Dearly beloved, we gather here to say our goodbyes...

Here she lies, no one knew her worth, the late great daughter of Mother Earth, on this night when we celebrate the birth.....



Okay sorry, I may have gotten a bit carried away with the Rent lyrics. But I am indeed in mourning today (well, really all weekend)-- I am now officially ::drumroll please:: vegetarian. So, I say goodbye to eating meat, and....well, I can't quite say I'm celebrating the prospect of eating a hunk of zucchini smothered in cheese every meal til June. Before some of you die of a heart attack or shock (ahem, Lelo and Jodi), let me explain. It does indeed torture me to give up my beloved activity of inserting my canines into a juicy hunk of steak, and I have every intent of returning to said activity as soon as possible. You may be wondering why I am opting for this protein-lacking diet in the first place. Well, the choice was obvious, and forced. The fish here is indeed fished from the lagoon (yes Dad, I know you don't think that's true, but I have real Venetian sources and they are not ones to joke around about such serious matters), and so obviously I cannot eat the seafood choice in the dining hall. Neither can I eat the meat, since I do not eat pork (unless it comes in "prosciutto" form), and the rest of it is almost always unidentifiable as to which live succulent animal it may have come from. I've got my money on pigeon of the San Marco Piazza variety. Seriously though, they had hot dogs the other day that were made of completely white meat. Have you ever seen white hot dogs? I sure haven't. So I am sadly left with my hunk of zucchini smothered in cheese. For lunch today they decided to do something daring-- they added a thin slice of eggplant underneath the zucchini and an entire red pepper on top of it. Sadly, since I had to get to another class right after lunch, I didn't quite have enough time to finish even my salad (a staple for me here...thank goodness Italians have oil and vinegar!!!), so by now I am FAMISHED. So I end my discussion of how horrible it is to be an herbivore. I look forward to the day I can yet again eat protein that does not come in the form of Nutella.

Moving on. So as you may or may not know, today was the first day of classes. I began my day by waking up leisurely at 8:30 (I love waking up without the sound of an alarm clock), showered and quickly ran down to breakfast about four and a half minutes before they closed, ate my croissant and handful of cereal in peace, drank my only cup of tea for the day (another serious deficiency in my diet here), and came back to finish getting ready for the day. I had a lovely chat with Mel (an Australian friend) online while I was getting my things together for class, and at 11 I made my way to Massimo Bruni's intermediate Italian class. That man scares me. It's too bad I have to see him everyday for an hour and a half. He's very intense, and enjoys sneaking up behind you while you answer your partner's boring questions about what time you usually read books, and then he critiques your answer, letting you know in no uncertain terms that "notte" begins at MIDNIGHT in Italia, and of course it would be obsurd for you to be awake reading in your bed at a time when 21 year olds are either asleep or out partying, so you couldn't possibly have meant that particular word, which one was it that you meant? Yes of course you meant "la sera." I was overjoyed when 12:40 rolled around. Then I went to lunch and went to my next class still hungry, Discovering the Mediterranean: Tourism and Literature in the 20th Century. I'm not quite sure what's with the long titles, but it's more like a history/literature class about western Europe. The professor is Lluis Quintana, and I'm pretty sure he offered something to the first person who could pronounce his first name since that sound doesn't exist in the English language. He told us to call him Louis til we could master it. He teaches at a university in Barcelona and is really nice and funny, and he's got the added bonus of no oral examinations, and no midterm either! Naturally I signed up for his other class, Social Climbing in a Changing World: Snobbism in the European Literature, at 5pm today, as well. Why are the Spanish so long-winded with titles?? This class is mainly about the changing roles of the elite during the 18-20th centuries. They both seem like decent classes, even though he's going to make me hunt through Venice to find the store ("I don't know what it's called or where it is, it's number 20 on your map!") that sells his course packets. At the end of his class I got into an interesting discussion with a girl named Silvia (who I believe is from Holland?) about the differences in university costs between Europe and America.

So that has been my day so far, and I am looking at my clock which is screaming IT'S DINNERTIME GO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO...A VEGETABLE! So I think I'll go do that. Later tonight they're showing Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips), a movie in Italian that depicts Venice. I figure it's a good opportunity to practice my Italian. Whenever I manage to find that bookshop I'm going to pick up a children's book also. I want to read an actual novel in Italian, but I want to be able to understand it too, and I find stories for children to be more entertaining most of the time anyway. Well, I'm now 3 minutes late for my vegetable and it's waiting there for me to come and ask the mean lady (there's a nice one and a mean one....more on them some other day) for a nice stingy portion of zucchini. Yummy. For now though, it's still better than Lagoon Fish or Unidentifiable Meat.


PS- Tia, when you come, please bring me peanut butter?? I need some protein!

Madness and Mayhem Wherever I Go!

Apparently I must be fond of politically unstable countries-- when I was in Fiji there was a military coup, and I just found out recently that the government of Italy no longer exists either. Well, to tell the truth, Venice is very much like Williams in that it is in its own little bubble and the outside world doesn't really affect it much, except for the hoards of tourists passing through everyday.

Which, by the way, I have noticed that tourists are really annoying! Venice has a lot of little streets, barely long enough to deserve their own names, and a lot of bridges. The "roads" in Venice work like this: people walk on the right, single file, to avoid "heavy traffic" and to allow faster people to pass on the left. It's a lot like normal roads with cars on them. Now imagine that every time you get to an intersection, people who don't live in your town just stop. Oh wait, that happens all the time in Boca. Well, so those of you who have seen it firsthand know how irritating it is to be walking at a decent pace and then all of a sudden stop short to avoid colliding with the person in front of you, all because some tourists got to a bridge and wanted to take a picture, or pulled out a map and tried to figure out where they were. Pulling out a map and trying to locate yourself is a completely lost cause; trust me, I've tried it. When in doubt, find a sign to Rialto or San Marco, and follow it. Eventually you'll get to a border somewhere. After all, the Fish (as I've been calling the main island, or historic center....it was designed to be in the shape of a fish with a wave under it) is only 7 square km, and its divided by the Grand Canal right down the middle. You can only walk so far in that little space.

I must say I'm rather bummed about the weather here-- it's been foggy and cold everyday after the first two days when I got here. Actually it is warming up-- today's high is supposed to be 52, and I can actually see the island next to us, which is a good sign. But the sky is still gray, and the Mental Institution I live in still looks incredibly spooky at night (it has a lot of bare trees and imposing buildings made of concrete and little windows....add a whole lot of fog and a statue of a "furry man" with a spotlight on him and it looks like it should be straight out of a Hitchcock movie). And the beach at the Lido (which is the next island over on the other side of San Servolo) still taunts me, being so close, and yet so far. This is, by the way, that beach that Lelo took Caro and me to the last time we came to Venice. The water isn't actually the Adriatic Sea....it's actually the Venetian Lagoon. I was told it's a beach "to tan, not for swimming!" I have no doubt that ties in with the whole canal/fishing situation. (Random aside: my Lonely Planet guidebook to Venice says that this city has the highest rate of tumors in Italy....attributed to the town directly north of here that dumps their industrial chemical waste into the ocean, which goes south to the Venetian Lagoon.) I do remember the Lido having a rather nice sandy beach though, so I won't mind going there to tan when it gets warmer out.

Classes start on Monday, and I'm still waiting to hear if I got in to the classes I signed up for. I really hope I did, because if not, I don't know what other classes I can take that won't have an oral exam. I do know that I was put into the 11:10-12:40 Italian intermediate class, so I'm pretty happy about that. Hooray for sleeping in!

Okay well speaking of sleeping in, I think I've done my fair share of that this morning, so I'm going to get ready for the day and perhaps go back to the mainland in search of that mask I saw the first day I got here and foolishly didn't buy. I leave you with some nice trivia facts (since I am, afterall, facts.com): did you know that both Antonio Vivaldi and Marco Polo were from Venice? Venetians don't seem to care much though; they don't have anything in the city dedicated to either one. In fact, they don't really care about the fine arts (including architecture) at all--the city has many beautiful churches, but they were all built before 1400, and they sadly are lacking in famous artists and musicians (with of course, one or two exceptions....who pretty much got out of Venice ASAP because their talents weren't appreciated). But they did have two whole islands dedicated to the looneys!

The Quest for the Holy Grail....or just a hair dryer

Last night there was a slight change in plans...I ended up not going to Carnevale, but I did get to see the fireworks from my room, which were rather impressive I must say! I took some pictures of them, but the pictures (obviously) don't do the fireworks justice:

I like how the first two have "faces" in them. Not quite sure if that was on purpose or coincidental.

And in the style of Carnevale, here's a picture of me with a mask:

It's a rather scary mask, but I liked how it was held up by a pole thingy. It reminded me of Carnevale in the movie Casanova. Speaking of Casanova's times (okay so I wasn't really, but now I am!), the island where I'm staying (San Servolo) was used as a psychiatric hospital from then until the 1960s. Apparently they had passed a law in Venice saying that all mental patients must be separated from "normal people." The island next to us was also used as a psychiatric ward (this one was for men, that one for women). In the past 10 years, both islands have been renovated and reopened for use. This one is a school with paint-chipped walls and a brick wall with iron barred-"windows" around it, that one is a luxurious 5 star hotel with a pool, spa, and 3-hole golf course. I found it quite interesting how they could take the same buildings and convert them to such different places.

Anyway, on to the holy grail and hair dryers. I asked at reception (yes, I must admit this does have more of a hotel feel than a dorm room feel to it) where the nearest Baptist church is, and she asked in a rather rude tone, "you want to go to church??!" I answered that yes in fact I would like to, and she grumbled as she called someone up (maybe the 411 Italian equivalent?) and asked where a Baptist church might be. Turns out it's the next town over, and I'd have to take a boat to the bus terminal and then a bus to the city, and then find my way to wherever the church may be located in the city. She asked "why don't you go to a Catholic church instead?" I'm thinking I'll watch Pastor Burnham online on Sundays.

Tonight I am privileged enough to have a private night tour of the Basilica di San Marco, without tourists. I've been told that soon I will come to resent the presence of tourists, but I think they didn't quite establish good rapport with me the first day I got here with my 100 pounds of stuff. There are 60,000 residents of the historic center of Venice (which is shaped like a fish, how cool is that?!), and everyday 1 million or more tourists pass through the city. I can't even imagine how annoying it must be for Venetians to have that many tourists around.

Actually, I find it much more annoying that all shops here are extremely tiny, and don't have anything you need. Pharmacies don't have hair dryers, neither do supermarkets. Well, I guess they'd be better described as a mom-and-pop grocery stores (think the Ephporium size, in Williamstown), because by the end of the day they've run out of bread, milk, and half of everything they stock. It was more bare than a Florida Publix the night before a category 5 hurricane is scheduled to strike. So anyway, today marks my second attempt at finding a hair dryer and straightener, among other things. I was directed to the electronics store, so I'm hoping to find a cheap microphone there too so I can get Skype up and running tonight or tomorrow. So now I bid thee adieu to continue my quest for....a hair dryer. Arrivederci!

The Obligatory Post on Food....and Why Venice Smells so Badly

More on why Venice smells later. This is an important post: it's going to be about the food. As you all very well know, food is an important part of my life. I eat a lot of it. I enjoy savoring it. And I love pasta sauces. Italy seems like the perfect place for me, right? I'm not so sure about that. Every meal here I've eaten a salad (hooray for salad! and with vinegar and oil too! yay! even though it's made mainly of iceberg lettuce), a miniscule piece of fish (the biggest portion I've gotten was about the length of my hand, and half the width of it...the smallest being the size of the palm of my hand), and potatoes. I must say, everything is very tasty, although I do have some qualms about eating the fish (this ties in to why Venice smells, and will be explained later). The only problem I have is that most of the time I've left the cafeteria still kind of hungry, and I'm definitely starving by the time the next meal rolls around! I have an even bigger problem because a lot of the girls seem to be anorexic to me and barely eat anything. Actually I guess that's not really a problem, because I don't care if I look like I actually feed myself....it's only a problem because I hate going to a meal alone. I have some strange phobia of eating by myself. Anyway, enough of the food. Bottom line = tasty, just not a large enough portion. Maybe I'll lose weight this semester??

Here is why Venice smells badly: you know those pretty bodies of water that make Venice so unique and wonderful to visit? The ones that have the fish that sustain the locals? Yeah, they're the sewage system. That's right: pipes from the house toilets go straight to the bottom of the buildings and open into the canals. Still think Venice is a pretty place to visit even though people boat through sewage on romantic gondolas on their honeymoons etc? San Marco Square floods from these canals at high tide several times a year. I'd like to apologize to those of you who might have been considering Venice as a romantic holiday spot, or just a vacation in general, and now are yucked out. Don't worry, I live here in the middle of the sewage. Haha, okay I live on my own island in the lagoon where the canals drain out, so I guess it's a bit better. Consequently, it does not smell here on San Servolo (the accent on Servolo is on the e, not the first o as I had previously assumed).

I must say I'm rather sad tonight, because I will most likely miss the end of Carnevale. Tonight they do their grand finale with fireworks and lots of cool things (not quite sure exactly what), but I fell asleep for several hours this afternoon instead of going to the mainland to run errands, and now San Servolo is a ghost town (I'm assuming all the students have already left since they're not here). I'd go by myself but I know I'll never find them in that crowd, and I don't really want to hang out by myself at night in 30 degree (Farenheit, for those of you in Australia) weather where there are tons of tourists and pickpockets. I can still watch the fireworks from here anyway.

Today I had my Italian placement test! I was really nervous for it, but when I got there I breezed through the written portion (most of the questions were things that Professor Nicastro had said over and over and over again last year). The "interview" portion of it made me a bit more nervous (we all know how I get about talking in class), but I think I was only there with the professor for less than 30 seconds. I said a few sentences and then she just fired "si" or "no" questions one right after the other without giving me a chance to embellish and then all of a sudden she said "ci vediamo domani, grazie, ciao!" and I was done. I'm pretty sure I've been put into intermediate, from speaking to other students after the test. I hope so anyway. I'd be bored learning "Mi chiamo Christina, sono degli Stati Uniti..." all over again. Well, I find out tomorrow morning!

Sorry this post is a bit all-over-the-place, but I'm recording things as they come to mind. After all, we all know I get my memory from my mother (that was not meant to be an insult, just a fact, sorry mom!). I'm going senile in my old age. Anyway, I did have something important to say....oh yes! The issue of telephone communication. As of now, I can be reached in my dorm room, but I am rarely there. If you would like the number, send me an email or post a comment on here asking for it and I'll give it to you. I was thinking of getting a cell phone, but I was told that Skype has a better deal- for 10 euros for 3 months, you can get a local (Boca) phone number and people can call that number and it rings through my computer! It even comes with free voicemail. It's true that I'm rarely in my room, but at least that has voicemail, and I can call back really cheaply too (don't really remember the exact rates, but they'd be much less than a cell phone). I'm thinking that's a better idea because people here have told me that if I want a cell phone, I need to go pay for the cell phone (with prepaid minutes) and then still get a calling card to call internationally (or the cell phone'll charge exhorbitant fees). Anyway, long story short (because I know I'm just rambling at this point), my computer doesn't have a microphone in it, so I've gotta go buy a cheap one tomorrow (along with several other things I need), and then I'll test it out and see if I can call home. If it works, I'm thinking that's probably the best idea. Plus all you guys (except those of you in Australia I guess, sorry!) only pay what you'd normally pay to call Boca. People in Boca don't even have to dial the area code. Easy enough, right?

Okay well I just found out that my new friend Caitlin (who goes to BC and lives a floor below me) has overslept too, so we're going to maybe go find a nice pasta/pizza place on the mainland (no sewage fish tonight!) and after I buy myself a mask, we will join in the Carnevale festivities. Who needs Mardi Gras when you've got the original right here??! Yes, Mardi Gras was stolen from Carnevale. Except there's one important difference: Carnevale is still a throwback to the 1700s in the sense of being an over-the-top celebration of decadence and indulgence, and Mardi Gras is...well, less than wholesome. No beads here! I do hear lots of music floating over the sewage lagoon though. Okay I'll stop calling it a sewage place. After all, I do eat the sewage fish every day. Yummy. Anyway, I'll post some pictures tomorrow, after my first Italian class!

Ciao bella!

Buon Giorno!

The first lesson I learned on this trip was why we wear seatbelts in the airplane when the fasten seatbelt sign is turned off. About halfway over from Miami to London, we hit a turbulent patch. Actually that's an understatement. I thought we were going to join the Titanic miles below the sea surface. Now I'm not normally a white-knuckler; I was on 33 planes just last year, so you could say I've got a fair bit of flying under my belt. I know the drill. But when the 250 pound monstrosity of a man overflowing out of the seat next to me goes flying out of it and almost hits his head on the ceiling, I get a bit worried. A lady a few rows in front of me almost passed out and was having such a hard time breathing that the flight attendant moved her to the sleeper cabin with a tank of oxygen (note to self: next time when you're stuck on the last row by the bathrooms, fake a faint and you'll get your own bed for the rest of the ride!). Flight attendants were handing out barf bags, and they were being snatched up as quickly as children grabbing for free cotton candy at a carnival. So began the trip of doom to Venice International University. Now that I'm here, sitting in my own smaller-than-twin sized bed, I can say that Venice is indeed just as beautiful as I remembered it to be (and also a fair bit smellier than my recollection). But this was not the case at this point in the story. Well, the plane finally landed in London, and the pilot offered a sketchy explanation that the turbulance was caused by an enormous tailwind. I managed to get all the way though passport control and pick up my bags....and I had to walk 15 minutes with them from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. There, I attempted to check in with BMI. First I was told by some guy who really didn't seem like he knew what he was talking about that you can't check in more than 30 minutes before the flight left. I know that's a bunch of baloney because no one in their right mind would require you to check in, go through London security, and get to your gate in less than 30 minutes. So I thanked him, went and sat down for about an hour (I still had more than 2 hours before the flight departed), and came back and was able to check in. I suppose I should thank the lady who weighed my bags, because she let me pay only 100 pounds for being 24 kilos overweight when the rate is 5 pounds per kilo. I thought that was a bit excessive, but I couldn't really leave anything behind so I had no choice but to put it on the credit card. Then I had to practically empty my carry-on because that was also 5 kilos over the weight limit. Why don't people just lose weight? If 9/10th of the cabin weren't obese, they wouldn't have to charge for overweight luggage. Anyway, I got on the plane and quickly fell asleep, even though I was sitting next to the sketchiest man alive who kept trying to look down my shirt and talk to me. When I arrived in Venice I picked up my bags, bought the water bus ticket, and walked them down to the pier, where a very nice boat captain helped me put them on the boat. I mostly spent that trip asleep too, except for a few times where I started because I dreamed that I had missed my stop (and one time where I woke up with drool on my shirt...but you probably didn't want to know that). Anyway, Venice International University messed up big time: they put on their website to get off at the San Marco stop, when it would've been a lot less hassle to get off at the stop before that. Unfortunately I didn't know that information until after I had gotten off at San Marco. I took one look at the streets and wanted to cry. It was like trying to walk against everyone else at Disney World on Thanksgiving weekend. With two huge bags that each weighed 50 pounds. I was determined to get to that public boat though, because it costs 6 euros as opposed to 45. So I manage to spend 45 minutes squeezing my way through Italians in ornate costumes and tourists taking pictures....and I made it all the way to two buildings away from where I needed to be. I had walked about a block and a half of New York City blocks, the long ones, with more than 100 pounds of what all of a sudden seemed to be unnecessary belongings, and I came up to a bridge with stairs. With stairs! It was jam-packed with people and there was absolutely no way I would've even made it up the first stair on my own. But there was hope! I looked around and saw about 4 policemen standing in a corner nearby. I wheeled around to them and asked in shaky Italian if they could help me. I told them I needed to go to vaporetto number 20. One of them asked me, "do you speak English??" When I answered yes, he told me to go across the bridge and the stop was right there, two buildings down. I already knew that information. I wanted his help carrying my bags just up to the top of the bridge (I'd take my chances clunking them down the stairs by myself). He said "not my problem." And watched as I walked away, frustrated and upset and crying. Some tourist decided that a crying girl dragging two huge suitcases must be part of Carnevale, and asked if he could take a picture. I found that to be really funny, and would've laughed if I weren't already crying. I had overheard other tourists saying in French, Italian, Spanish, and English, "look at the poor homeless girl with her suitcases." I was really tempted to just sit down on the side of the street with a cup in my hands in the hopes that people would give me money for being a bum. Hey, if people donated as much as they commented, I could make good money like that. Anyway, I walked all the way back to where I had started from and took a private water taxi to San Servolo. You couldn't possibly imagine my frustration at having slaved away to get all the way within 2 narrow buildings of where I needed to be, and then having to turn back because of a stupid bridge. But anyway, I got here, and the island is rather.....well, it's completely walled-in with iron bar-covered windows, but the view from my third floor double is really pretty. Our building is right on the water, literally, and Suki (pronounced Saki), my Japanese roommate, is really nice too. So really this semester can only get better. Well, I suppose, unless they tell me that I didn't get into any of my classes or something like that. That'd be truly tragic. Anyway, now it's 10:45pm and my eyelids are 3/4ths shut. I believe I owe it to myself to lay down in a real bed, with my legs stretched out, where the floor won't shake or all of a sudden drop 1000 feet in midair. And no fat guys taking up half my seat! So I leave you with the pictures I promised Mom, just to prove that I wasn't exaggerating about the crowds (and then some pretty sunset ones):

I had to walk to the building that sticks up a bit next to the farther lightpost.

People everywhere!

This woman and her two daughters were rather plain costumes...I couldn't get close enough to the really spectacular ones to get good pictures because of my bags. I'm going to try again tomorrow though.

And the sun setting through the "prison bars". I thought it looked cool just sitting in the middle of the circle there.