
The anticipation of my semester abroad pushed me through that spring semester. I was ready to go and have my Sabrina moment, just in Italy, not Paris. She went over there a little nerdy girl and came back this sophisticated woman! I would be untethered and free to experience it to its fullest.
HA. Oh was I ever wrong.
Towards the end of spring semester it became blatantly clear (no matter how much I tried to deny it) that I was falling for a guy. Let me correct myself. I was fallen. I fell. I was down for the count. In the beginning I had tried to say "I'm going to Italy, I don't want to be attached." But the more time we spent together and the closer we got to summer, it was evident that I would be leaving for Italy that coming fall, but my spirit was going to be wishing I was still in Wheaton.
And so my vision of what Italy would be was already changing before I even stepped foot off the plane.
(more to come next week...)
ancient modeling
|Sculpture from Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome : a piazza designed my Michelangelo in 1536–1546, commissioned by the Farnese Pope Paul III|
|Fountain from the courtyard of the Vatican Museum, Rome|
|Sculpture from the Trevi Fountain, Rome : marks the terminal point of an aqueduct that supplied water to ancient Rome|
Thursday, April 2
orvieto
All little info on Orvieto:
Elevation: 1,066 ft
Area: 108.5 sq miles
Population: 21,000
Region: Umbria
Name origin: "ancient city" urbs vetus in Latin
|View of Orvieto from our hike to a convent nearby : I love how it just sits atop the rock, above everything else.|
|Close up of Il Duomo, Orvieto - where I attended mass on Sundays|
|Some laundry hanging on a line off of Corso Cavour : Nearly everyone line dries their clothing as a way to conserve energy costs.|
|Fruit stand of a shop off the Corso : Apple = Mele|
Elevation: 1,066 ft
Area: 108.5 sq miles
Population: 21,000
Region: Umbria
Name origin: "ancient city" urbs vetus in Latin
|View of Orvieto from our hike to a convent nearby : I love how it just sits atop the rock, above everything else.|
|Close up of Il Duomo, Orvieto - where I attended mass on Sundays|
|Some laundry hanging on a line off of Corso Cavour : Nearly everyone line dries their clothing as a way to conserve energy costs.|
|Fruit stand of a shop off the Corso : Apple = Mele|Wednesday, April 1
making room for italia
I decided that with the onslaught of pictures I'm sure to lay upon you, I should resize things a bit to give you the best viewing experience. Now, I realize that not everyone is browsing via a 24" screen, so please holler if this layout looks crazy on your 1024x768. I may have gone a bit bigger than need be. I'll see if I can find a happy medium for all.
lunedi, marzo ventuno
|Piazza San Angelo, Orvieto|
|Costa De' Magnoli, Firenze|
|Piazza Simone Mosca, Orvieto|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)