A Trip to the Doctor's

Sunday when I got up, my foot was a little sore. I ignored it and went on with my day. That night it was very much sore, and I didn't know why. When I woke up yesterday morning, it was swollen, red and quite painful. Laura (the RA) gave me some anti-inflammatory cream for it and I went to bed that night hoping it would be better by morning. However, when I woke up this morning, the pain was so bad I could hardly walk. So Laura came and picked me up this afternoon and we went to the Doctor's office. After over an hour of waiting in a little room packed with old Italians, I finally got my 5 minutes. After examining my foot, he asked me if I wore flip flops, and I said yes. Turns out that's what caused all this pain. So I was instructed to wear my birkenstocks this week and put ice on my foot a couple times a day.
So that was today's adventure. Not all that exciting really.

(not your average) Venetian Adventure

Friday the 23rd
Everyone in the monastery, with the exception of Hannah, Carissa, and myself, had left before 8am on Friday. One group went to Florence, one to Cinque Terre, and another to Perugia. Our train didn't leave til 11:50, so we had a nice morning here getting things ready. When we left, it was pouring, but luckily we were on a train so it didn't affect us much. On the train, Hannah and her excellent Italian befriended Maria, an older Italian woman. The picture here is of Hannah reading The Little Prince in Italian and Maria helping her with pronunciation.
We arrived in Venice at around 5pm. Rene Seindal, my contact there, met us at the station. Because of the Vaporetto (waterbus) strike, we had to walk through the town to San Marco Square, where we were able to board a Vaporetto to The Lido where Rene lives. That evening we went out with Rene for drinks and then for dinner, which was nice. At dinner, he ordered us two appetizer plates of "antipasto pesce" which was basically a seafood taster dish.
I would like everyone to know that I ate squid, smoked salmon, sardines, and prawns. If you know me at all, you know that's not something I'd normally do. It was certainly interesting.

Saturday the 24th
Kayaking! In the morning, we got some pastries for breakfast and then walked down to the beach. It was beautiful. At 1, we left with Rene, got a gelato, and headed down to the other end of The Lido where the kayaks were. We were on the water by about 2pm. We got to take a roundabout route to Venice, through marshlands and such. When we finally got to the city, we were met by three british travel writers/photographers. They were writing for an airline magazine, doing a big article on Venice and were including Venice Kayak in it.
We paddled through canals for a few hours (which was just gorgeous) until it got dark. At one point, we stopped in the Grand Canal and were able to listen to an old man on a gondola singing Volare, accompanied by an accordian.
We stopped at around 7 for dinner at a local restaurant, where Hannah and Rene both got spaghetti with squid and black ink sauce...which was interesting.
After that, we headed back into the kayaks, geared up with paddling jackets, headlamps, and glowsticks. Which was awesome. We got to paddle down the Grand Canal at night which was beautiful.
By the time we made it back to The Lido and got the boats out of the water, it was midnight. By the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted and sore, but very happy. It was a wonderful day of paddling and a terrific experience.
Sunday we took our time getting ready, and wandered around the city before heading back to Orvieto. Where, of course, Hannah befriended another old Italian woman, who gave her her number so Hannah could come visit.
When we got back, we met Michelle Arnold, the new painting teacher.

Dante with John Skillen started this morning...and I'd just like to say, I miss Julia Kasdorf. The poetry class was vacation compared to this:
2 papers, a group presentation, a test, and 30 lines of text to be memorized IN ITALIAN. It's gonna be a long couple of weeks. Ah well. They don't call it Inferno for nothing.

The End of Poetry and a Lack of Sleep

The second course has ended. Poetry and Ekphrasis with our dear Julia Kasdorf is no more. In the course of 4 weeks, we read ekphrastic works from Homer to Browning, and created 8 poems of our own. From those 8, we chose 5 to revise, and 3 of those revisions will be put in an anthology. Tonight we're having a poetry reading for the other students and staff. It's been a good class, and we had a lot of fun in it.
And then there's the saga of the art students... The students in Matt's drawing class are all either sleeping, or wishing they were. Their final project wasn't assigned til a few days ago, and it was a big undertaking. They were supposed to draw a scene from Orvieto, and it had to be big. Several of them are taller than I am, and much wider. Because of the size and detail of their work, 7 out of 12 of the students were up all night working on them. I woke up at 7 to find that Annie wasn't in her bed. I wandered downstairs to see if I could find her, and I discovered a whole slew of people who hadn't slept yet. Their drawings are beautiful, but needless to say they are all exhausted.

Tomorrow morning, Carissa, Hannah and I will leave for Venice. We'll be met by Rene Seindal, a kayaking contact of mine, who will be putting us up for the weekend. He'll be taking us kayaking, which will be wonderful (though probably cold) and showing us around the city. I'd say there's not much better than a virtually free weekend in Venice. If we're lucky, we might also get to take part in a Venetian rowing session. We'll see how it goes.
When we return, Dr. Skillen will be here again, preparing to commence the third class of the semester: Dante. It'll be a big change from writing poetry, but hopefully a good one.

ROMA take two

Friday morning, 6:15am: The 10 of us left the monastery, boarded a bus, and headed down to the station. Matteo met us at the station in Rome and we boarded another bus. Our first stop was cathedral that I can't remember the name of. It was pretty incredible though. The roof was painted in such a way so that the perspective was perfect as long as you were average height standing from a certain view. The figures looked like they were coming out of the ceiling, and it was hard to distinguish the painting from the actual architecture of the building. It was pretty magnificent.
From there, we visited two more churches before ending up in what Matt calls "the most beautiful piazza in the world" (the picture above). At 11:30 we met up with the art students for lunch, before heading over to the Vatican Museum. It was a joyous reunion, having been without them for far too long.
Vatican City was nice, but I didn't see the pope, which was really sad. I found a fresco with a picture of a chubby little pope guy, that was the closest I got. see:The sistine chapel was impressive, but not as awesome as I'd imagined. I preferred the church we were in earlier that day. But regardless, it was still pretty great.
After the sistine chapel, the poetry students split off from the art class and began our journey back home. We walked to the center of the city to the gelateria we went to the first time we went to Rome. I got limoncello, orange, and grapefruit and it was delicious. Our train back to Orvieto left around 7pm. It was pretty full, so the group didn't sit together. Kate, Becky, John and I rode together in one of the glassed in sections. along with some random old guy. We spent most of the ride talking about our favourite books and movies, which was lovely.
After a busy day walking around the city, we were all pretty tired. I went to bed around 10, and spent the next 6 hours mostly not sleeping. I'm not sure why but I felt deathly ill and spent a good portion of the night on the bathroom floor. I woke up around 7...so today I was pretty tired.
The art students came back at around 12:30, and it's good to have them back. It was getting a little too quiet around here without Carissa.

October's not warm

The art class left this morning at 6 for Rome, where they'll be til Saturday. It's pretty weird not having them here...it's so quiet. While they're spending 4 days drawing in Rome, we're still writing poems. Tonight we will welcome the arrival of Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, a poet and author who lives in Parma. She'll be sitting in on our workshop tomorrow, giving her expert opinion on our poems. It'll be interesting to hear from an American writer who's lived in Italy for nearly 30 years.
Two nights ago we were all given down comforters, and it would seem they arrived just in time. The October air is not as warm as it has been, and at nights it gets downright freezing. I have no right to complain (not that I want to) seeing that GC in Wenham has already had their fair share of snow. The weather here is pleasantly brisk..but definitely cold enough to require slippers and sweatshirts when walking around the convent. From what I'm told, I understand it will be getting a lot colder in the upcoming weeks and months. Coming from Michigan/Massachusetts will make it considerably easier. I have pity for the Californians who think 50 degrees is cold. They're certainly in for a shock.

Pisa

By thursday night around 11pm, Garrett had still not decided if he was going to accompany us to Pisa, due to his illness. The matter took forever to resolve, but eventually he decided that it would be wiser if he stayed behind. We were ok with that, except for the fact that our hostel had 5 beds, and with him not coming, it was going to be more expensive. Sometime before midnight, we found a perfect solution. Marcela and Maria Raquel were also going to Pisa, and hadn't booked a place to stay yet, so they came with us.
Friday morning we left the convent at 7:45, along with Erika, who was going to Florence. We got to Florence by 11, and we in Pisa by 12:30. After some issues finding the bus stop, we arrived at our "camping village" around 1:30. Our hostel turned out to be not a hostel, but a "maxi-caravan," also known as a trailer. We were pretty much in an Italian trailer park, but it was awesome. Our little camper had a full kitchen, a bathroom and shower, and 2 bedrooms...into which they crammed 4 beds. It's a good thing Garrett didn't come since one of the beds was a full bed (Marcela and Raquel stayed in that one). Kate, Carissa, and I stayed in the other room and I have never in my life seen such tiny beds. Also, like most things in Pisa, my bunk was leaning. It was a little scary, but not bad.
After we got settled, we set out in search of food. We found a cafe in town, and I got a ham and cheese pita type sandwich and a 20 oz bottle of coke, trying not to spend too much money. However, when I paid for it, I discovered that the coke was 6 euros, and my meal cost me 12. Life lesson right there...always check prices before buying.
We moseyed on down to the tower, and hung out there for a couple hours. We didn't climb it though, opting to save those 15 euros for something better. We got some gelato down by the river, and to our dismay, as we started walking back it began to rain. By the time we walked back by the tower it was raining so hard that it was nearly impossible to walk. We tried waiting it out under an awning, but it didn't appear as though it would let up any time soon. So we made a run for it..and got completely soaked.
On the way back to our little home, we stopped at PAM, which is pretty much Pisa's second biggest attraction. It's a normal sized grocery store. Italy has something against supermarkets, and almost all grocery stores are tiny little markets. This one was the size of a Shaw's, or any normal supermarket back home. There were road signs for Pam...that's how big a deal it was.
When we got back, we made some dinner and spent the evening watching Psych, while the thunderstorm continued outside.
This morning it was still raining so we decided to cut our trip short and leave as soon as we were ready. Our train from Florence to Orvieto was scheduled for 6pm, but when we got there at 1 we just hopped on the next train heading to Orvieto. We knew we had the wrong tickets, so we were a little nervous when the ticket checker came through our cabin. However, luck was on our side and the ticketman was a good looking fella in his 20s, and we were 3 pretty american girls. Needless to say, he let us stay on the train.
Clear skies greeted us in Orvieto a couple hours later, and it felt good to be back.

heyo epidemic

The hives continue, but become more bearable. That was the least of our worries in the monastery today. Yesterday, a couple of people were feeling a little sick, but no one really thought much of it. Last night, Garrett and Sergiy threw up, but were supposedly feeling better when they went to bed. I went to sleep around 11, thinking nothing more of the matter. However, I woke to discover that during the night, 4 people had gotten sick. 3 had thrown up, and poor Garrett was up half the night puking. This morning he had a fever of 104, and while Sergiy was not quite as bad, they both spent most of the day in bed. Megan left class after about 10 minutes due to sickness and Becky missed part of it for the same reason as well. It was beginning to look like a case of the flu had hit San Paolo. However, by 4 this afternoon, most everyone was feeling better. Becky and Danielle are off to London, and things are starting to look up around here.
Tomorrow morning we'll board the 8:16 train and head to Pisa til Saturday night. After the stress of writing sonnets (ugh) this week, I'm ready for a nice break, free from class. I have a newfound respect for writers of sonnets...I never before realized just how hard writing 14 lines of iambic pentameter was. It's very difficult. So, 3 cheers for a sonnet-free weekend!

Beans, beans, the wonderful fruit...

...The more you eat them, the more you break out in hives....
Yes, that’s right folks. I have developed a severe allergy to beans. I thought that I got hives because of the red wine, but it would seem that is not the case. That night at dinner we had some sort of lasagna type dish with beans, and last night we had a soup with beans in it. Last night was the third time and the restaurant has now been warned not to serve beans to me again. It would also seem that I have adverse reactions to benadryl, since 14 hours after i took it, I was still completely out of it and unable to sit up. Also my arms and legs went sorta numb. so...not doing that again

Anyway
Julia is stepping up our homework load in lieu of the fact that the art students have mountains of homework each day. I think she was feeling a little guilty for giving us little homework. So now we have to write a poem a day and do 20 minutes of freewriting a day on top of whatever else we had. Which is still not a huge amount of homework, so it's ok.

Would you like to know what has been filling our free time lately? Well, let me tell you.
VAMPIRES!
It started with our viewing of Twilight, which for those of you who don't know, is a terrible vampire movie that is grossly popular. We watched it, made fun of it, and then watched it again. It was great. Then Carissa stumbled upon a terrific new show called The Vampire Diaries...which makes Twilight look like an Oscar winner for best picture. It's terrible, but also slightly addicting...so we've been watching it.
Other than that, nothing much is new around here. Yesterday Kate, Carissa, Garrett and I went to the travel agent and booked our tickets to Pisa, where we'll be spending the weekend. Going there was a pretty random decision, and honestly I don't think there's anything there except the leaning tower...but if anyone knows of other attractions, let me know. At any rate, we'll see the tower, ride some mopeds, eat some pizza and have a good time.

VENDEMIA and allergies

Vendemia: the grape harvest
In chapter meeting on thursday, Matt informed us that we would be leaving for the vineyard around 9am, so we were all prepared for that. But friday night, we discovered that our train left at 8:30, so we had to leave the monastery at 7:45. Needless to say, there was disgruntlement surrounding this discovery. But by 7:50, our entire group was on its way to the Foniculare and by 9am we were at the vineyard.
The winery is owned by an older couple, probably in their early 70s, who are originally from Holland. They lived in other countries before moving to Italy, and the woman speaks 5 different languages--impressive. She and her husband showed us how to properly pick the grapes, weeding out the bad ones. We spent the morning picking (and tasting) the grapes, with a break around 11, and lunch at 1. The process of selecting the good grapes involves cutting out moldy, shriveled, or unripe grapes from the bunch, tasting one from each bunch to ensure it has a good taste, and putting them in a bucket. The bad ones get thrown on the ground. Or at people.
We had about an hour break for lunch, and then continued picking til about 4. Then we went through the process of destemming the grapes before they went into the vat to ferment. After that was done and the machine had been cleaned, it was time for the tasting. We had three types of wine (all red)-a lower end one, a medium, and premium wine. I disliked them all equally and had some fizzy grapefruit juice to wash them down. We took the train home around 7, went to dinner, and then retired for the night.
And that's when I discovered something:
HIVES.
I was allergic to either something I ate at dinner or the wine/grapes and I broke out in hives. I took some benadryl and went to sleep, and thought that would be the end of it. However, when I woke up this morning, it was worse. So my sunday went much like this: hives, benadryl, chaos, sleepy nonsense, hives, benadryl, sleep, hives....
It was interesting. Hopefully that will be done now, and just in case, I think I'll avoid eating that many grapes for a while.

I'll upload more pictures later--the internet is very slow today and won't allow me to upload them now.