Arrivederci

Wow. One week later and it still hasn’t quite sunken in that I left that beautiful yellow villa on the hill. I’ve been bouncing all over Europe since then, but I’ll fill you in on all of that later. For now, here are a few highlights from my final two weeks in Arezzo:

We had a few finals those last two weeks, including movement, Italian, and the two-week class we had to round out the semester called “Chorus and the Individual,” taught by Joe Fenner. For movement, we had to work with a partner to create a choreographed piece inspired by a picture, and based on seven different physical shapes and transitions that we created after a period of improvisation. My partner was Claire, and my picture was of a boy who was asleep and sprawled across the floor with one of his legs resting on a big armchair. Claire and I had a lot of fun making our piece. We set it to “The Violet Hour” by the Civil Wars, and for the presentation, I was dressed all in black and Claire all in white. Italian was just a written exam. I could elaborate, but I fear you’d all fall asleep. For Chorus and the Individual, we had spent a few classes with Joe doing exercises about keeping the stage in balance, and about accepting the proposals that your fellow actors make to you and reacting to them in an honest way. Then, for the whole last week, we used our class time to devise final scenes in groups of seven people. My group consisted of myself, Kevin, Olivia, M.E, Mike, Julia, and Remy. The only parameters we were given were that we must choose a concrete location, and that there must be an event that occurs that involves everyone in the scene. After improvising and experimenting for a long time, we finally decided that our location would be a party, and that the event would involve Julia’s character’s ex-boyfriend showing up to the party with a gun. It was very intense at times, and certainly an interesting process leading up to what we ended up presenting. I really loved working on our scene and watching the other three groups present their scenes as well. It was a great way to end the semester because it brought all the more abstract skills we learned in movement, commedia, and voice back to realism, which is the style of acting that most of us will go on to work with in college and beyond.

 

For the third and final cabaret, I worked with Amanda, Jack and Janie to stage a movement piece while James, one of the music students and one of my very good friends, played the piano and sang Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today.” The theme of our piece coincided with the theme of the song: human kindness juxtaposed with the small, inadvertent cruelties people perform toward one another every day. It was such a great challenge for me to do this piece, since movement was one of the classes in which I struggled the most all semester, but also one of the areas in which I am most proud of my growth.

Thanksgiving in Italy was a rather surreal experience. Obviously, the Italians don’t celebrate this holiday, yet they still have a phrase for it: Il Giorno del Ringraziamento. Even though it isn’t an important day in Italy, the Accademia wanted to make it a special day for all of us American students, so Charita, our beautiful cook, made a big Thanksgiving lunch complete with Turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, and bread. The only thing missing was the pie, although I’m certainly not complaining, because Charita’s tiramisu served as a superior substitute. To commemorate the holiday some more, I went out to dinner that night with Amanda, her parents, and James to our favorite restaurant in town, Il Cantuccio. Then when we got back to the villa, we were just in time for open mic night in the Salla Danza. Amanda and I had prepared a rather avant garde piece of theatre: a dramatic reading of 100 Ways to Love a Cat, ways 1-12. If you aren’t familiar with this groundbreaking video, here is a link: 100 Ways to Love a Cat. The audience did not know what to think, which I think means we were extremely successful. Later in the lineup, I also sang a duet with my friend Laura, one of the music students. Laura has one of the most gorgeous voices I have ever heard, so it was an honor to sing one of my favorite songs, “In His Eyes” from Jekyll & Hyde, with her. Then at the end of the set, Julia and Joseph spontaneously decided to do a reprise of their movement final, and asked Clay if he would play guitar to accompany them. Clay then asked me if I would sing “Falling Slowly” from Once with him, so I happily obliged. The whole room was singing along, and Joseph and Julia danced beautifully. It was a great way to end the night.

The following night, Friday, was the farewell dinner for the music students, which was delicious, but quite bittersweet, because we didn’t want them to leave. There was wine, there was singing, there were tears, and there was a lot of lying on the roof of the teatrino to look at the stars. Seeing the bus full of my musical friends roll away at 3am was pretty rough, especially because it made our imminent departure feel all too real.

On Saturday, I headed to the morning market with another friend named Laura. We then met up with Amanda and her parents and took the train to Lucca, a beautiful walled town near Pisa. We rented bikes and rode around the wall, enjoying the views and pausing every now and then to imitate the statues we saw around us, as we theatre students tend to do. Mr. and Mrs. Garrigan rode on a tandem bicycle, which may be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. After our lovely scenic bike ride, we strolled through the town a bit, got some hot cocoa, enjoyed the Christmas decorations, and then hopped on the train to Pisa. We did a quick visit and (of course) took some headstand pictures by the leaning tower. We had dinner in Arezzo at Il Bucco di San Francesco, a strange little restaurant that looks like it once was a church basement. We then walked to Spazioseme for jazz night, because Gianni had asked me if I would come sing with the jazz musicians. Naturally, I was terrified, but I didn’t want to disappoint Gianni, and also I didn’t want to let myself down by not rising to the challenge. So we went, and watched many talented singers and musicians perform. At the end, a small group of musicians started to jam, and Gianni asked the M.C. if Julia and I could each sing a song. Julia sang “All of Me,” and I sang “Someone to Watch Over Me.” I was accompanied by Silvano, a tiny older man who is a wizard on the piano, and can apparently play any song in any key without sheet music, along with a bassist and drummer. It was thrilling to perform for Italian strangers and with Italian strangers, having never rehearsed before. I felt so proud of myself. On our way back to the villa, a group of us walked through the park and ran around the amphitheater singing at the top of our lungs, soaking in the Italian starlight. It was a great night.

The next morning was Sunday, and I walked into town with Genevieve to get my last pastries and cappuccino at Pasticceria Bruschi, our regular weekend breakfast spot. We met up with the Garrigans and strolled around the last antique fair, and then came back into town that evening for dinner at a restaurant called Il Bucco del Rey. The following night, Monday, I ate dinner in town again with the Garrigans at Mazzoni, another of our favorite trattorias. We went to a lot of restaurants those last few weeks, but I still feel like I could really go for another dish of fresh pasta, bruschetta, and red wine.

Genevieve had the brilliant idea of doing an activity similar to Secret Santa, but Thanksgiving themed, so it was called Secret Turkey. Additionally, the rule was that you couldn’t spend any money. We were encouraged to use our creative talents to surprise our person. On Monday, I made my Secret Turkey presentation for Claire. I made a slideshow of her study abroad experience, layered the karaoke track of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” over it while it played, and then sang it to her live while she watched it. I think she really liked it, and I had fun making it for her.

We had one final movement class with Claudia, during which we did some contact improv and learned one last partner lift: One person lies on the ground and places their feet on the other person’s hips. The standing person bends forward, the lying down person straightens his or her legs, and voila. Lift off. We also had two last philosophy classes with Emilija during which we shared what we’ve gained from our abroad experience, and we also got into a discussion about the accessibility of art. The hardest last class, however, was Tarantella. On Wednesday, we had one last two hour session with Gianni, where we dripped with sweat, laughed our faces off, and sang a song to each other while standing in a circle, arms linked. The words were as follows:

            “Dear friends, dear friends.

            May I tell you how I feel?

            You have given such a richness.

            I thank you so.”

We went around the circle and one by one substituted each person’s name for the word “friends.” By the end, there was not a dry eye in the room.

Our farewell dinner was the following night. The mensa was decorated with branches and fruit and candlesticks, and the piano was moved into the room so we could enjoy each other’s performances while we ate. After dinner, we all moved to the teatrino for the B’nai Mitzvah, the event that a group of students had planned for us that week. We had a candle lighting ceremony to honor each one of us, we did some traditional Hora dances (chair lift and all), we played some classic party games such as musical chair and a lip synching contest to Fergalicious (Joseph reined victorious), and danced the night away to the soundtrack of all of our middle school lives, naturally ending with “What Dreams are Made Of” from the Lizzie McGuire movie. At this event, M.E. and Russell made a surprise presentation of their secret turkey gift. Russell had me and M.E. had Amanda, so they parodied our “100 Ways to Love a Cat” performance with their own version, “100 Ways to Love a Friend,” where they jokingly fought over which one of us was a better secret turkey. It was hilarious. Since Amanda and I are basically the same person, it was the perfect gift for us. All in all, it was the best Jewish coming of age ceremony that's ever been thrown partially in my honor.

Finally, it was Friday. We had feedbacks in the morning, and then finished packing. As we all sat together to watch our final sunset, we reprised the song from tarantella and also the songs that Marjana taught us. My last dinner in Arezzo was at O’Scugnizzo, arguably the best pizza place in town. We all then headed back to Spazioseme one last time for a farewell open mic night. I surprised my ADA family by singing “Hallelujah” again in order to bookend my time in Arezzo, since I’d sung it at the very first open stage all the way back at the welcome dinner. Later in the evening, I sang, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with Alex, Laura, and Genevieve. I was holding my emotions together fairly successfully until Gianni ended the evening by singing a gorgeous song called “Arrivederci,” which was just all too apt for our current situation. Then finally, an Italian woman who I did not know at all sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and I absolutely lost it when she sang the words, “…and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” Because for me, that’s exactly what this semester was: A dream come true. I cried and cried, but when Clay asked me how I was doing, I said, “I’ve never been better.” Even though leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, those were happy tears, because I am just so very thankful to have had this wonderful experience. On our final walk back to the villa, a group of us briefly climbed up onto the aqueduct just to be able to say we did, and because it seemed like the right thing to do on our last night in town.

At our first Tramonto, which is group bonding and reflection (and means “sunset” in Italian), Genevieve had us all write letters to ourselves that we would get back at the end. I had completely forgotten what mine said, and when I read it again at our last Tramonto, I was so happy, because I really think past Kristen would be proud of present Kristen. So, as cheesy as it is, I figured I would share that letter with you all.

Dear future Kristen,

            Good for you. You’re studying abroad, which is something you’ve always dreamed of, but knew would be hard. I hope that by the time you read this again, you can honestly say that you really pushed yourself to grow, both as an artist and a human. Do things because they scare you. Make a fool of yourself. Get lost. Fall down. Find yourself again. Learn to live in the moment and accept everything that comes to you as a blessing. Most importantly, Kristen, I hope you never forget to be grateful. Even when everything is upside down and it seems like the world is ending, just smile. I’m already so proud of you for choosing to begin this journey. Make the most of every minute, and emerge from this experience with a new sense of confidence, self-worth, inspiration, and independence.

            I love you, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Always,

Kristen

This semester will always have a special place in my heart. Arrivederci, Arezzo. Arrivederci, Italia. Arrivederci, Accademia dell'Arte. Thank you for everything.

I Sette Segreti di Bologna

Today I ventured on my own to Bologna, a day trip that I've been wanting to do for a long time. Unfortunately, I neglected to check the weather before leaving the villa at 6:15am, and by the time I had walked all the way to the train station, it had started to rain. I thought, "Well, Bologna is two hours away by train, so maybe it won't be raining there!" Ha. I stepped off the train into a relentless downpour. Luckily, the coat I was wearing happened to be waterproof. But even so, it wasn't enough to protect me from the monsoon, so I reluctantly paid 5 euro for what turned out to be Italy's least effective umbrella. The Italian word for umbrella is ombrello, and all I could think was, "more like ombrell-no, amIright?" (...yeah, I know. I'm a weirdo.)

After wandering around in the rain for about an hour and finding nothing that looked remotely like central Bologna, I decided I should find a map. I bought one, and then ducked into a cafe to escape the rain and to grab a cappuccino. After studying the map, I realized I had been wandering on the outskirts of town down what seemed to be a highway. No wonder I hadn't seen anything interesting. I figured out how to get into the center of town, and then scoured the map for the locations of the seven secrets.

I know what you're thinking. "Kristen, what are the seven secrets?!" Worry not, people of the internet! I will tell you! (Disclaimer: If for some reason you don't want the mystery to be destroyed, then you should probably stop reading here.) According to legend, there are seven hidden secrets to discover in Bologna. I was intrigued by this idea when it was brought to my attention by Genevieve, so I did a little research before my visit. While in town, I successfully found five of the seven, which I count as a victory, but I don't want to leave you hanging, so I'll also tell you what the other two supposedly are. The five I did see aren't difficult to find, but if you didn't know where to look, you would likely never notice them.

1. Little Venice

This was the first secret I stumbled upon. Bologna sits on top of a series of canals that were constructed during the twelfth century. There are many places around the city to see these underground waterways, but the most beautiful and the one that most closely resembles the canals of Venice is the Canale delle Moline, which you can see from Via Piella. Supposedly there's a window you can open to see it, but I found the view just over this wall.

Canale delle Moline

2. Panis vita, Cannabis protectio, Vinum laetitia

At the end of the arcade on Via del Indipendenza leading into Piazza Maggiore, the words "Panis vita," "Cannabis protectio," and "Vinum laetitia" can be seen on the floor and ceiling. The Latin translations are, "Bread is life," "Hemp is protection," and "Wine is joy." Though marijuana is now illegal in Italy, the wealth of Bologna is partially due to the cultivation of hemp. Also, in the 1600s, the drug was considered valuable for the protection of the body, which is probably why these words are painted on the ceiling surrounded by marijuana leaves.

Left square: floor design. Right rectangle: ceiling design.

3. The Fountain of Neptune

This, in my opinion, was definitely the funniest secret. In the center of Piazza Maggiore stands a fountain featuring a large statue of Neptune. At the time the statue was created, there were regulations placed on how large its genitalia could appear. In order to sneakily rebel against these strictures, the artist designed Neptune's outstretched hand such that from a certain angle behind the statue, his finger appears to be...not a finger. 

La la la...

4. The intersection in Palazzo del Podesta

Under the dell'Arengo Tower in Palazzo del Podesta, there is an archway with four corners. Each corner transmits sound to the one diagonally across from it. The corners have blackened from the number of visitors who have spoken into them over the years. According to legend, this intersection was built during the Middle Ages so that lepers could confess without infecting the priests. When I found the intersection, I was alone so I wasn't able to try it for myself, but I stood and watched giggling couple after giggling couple give the trick a try, and from what I gathered, it does indeed work.

Top: One person in each corner. Bottom left: A couple stands together in one corner. Bottom middle: The roof of the intersection. Bottom right: The blackened wall.

5. The arrows on Strada Maggiore

At the entrance of Corte Isolani, a small alley of shops and restaurants located on Strada Maggiore, there is an archway. The ceiling of this archway consists of old wooden beams dating back to the 1400s. According to legend, a duke of Bologna once resided directly above this archway, and one night, three thieves came to shoot arrows into his home, but they got distracted by naked women in a nearby window and accidentally shot their arrows into the wooden beams on the ceiling instead. There are supposedly three arrows, but it was pretty dark from all the rainclouds, so I could only clearly see one.

Since the photo is so dark, I added the yellow circle to help you see the arrow. You may still need a magnifying glass.

And now for the secrets that I failed to find...

6. The broken vase at the top of Asinelli Tower

There are two tall towers in the center of town (known most creatively as "the Two Towers"), and there is supposedly a broken vase at the top of Asinelli Tower, the taller of the two. I saw the towers, but was unable to climb to the top due to the weather conditions. Fun fact: The shorter tower, Garisenda, leans considerably by comparison.

Two different views of the towers

7. Bread is Resistance

Bologna is home to the world's first university. "Panum resis" is supposedly written on a table somewhere at the university. I saw the outside of many of the university buildings, but was unable to go inside. Nevertheless, this inscription is assumed to mean that knowledge should be the source of every decision.

Photo collage of the University

I had a lot of fun on my little scavenger hunt for the secrets. Aside from that, I visited the Basilica di San Petronio, which may or may not have been the city's "duomo." There were some beautiful stained class windows and some really cool old music notation in the church's museum. I wandered around seeing a lot of shops and street vendors, and I enjoyed the most delicious and most messy nutella crepe. Worth it.

The altar and stained glass windows of the Basilica

Today's excursion was just what I needed to unwind from the most overwhelming week we have had thus far at the accademia. There was a dearth of sleep and an excess of stress for all as we tackled each day's challenges one at a time. We triumphantly turned in our final philosophy papers on Tuesday. I wrote about Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle." Though I'm no philosopher, I think my paper turned out pretty decently. We then performed our final Italian skits on Wednesday morning. My group did six sketches from The Amanda Show in Italian (Il Bagno delle Ragazze, Blockblister, Un Momento di Hillbilly, Va Bene Kyle, Il Punto di Mudi, e Giudice Trudice). It was a lot of work, but it was so much fun and ended up being hilarious. Our final commedia scene presentations were Thursday evening. We had been workshopping these same scenes since before going to Venice, so a lot of time was devoted to making sure they ran smoothly. I played Colombina opposite M.E. as Pantalone, and I was very proud of the way our scene turned out. Then on Friday, we had our voice final with Marjana. Group A and Group B each learned two folk songs, and we ended up singing those four songs, along with a fifth that we had learned as a large group, all together for the final presentation, with personal monologues tying the songs together. The songs are so powerful and emotional that we all found a great cathartic release in performing them together after a long and trying week.

Other than copious amounts of homework, the only other notable events between my last entry and today would be eating dinner in town last Friday night with Amanda and Genevieve and getting picked up by Kevin, our voice teacher for the first half of the semester, on our way into town. It was the best car ride any of us had ever had. Then on Saturday, Amanda and I went to the weekly morning market, and that night, a bunch of us watched the Return of the King. Sunday night, the school sponsored event of the week was a showing of La Vita e Bella, a very famous movie that was filmed partially in Arezzo. I had watched it with my family before coming abroad, but it was so exciting to watch it again and recognize many places around the beautiful town that has become my home. This week, I saw Bridesmaids for the first time (I know, I know, what took me so long), and it was hilarious. Last night, the music students performed their showcase at a church in town. The church was absolutely freezing, but they all played and/or sang beautifully, so I was very glad I went.

This coming Monday is our Italian final exam and our movement final, during which we will present choreographed pieces that we are building in pairs. It's hard to believe that classes are ending, and it's even harder to believe that I have to say goodbye to Arezzo in two weeks. I feel like I just got here. Here's hoping the clock answers my plea and slows down a bit. A la prossima!

Cucchiaio

This entry has nothing to do with spoons. I just love saying the word “cucchiaio.” Go ahead. Say it out loud. It’s pronounced coo-key-EYE-oh. I dare you not to smile.

Today is November 12^th. Like…what? How can it already be the middle of November? That means I’ve been here for over two months, which also means that the ratio of days I’ve been here to days I have left here is growing dangerously high. You know what they say: Time flies when you spend your days in Tuscany rolling around on the ground and eating fresh gnocchi.

I got home to the villa this past Sunday afternoon after an incredible weekend in Venice and Florence. All the ADA theatre students traveled together by train on Thursday, November 7th to Venice and checked into our lovely hostel called Foresteria Valdese that reminded us of the bedrooms from Madeline and had a balcony view right on one of the canals. A group of us then walked with Claudia, our beautiful movement teacher, and Monica, our amazing head of student life, to the Biennale, the modern art exhibition that happens in Venice once every two years. (Hence the name, which means "biannual" in Italian.) I referred to it as the Olympics of art, because countries from all over the world send work to be displayed, and each country gets their own little building where the art is shown. We walked from building to building in a lovely outdoor garden, getting a completely different experience in each one. Our large group split up when we were in the exhibit, so I was walking around with just Amanda and Claudia. I loved seeing how different each piece was from country to country. I was particularly fascinated by the exhibits from Israel and the USA, but the one thing that stood out to me the most was in the exhibit from the Netherlands. The doorway to the building was covered in newspapers, and I had hardly noticed them on the way in. As we were leaving, I glanced at one of the headlines and did a double take because it seemed to just be three random words strung together. I started to read the article and realized that it was utter nonsense. It was written in English, but none of it made any sense grammatically. I looked at the other papers to find more of the same. We were perplexed, so we read what had been posted by the artist about the exhibit. It turns out that he had created all those newspapers himself. They were comprised of every single word in the English language, and each word was used only one time. It absolutely blew my mind. We didn't have time to see every country because the garden closed at 6pm, but what we did see was outstanding. That night, we all went out for pizza as a group. It was my friend M.E.'s birthday, so afterward, we went out for a glass of wine before heading to bed.

On Friday morning, we had breakfast at the hostel and then boarded the vaporetto, a Venetian water taxi, to head to the island where we would be taking classes that day. The rehearsal space we were using was gorgeous. We had an amazing movement class in the morning with Claudia, and then we broke for lunch. Before our Commedia class started in the afternoon, all sixteen of the Muhlenberg students in the room had to register for spring classes. It was quite stressful, but we made it through, and had a great class with Michela. We headed back to the mainland, and we had just gotten back to the hostel when my friend Mike walked into the room and said he had found a relatively inexpensive gondola ride opportunity and was wondering if anybody was interested. It was dark and it was drizzling, and Mike, Amanda, Kevin and I rode in a gondola along with two Canadian girls. The buildings all lit up along the Grand Canal at night were breathtaking. I asked the gondolier if he would sing us a song. He said no. I then proceeded to sing a small snippet of an Italian song that I knew to make up for the lack of musical accompaniment to the lovely views. After our gondola ride, we met up with some other friends went out to dinner, then met a very kind street vendor who was selling the most beautiful candle holders that his family had made with polymer clay. He spoke to us in Italian about his favorite places in Italy and gave us advice on how to be safe in Venice. We then ventured to a jazz bar that had bras hanging from all over the ceiling (apparently patrons donate them to contribute to the ambiance). Then we got some snacks at a little cafe and hung out in a piazza where there was a statue of Goldoni, the most famous Commedia dell'Arte playwright. M.E. and I did our Commedia scene in front of the statue, except we used random Italian phrases instead of the actual text, which made it a lot funnier. We all also chose that moment to practice the new multiple person weight sharing game we had learned in movement that day, so all the Italians walking by definitely thought we were out of our minds. #physicaltheatreproblems.

The next morning, Saturday, was spent wandering the streets of Venice as Amanda, Lily, Joseph and I headed to St. Mark's square to visit the basilica and the Palazzo Ducale, home to the prison from which Casanova once escaped. My deep love for St. Mark's basilica that was established four years ago when my high school choir sang there was instantly rekindled as I walked through the door. The ceiling is detailed in gold leaf, which makes the whole church shimmer in the light. I got to see part of a mass and hear the readings in Italian, which was beautiful and made me miss going to church in the states. We then made our way to the station to meet the rest of our group and catch a train to Florence, where most of the students then transferred to another train to Arezzo, but I stayed in the city with Amanda, Janie, Genevieve, and M.E. to celebrate M.E. and Genevieve's birthdays. We went out for a nice dinner, hung out for a while at a bar called Volume where we enjoyed delicious nutella and banana crepes, and then spent the night in a hostel. Sunday morning, we had some pastries and a cappuccino on our way to the train station, and then I spent the evening relaxing in the villa watching the rain. Even bad weather is beautiful when it's happening in Tuscany.

As far as other stuff that's happened between fall break and Venice...Here are a few highlights:

The first Friday after fall break, there was another open stage night happening in town at Spazio Seme, which is the creative space that our tarantella teacher Gianni helps run. I decided to perform, because I was scared to do it, but I also knew that it would be something I’d always remember. I sang the song, “If You Want Me,” from the musical Once, while my friend Clay played guitar and harmonized with me. I was so thrilling to sing one of my favorite songs not just for an audience of my peers, but also for a bunch of Italian strangers. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be here and to be able to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities to grow as an artist.

The next day, Saturday October 26^th, I went to Florence with Amanda. We went to the juggling store that our juggling teacher, Scotty, had recommended. The man there was very sweet, and gave us the name of a place where we could go on Wednesday nights to meet other jugglers if we wanted to. Then we went to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see the David. There was an exhibit on loan from the Uffizi that had a lot of medieval religious art, which was really cool to see. Then we rounded the corner, and there he was. I had seen David four years prior when I was in Italy with my high school choir…but that didn’t stop him from taking my breath away. He is one work of art that is really not overhyped. Most statues you see are rocks in the shape of men. David is a man that happens to be made of rock. The detail and life in the stone is unbelievable. I’m so happy I went back to see him. Then Amanda and I met up with my friend Kayla, who is currently studying in Florence. She showed up the best place in town to get sandwiches, cannolis, and gelato. We explored a little bit, and then hung out with Kayla in her apartment before I headed to the train station. It was so great to see her- a little taste of home all the way on the other side of the world.

We had a two-week long mask making class with a Swedish master mask maker named Torbjorn. I was definitely apprehensive going in, since I do not consider myself to be a person with any visual art aptitude whatsoever. I hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to magically charm a piece of leather into becoming face shaped, but I resolved to be open-minded and to give it my best shot. On the first day, Torbjorn introduced us to the process and asked us to pair up, because to save time and resources, we would be making plaster mask molds in partners and then using them to make two leather copies of the same mask. My partner was my friend Mike. The first day, we started to shape clay into the face of our chosen characters. Mike and I had chosen to make Arlecchino, one of the servant characters. Over the next few classes, we finalized the shaping of the clay, smoothed out any bumps with special tools, layered sheets of plaster onto the clay face, removed the clay from the plaster shell, mixed liquid plaster, poured it into the plaster shell, let it set, peeled off the shell, shaped the leather onto the new hard plaster mold, cut off the extra leather around the border of the mask, cut eye holes, and attached a string to the mask. On our last day with Torbjorn, our mask “final” was to put on our finished masks and create a character in front of the whole group. It was amazing to see everybody’s finished masks and to see how they came alive. Every single mask worked so well, including mine, which was surprising and gratifying. The only thing left to do is to paint our masks if we want to.

We also had our final voice presentation for Kevin’s voice class. Our first week back from break, Kevin gave us our assignment, which was to create a vocal presentation revolving around text from Shakespeare’s The Tempest that we had worked on in class. We were also given the lyrics to a song that a character in the play sings, and were instructed to make up our own version of the song in the final presentation. Our group of 14 students opted to work all together as an ensemble to create a piece together rather than splitting up the work, which ended up being rather complicated and stressful at times, but was incredibly rewarding. Over the course of that week, we bonded so much as a group during the creative process. Each person had at least one solo moment in the piece, and you could see the collaboration through the way different ideas were thrown into the mix and were built upon and built upon as others contributed their thoughts. I was very sad that Kevin’s class was ending, but our piece turned out beautifully, and it was a wonderful note on which to end our time with him. From now until the end of the semester, we have voice class with a new teacher, Marjana. She is incredible, and very different from Kevin. She’s been teaching us some Bulgarian folk songs and we’ve also done a lot of work with polyphonic singing.

Halloween in Italy was a rather strange experience, because the holiday is not really acknowledged here at all. Luckily, since the Accademia is full of American students, we weren’t going to let it pass without celebrating. At dinner that night, we had a murder mystery event where we all played different characters and had to figure out who the killer was. Also, a few of the MFA students had organized a big costume party in the Teatrino, our small theatre. I went dressed as the Spirit of the Wind, based off of one of the songs we had sung in voice with Kevin. You know you’re at a theatre school when the song at the party that gets everybody the most excited is “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

The Saturday after Halloween, I travelled to Orvieto, a small city located between Arezzo and Rome, with Amanda. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. We walked through a park with spots to see the scenic view of the hillside all around, and then we just wandered around the streets, stopping in a few shops here and there. It was drizzling a bit as it got dark, but it somehow made the streets seem to glow, so we didn’t mind at all. We stumbled upon the duomo, which was absolutely glorious, and reminded me a lot of the duomo in Siena. Outside the duomo, there happened to be a chocolate festival going on, so naturally we got some pre-dinner cannolis. We found a really cool emporium called “Il Mago di Oz,” which seemed more like a museum than a store, and had a whole bunch of pictures on the wall of famous people who had visited. We also found the sweetest little woodworking shop where the man was so kind and excited to show us his beautiful creations. For dinner, we split a dish of Truffle pasta and ravioli in a butter sauce. It was such a relaxing day and definitely one of my favorite places I’ve seen so far.

The next day, Sunday, I walked into town with Amanda and Genevieve to visit the monthly antique fair. On our way there, we stopped at Gianni’s family’s pastry shop as we usually do on the weekends. For the first time, Gianni was there when we visited! He stopped working to have a coffee with us and chat. He said, “Ah, you found me!” Then his brother, who is almost always there when we visit, said to him in Italian, “They come here every weekend.” Which is true. Best cappuccino in town, hands down.

The 2^nd Cabaret was last week. The theme of this one ended up being a sort of mirror world, and new perspectives. I accompanied M.E. as she danced by singing “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie. It was a very emotional piece, but I enjoyed collaborating with her and with everyone else in the cabaret as they performed their different pieces.

Last night, we had an open mic night here at the villa. I juggled and told some Demetri Martin jokes, which was a lot of fun. Later on, I also sang “Let It Be” with Amanda. She had wanted to do it because singing in front of people terrifies her, so to help her get over her nerves, she wanted to perform a song with me. She did beautifully, and it was a joy to support her and to see her conquer her fear.

When we all aren’t in class, we’re likely to be found building giant blanket forts in the Salla Danza, or snuggling together and watching movies while eating Chinese food or pizza. In the past few weeks, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Two Towers, and Big City, a random French movie that was lip dubbed and subtitled in Italian that Mike had found at the Saturday market. It was a story about children in the Wild West in America, and was the strangest blend of hilarious, horrifying, and brilliant.

I love being here. I love the people, I love the places, I love the food, and I love the classes. This villa really feels like home.

Parigi e Londra

Ciao amici! This week was our first week of classes after a lovely and much needed fall break. I spent mine in Paris for the first four days, which was a dream come true because I studied French for six years and was so excited to finally use what I learned. Then I spent four days in London. Here’s a recount of my travels:

On Saturday October 12^th, I left the villa early in the morning with Amanda, Karli, and Joseph to grab some pastries and cappuccinos before catching our train to the Pisa airport. We had a (surprisingly) not awful flight with RyanAir to the Paris Beauvais airport, which is about an hour outside the city, so I had arranged a shuttle to pick us up and bring us to the building where we had rented an apartment to share. We arrived to the building and got inside with no trouble, but finding the apartment itself was quite the project because, as it turned out, there were no numbers on any of the doors. We wandered around and tried a few wrong doors for about twenty minutes. At one point a French man yelled, “Ce n’est pas ma porte!” and slammed his porte in my face. Welcome to Paris. We finally resorted to calling Sandrine, the woman whose apartment we were trying to find, on the phone…except she didn’t really speak any English. So I stammeringly conveyed that we had arrived but that we had no idea where to find her, and she came downstairs to our rescue, leading us up to her tiny, adorable, funky French apartment. There was only one bed, which might have been a problem if we weren’t physical theatre students and therefore conditioned to be comfortable with (nay, dependent upon) copious amounts of human contact. After we had dropped off our things and settled in, we ventured out to find some dinner. We were staying in a part of the city called Bastille, which is to the north of La Seine (the river that runs through the city) and a bit to the east of central Paris, but easily accessible from the metro. We ate Croque Madames, a traditional French meal that’s basically an open-faced grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top, at a restaurant down the street called Le Rey, and I tried my hand at ordering everything in French. Of my travel companions, I was the only one who had even remotely studied the language, so I tried to also give a little crash course in the basics (Hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me, I would like, my name is, and numbers one through ten) to my friends. Over those four days, the three of them performed admirably and were even ordering without any help from me by the end! Our first French dinner was lovely, as was the company.

Croque Madames at Le Rey 

 On Sunday, we left the apartment and began our journey to Versailles! We stopped at a bakery for some pastries on the way to the metro. I had un petit pain au chocolat et un pain aux raisins, which is a fancy French way of saying a chocolate croissant and a pastry with raisins. I can’t even try to explain how delicious they were, along with all the pastries we ate over the course of the trip. And the bread…ugh. The bread. It ruined me for all other bread in the world. What I wouldn’t give to send all the French bakers to Tuscany. But anyway…we took the metro to Montparnasse and caught a train from there to Versailles. The palace was breathtaking. We saw the Hall of Mirrors, and we had so much fun roaming through the gardens and visiting Marie Antoinette’s estate, Le Petit Trianon. We did headstands all over the place, because ADA has a headstand photo chain on facebook, and also just because it was hilarious. It was a bit of a process to get home, because there were very long lines at the train station and then a very abrupt French lady didn’t let us try to come up with enough change for the ticket machine when it wouldn’t take our cards, so we had to wait in another line to speak to a human that would sell us tickets. We were tired and hungry, but we played a few games to keep our spirits up, and we made it to the train in no time. We ate dinner in Le Quartier Latin at a restaurant called La Gueuze, which had been recommended by my high school French teacher. It was a really cool little pub-type place. After dinner, we went and got some crepes and chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). I had salted caramel sauce on mine, and it was to die for. On our way to the metro station, we walked by Notre Dame, which looked so beautiful in the moonlight.

The Palace Gates 

Headstand in front of the Chateau 

The Hall of Mirrors 

Imitating a statue in the gardens

 Monday morning, we headed to Montmartre, which is a neighborhood in the north of Paris, to see Sacre Coeur, the gigantic church that sits at the top of the hill. Interestingly enough, we had had a lecture right before leaving for break on the history of the cabaret, and we learned about the Paris Commune, which was when the citizens of Paris ran the city as a collective for about three months during the French revolution because they were tired of bourgeois oppression. However, at the end of those three months, the military blasted through their barricades and slaughtered thousands of the working class, and then built the enormous and ornate Sacre Coeur as a reminder that the bourgeoisie will always win. So…knowing this history made the visit a bit depressing, because it’s a beautiful church, and you wouldn’t think it could ever have been created for such malicious purposes. Still, it was quite impressive and lovely to see. We then ate lunch at a café, and took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and Avenue Champs Elysee. I had seen many pictures of this arch, but I had never imagined it to be so staggeringly large. It was truly amazing to see. Then we walked over to the Eiffel Tower, which of course is a must. We did some headstands, relaxed on the lawn for a bit, and then decided to head back to the Champs Elysee for a bit of shopping and dinner. Afterwards, we kept walking down the street because it eventually leads to the Louvre. We saw the glass pyramid all lit up, and then we stopped at one of those crappy souvenir stores to buy a deck of cards, and headed home to our apartment to play card games and have a little feast of wine, cheese, and various other goodies. We played Egyptian Rat Screw and Mow, both of which incited much laughter and merriment.

My friends in front of Sacre Coeur 

A view of the church from up close 

L'Arc de Triomphe 

La Tour Eiffel

Tuesday we returned to Notre Dame, this time entering the cathedral and marveling at the beautiful stained glass and stunning gothic architecture. We crossed the Seine on one of the many bridges that were absolutely covered in padlocks. They say that if you engrave your name and the name of your love on the lock, hang it on the bridge and then throw the key into the river, your love will last forever. I’m pretty sure it’s only so they can convince tourists to pay for locks and lock engraving, but I think it gives the bridge such character and romantic charm. After a quick lunch, we visited the Museé d’Orsay, an old train station that was converted into an art museum. Luckily for us, they currently were running an exhibition called Masculin, which was all about male nudity in art from ancient times to the present. In the words of Karli, “I’ve never seen so many naked men in one day.” We wandered through the museum and found the hall of impressionism, where many works of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others reside. I love that style of painting, and we spent a good hour marveling at these incredible works of art. It’s so weird to see something in person that you’ve seen pictures of since you were a little kid. Like…there I was, standing in front of Monet’s water lilies. No big deal. Just an ordinary day. Since it was our last night in Paris, we decided to have a fancy dinner that featured escargot, French onion soup, salmon with beurre blanc, and chocolate mousse. It was fantastic. We then enjoyed the view of the Eiffel tower all lit up at night, and decided to go see if we could get tickets to go to the top of the tower, since when I had checked online, they’d been sold out. Lo and behold, there were tickets available, and we got to enjoy a glass of champagne and a view of the whole city by moonlight. We even saw a man propose to his girlfriend at the top of the tower. It was adorable and magical, and the perfect ending to our time in the city of love.

Notre Dame

On Wednesday morning, we trekked to Gare du Nord where we caught our train to London! We went through the Chunnel, which was pretty cool. We stepped out of the St. Pancras train station into a true London welcome: pouring rain. My map got soaked as we navigated through the tube to the theatre district to drop Karli off at the Matilda theatre, where she was meeting up with our friend Jess to see the matinee. We then found our way to the other side of the River Thames where our rented apartment was on Elephant Lane. We met Thea, the very kind young woman who was lending her home to us for our stay. The apartment was gorgeous, and extremely spacious compared to our little shoebox in Paris. It was the four of us from Paris plus Jess and our friend Holt who were sharing the space. The building had a sign on it that said, “Prince’s House.” We were on the top floor, and from the huge triangular window in the living room, we could see the river. After settling in, drying off, and meeting up with Holt’s friend Kristen (I liked her right away…can you guess why?) who was visiting from Scotland, we headed back over to where Matilda was playing to grab some dinner and see the evening show! We had fish and chips at a pub right across the street from the theatre, and we made it just in time for the curtain to rise. The show, based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name, was truly beautiful. The set and choreography were breathtaking, and all of the child actors were so adorable and incredibly talented. There was a song in the second act called “When I Grow Up” that really hit me hard, because this whole abroad experience is starting to make me feel a bit like a grown up, and that’s terrifying. But the show was amazing, and if you loved that book as much as I did growing up, I highly recommend getting yourself a ticket to see it in London or New York. We wandered through the streets of London that night on our way to the Green Park tube station, stopping at Starbucks to grab a pumpkin spice latte, something that tragically does not exist in Italy. It tasted like autumn and it tasted like home.

On Thursday morning, Holt, Amanda, Joseph, Karli and I left bright and early to make our way to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio tour! The studio is in Watford, which is about an hour north of central London. We took a train to Watford Junction, and then a shuttle from there to the tour. To say that it was a wonderful experience would be the understatement of the century. We got to see the real sets, the real costumes, the real props, the real designs, and understand the staggering amount of labor and love that was expended to create the magic of those eight movies that embodied our childhood. We walked into the Great Hall, strolled through Diagon Alley, saw Hagrid’s hut, the Gryffindor common room, the Potion’s classroom, Dumbledore’s office, the Weasley’s burrow, the Ministry of Magic, Number 4 Privet Drive, and countless other places from the story. We drank butterbeer while sitting next to the blue Ford Anglia that Ron flew into the Whomping Willow. I did a headstand in front of the Chamber of Secrets, after which time an adorable English boy who worked at the studio approached me to tell me that he has never seen that happen before and that it was “quite impressive.” He then talked to Amanda and me for at least half an hour about how he was an extra in four of the movies and got to meet Dan Radcliffe, Julie Walters and Maggie Smith, and how he led Prince William and Kate Middleton on a tour of the studio and then met JK Rowling that same day. Whatever. No big deal. The best part of the whole tour, though, was the very last room. It took my breath away. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I won’t say what’s in there, because if anybody reading this ever goes to the studio, I want you to have that same experience of wonder and awe. We left the studio feeling all warm and fuzzy and full of feelings after seeing that magical world come alive in front of us. We had a relaxing dinner in a different pub (that strangely had the exact same menu as the pub from the first night), and then we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some breakfast foods, wine, and ingredients for baking brownies, because we were planning to use our exciting kitchen access to celebrate Kristen’s birthday when she and Holt returned from seeing The Book of Mormon. When they arrived, we were all prepared to start the baking process…until we realized that our lovely kitchen was not equipped with a baking pan of any kind. Hmm. Quite the predicament. Our solution: frying pan! Our initial approach was to make individual brownie pancakes. We each tried our own method of getting them to flip well, and none were very pretty, but they all tasted pretty good. We finally gave up and poured all the batter into the pan at once and put a lid on it, praying that they would bake in that little makeshift Dutch oven. And it worked! Our frying pan brownies weren’t too shabby, and they were way more fun and ridiculous than boring old oven brownies.

Amanda and me with Dan, our famous friend from the Harry Potter studio 

Number 4 Privet Drive 

Friday morning, Amanda and I set out to visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre! We met Kristen there, and oddly enough, we also bumped into Erica, one of the MFA students from the Accademia. We toured the theatre, which is an approximate replica of the one that existed during Shakespeare’s time, which was burned down in the 1600s. No drawings exist of the original, so a lot of the designs for the current one were based on rendering of other theatres, and some were just guesswork. We listened to a talk about the history of the theatre, and comparisons of audiences in Shakespeare’s time to audiences now, we saw a dressing demonstration in which a young French man was dressed in a traditional Ophelia costume, and we walked through the museum on site to learn more about how the theatre was built and the way they currently operate. Something I never knew was that they built this replica using only the technology that would have been available in Shakespeare’s day. Similarly, they build their costumes to be authentic to the time period, and therefore none of them have any zippers or snaps or modern conveniences, and often take actors as long as 90 minutes to get into and out of. After our visit to the Globe, we headed over to Buckingham Palace to meet Amanda’s friend Allison who is currently studying in England. The four of us sat down together for tea and crumpets. (Admit it: You read “tea and crumpets” with a British accent.) It was lovely. Afterwards, Amanda and I headed to the Covent Garden area where we had tickets to see “Let It Be,” a show about the Beatles. Our tickets included a meal deal with a pizza place called Fire and Stone, to which the man in the box office gave us directions, but we still had trouble finding it. We asked not one, not two, but three different locals where this pizza place was, and nobody knew. It was the weirdest thing. We felt like we were searching for Atlantis. Finally, we went into an Internet café and looked up the address on our phones. It ended up being like three buildings away from us, which made the fact that nobody could tell us where it was even funnier. The pizza was delicious, and the show was a blast. We danced and sang along the whole time. It felt like we were at a real Beatles concert. In London. On our walk back to the apartment, we saw the buildings all lit up against the night sky. At one point, we were at the perfect angle to see Big Ben with the London Eye circling around it.

A view of the Globe stage from the second tier of the audience 

 Kristen and Amanda outside the Globe

Buckingham Palace  

         

On Saturday, I went with Joseph, Karli, and Amanda to Harrods. We got lost in the giant maze that is London’s most famous department store. We then headed up to King’s Cross station to take our picture by platform 9 and ¾ where some brilliant person glued half a luggage cart into the wall with an owl cage and suitcases on it. You can take your picture holding onto the cart wearing a scarf from one of the four houses and jumping in the air as if you’re going through the wall to the Hogwarts express. We then headed back to the theatre district to see the matinee performance of “One Man Two Guvnors,” which is the English adaptation of Goldoni’s “Servant of Two Masters,” one of the most famous Commedia plays ever written. It was hilarious, and perfect for us to see because it was so relevant to what we’re learning at the Accademia. After the show, we headed back to the apartment to change and start packing. We went out to dinner at the Angel Pub, which was right on the river near where we were staying. Then Amanda and I headed over to the Piccadilly Comedy Club where we had reserved seats to a comedy show. They had placed us right in the front row center. Four different comedians performed back to back, and they were all hilarious. The last two picked on Amanda and me for being American, which was to be expected, and made it that much more fun.  

Sunday was a long and trying day of travel, but we finally made it back to the villa. We were exhausted, but so happy to be home, and so grateful for a wonderful week of traveling through two beautiful cities. A presto!