chapter 290, "willingness to be a mutant"

this step began with an awkward stretch, an ungainly gallop, and an overconfident gaze. deafness followed.

venezia & verona

Well kids, I've really been jetting around town lately. Our program organized a one night trip to Venice, so early Friday morning all 44 of us hopped aboard a coach bus for a 3 1/2 hour ride to Venice. It turns out that buses really aren't for me. Or anyone who chooses to travel WITH me. But anyway, we arrived in the city around 11am. I always knew Venice had canals instead of streets, but I guess I never fully realized how deconstructed it is compared to other, cohesive cities. Venice is literally hundreds of little islands, sometimes connected by bridges but mostly by little canals. It also has a fascinating history of being a mercantile and subsequent cultural checkpoint of Eurasia in the past thousand years (I don't have any energy to expand on that, although the vagueness of that statement begs more attention. Whatevs, wikipedia it later).

Our first stop was the glass-making island of Murano, where we saw the glass master in one warehouse blow glass into a reared-back horse, which was pretty damn impressive. Our guide was telling us that it takes about 15-20 years to become a master of glass-blowing, which was interesting considering how easy this man made it look. The glass itself was in a glob at the end of a hollow, metal pole and he rolled it around a lot, blew it in a bit, poked at it with some tweezers and BAM! a glass horse, perfectly balanced rearing back on its hind legs. So, yeah, generally unimpressive stuff. We then went upstairs to their official store and saw some of the most ornate and beautiful glass products in the world probably. Everything from stemware and chandeliers to jewelry and animal statues were crazy impressive and delicate and shiny.

Next we went to Piazza San Marco, which was easily the most spatially stunning piazza so far. It's really enormous, lined on three sides with three levels of loggias, and faces toward the truly magnificent, staggering Basilica di San Marco. All in all, it's an impressive space, and its right on the Grand Canal. (Fun fact: Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp are currently filming their new thriller The Tourist in Venice, and we totally saw the light crew setting up shop in front of the Palazzo Ducale adjacent to the Basilica that night. Apparently Jolie is really stuck up and Depp is short but very nice and humble. The name of the movie doesn't really light my fire but the fact that those two are on the screen together should make up for the shitty title. Also, until the end of time I will tell people I was on their set)

Anywho, we tooled around the city for a bit, had a nice relaxing lunch and then went back to the Basilica at 7:30pm for a private evening tour was was amazing. We walked into the church and it was nearly pitch black, except for some satellite lighting the seemed light the space just enough to give us a feeling of how truly grand it is. We sat in the first couple rows of seats and some sort of lackey or priest or what have you began turning on lights. It was actually really dramatic, the first ones that came on were all the way up by the altar, and everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed when they shed light on the brilliantly golden interior. Once the place was completely lit, we saw it had six domes, making the standard cruciform shape of churches, but every inch was covered it golden mosaic telling stories of Jesus and Saint Mark. Gorgeous.

Another reminder that Venice is basically underwater, while leaving the Basilica we had to jump over a fairly large puddle, which apparently appears every evening as the water in the canals rises. When we saw the Piazza it was similarly puddled, and I heard from some other people that it's usually much worse, almost filling the entire space in a couple inches of water. I'm heading back there in about a month with my brother and Mel, so I should eventually have a follow-up.

Verona was not at all what I expected, in the best way possible. You can tell its a northern city, it's much bigger and there is definitely more money there. It's incredibly clean for one, and also much larger and better preserved than many other historic Italian cities. Pictures should be up on facebook soon, it was all this beautiful white and beige stone mixed with natural oases with robust trees and beautiful, blooming flowers. We rounded out the day by going to the Castle of Verona, and tanning on one of the turrets, such a tourism success!

I'm leaving for the Amalfi Coast on Thursday! More after that. Beaches here I come.

(i couldn't resist)

"Republicans have long seen themselves as synonymous with America, and everyone else as deviant and marginal. This article of faith is impervious to evidence. Surveys show that a majority of Republicans believe that Obama stole the election with Acorn’s help, a conviction that allows them to deny a political reality they find intolerable. More subtly, conservatives have long derided the Democratic Party’s 'dependence' on minority voters, as if these voters are somehow less valid. The GOP’s belief in their right to rule has an unmistakable racial aspect; hence the racial slurs hurled against black congressmen last week, and the right’s repeated comparisons of health-care reform to slavery. This is, in part, white men reacting in furious disbelief that they can no longer rule as a majority, because they aren’t one. Since Nixon, the idea that Republicans constitute a silent majority of decent people—all recoiling from the noisy demands of anti-war protesters, black militants, and radical feminists—has been fundamental to Republican identity. " -Michelle Goldberg, The Daily Beast

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for encapsulating all of my problems with many of those who identify themselves as Republican. The good news is, America is slowly waking up. Good morning, liberty.

Galway ate my heart

So, Dublin was fun and vibrant and great, but Galway felt like real Ireland. It's about two hour's bus ride from Dublin and is absolutely worth spending at least three days there. Unfortunately we only had two nights, but we managed to pack in as much as freaking possible, because it's just about the greatest place on earth.

People's favorite thing to ask study abroad students is something along the lines of "what was your favorite city?" and the only sensible answer is, every city. Honestly, every new place I go to is my new favorite place. There are too many levels and dimensions of beauty and wonder and intrigue to really quantify the sites I've seen while in Europe. It's really hard for me to find the words to describe things I really love, but I'll try to do it for dear Galway. It begs my attention, I will not do it justice.

I was inexplicably drawn and attached to Galway. Firstly, it's on the sea, which is absolutely gorgeous. The green, rolling, dewy countryside is seductively nostalgic and watching the sun set over the sea was probably one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen. Everything felt alive and cohesive and benevolent for a while. God this is horribly cliche.

Galway is a college town and has a really palpable vivacity. We walked across the river for awhile on the college campus, walked up and down the charming cobblestoned streets, wandered in a few squares, and everything felt so warm and inviting and homey. It was an exciting city too, the nightlife was pretty wild. The Irish we ran into really lived up to alcohol stereotypes. And not even the youth scene, we saw middle aged couples getting drunk food at 2am. Brilliant.

Day Two consisted of our daytrip to the Cliffs of Moher and around the region the Irish call the Burren. If you haven't heard of these two, google search that shit asap!! The Cliffs are really one of the most stunning natural wonders in the world. It was nice to enjoy something that wasn't a Renaissance sculpture, fascist architecture, or huge ginormous church. It was simple yet stunning and moving and lovely. I like the idea of something amazing existing without any influence from humans. The Burren is absolutely gorgeous and (nerd alert!) kind of reminded me of the landscape of Rohan from the Lord of the Rings movies... which was filmed in New Zealand... well, whatever. It was picturesque and mountainous and kind of a bumpy bus ride but worth it. We stopped at various castles and this like, sea of rocks, and skirted around the countryside. It was so authentically Irish! I hate my descriptive writing. It was just kind of awesome. OH and we had a boss tour guide who had really cool anecdotes about all the sites we were passing.

If there is one place I want to return to in my life, it's Galway. I got my Claddagh ring and thus am an official Irish lass.

P.S. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and brood are in Florence right now and it's taking everything I have not to stake out the city sites tomorrow to find/follow/creep on them, and ask them if I can babysit.

finally some description versus me projectile vomiting my sociopolitical ideas on everyone!

After revisiting a few of my previous articles, I realize I am horribly preachy. Anyone that's known me long enough to remember my xanga is probably experiencing every kind of deja vu. But no fear! I have no proselyting to do today. I got back from my spring break trip this past Sunday and man it was good to be home! Living out of a tiny carry on sized luggage bag with all of three outfits in it for ten days is not really my idea of tons of fun and convenience.

Our first stop was Berlin, a city I didn't have too much interest in before I came to Italy, but going there was the second best decision of the entire trip. Perhaps it was the fact that we had the best tour guide ever, with whom I kind of fell in love, Tom. Tom was, and will forever be, amazing. He knew absolutely everything about the city of the Berlin, starting from its Prussian roots, unification, through two world wars, the cold war, and the falling of the Berlin Wall. The whole thing took about four hours and we were hanging on his every word the whole time. For lack of a better phrase, I just didn't realized how crazy and kind of messed up yet fascinating the history of Berlin is. The city itself started as a small fishing village, and basically through the entire 20th century was the epicenter of the world's political tension. It was really insane to see some of the damage that WWII did to Berlin, too, Tom would often pepper his accounts of historical events with "you can see how the bombings during WWII destroyed part of this building and that structure and all these artworks, et cetera. Especially coming from my whole life in the heart of America, our safe defended little bubble to which no harm could ever fall, it was quite a visceral experience to be in a city so obviously ravaged by things I'd only read about in dry, calculated historical texts. It was just so raw being there, Tom really put it into perspective how Berlin has only been stable for the last twenty years and there are still many open wounds that are still very real. (I saw this overwhelmingly gothic boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen with a swastika pin on his imitation leather jacket. Really dude?? The German youth are kind of unhinged in general, but really? )

I was also impressed with the quality of German food and drink. The food is all super hearty and the beer is delicious. They have a tradition there of mixing beer with orange soda or sprite and it sounds really odd but it's really tasty and refreshing! Weiner schnitzel is really, really good. Berlin has one of the most efficient public transportation systems I've ever seen and it's really really convenient! Our hostel was just a 5 minute subway ride away from the historic city center. This paragraph is a relatively uninteresting amalgamation of things I liked because in terms of writing I really don't know what to do when I'm not doing some sort of critical analysis.

Anyway, so at the end of the tour we were sitting on the steps of the Berlin Dome as Tom told us the story of the night the Wall fell. Despite having taken a European history course in high school that thoroughly covered the Cold War, I had never known the full story. As Tom told it, Stalin and the controllers of Communist Germany had decided that the tension between the east and the west could be somewhat alleviated if they pretended to loosen the traveling restrictions between East and West Berlin. Basically they drew up a bunch of fake legislation about chilling out, saying that all the restrictions were going to be removed eventually, and set up a press conference to announce it all (even though effectively they planned to change nothing, "eventually" would turn into never.)

This is where my history gets really accurate... so apparently their press guy was like super cocky and felt like he didn't really need to read the memo, which would have told him that he was to say the Wall would come down, but not put a date on it. He skimmed it and must not have gotten that part. He said the Wall was coming down, and the reporters were like, well, when? And under all that pressure and through the virtue of being kind of a dumbass he was like, "now". And everyone was like, seriously? And this was all live television, so all the East German people basically storm the streets going to all the checkpoints demanding to get through, and the 4 1/2 guards that were there were like so confused because obviously they hadn't heard about this. Essentially the East Berliners stormed that shit down and all the Western Berliners were waiting with champagne and bananas (bananas were a western product that Stalin had embargoed or whatever so no East Berliners had bananas for like twenty years),

Anyway there is about a 98% chance I goofed the history somehow but right as Tom was finishing the story, a German man walked by with his wife and kid and said to us "It was the best weekend of my life!!". It was basically the coolest moment ever. Even Tom was kind of stunned and was like, "yeah that doesn't usually happen, we just got really lucky!"

Basically, the entire thing was kind of magical, Berlin is amazing, and stay tuned for an Ireland post!