It can only look up from here....right?

Somehow I recall saying that phrase earlier in the semester, and quite obviously I was proven wrong. Well I'll be optimistic and hope that the rest of the semester goes a lot smoother than this first bit has gone. I went to the police station today and filed a report about my stolen cash. I've got a copy (actually the policeman gave me the original) so I can ship a copy of that off to Duke soon. I'm trying to encourage other kids to come forward and make police reports, because the more people I talk to the more stories I hear of things being stolen, and in particular on the days the cleaning ladies come. For now I've locked up anything remotely valuable in my huge green suitcase, and if they try to move it back to the top of the closet again I'll have to come up with something clever to do like booby-trap it or something. I'm open to suggestions.

In other news, on Saturday I went with Keshia, Margaret, Megan, and Chen to Padua (Chen is an Israeli girl....her name isn't pronounced "ch" as in "chocolate" though; it's more of a gutteral "h" sound, like the "h" part of the "hokay, so, here is the earth..." impression that I do. But for most of you that isn't very helpful. Sorry. Suffice it to say that it's not a sound that exists in either the English, Spanish, or Italian languages). As soon as we got there, we realized that the city is HORRIBLY marked, and the signs don't actually point to where you need to go (even moreso than Venice, which is pretty impressive). Anyway, we had these sights on our to-see list: Basilica di San Antonio, a garden of some sort whose name escapes me at the moment, and (my personal contribution to the list) the university where Galileo taught. The fact that I was really eager to see that made me think that maybe I'm a little more like dad than I care to admit. Sorry dad. Anyway, Margaret and Megan, the two superCatholic girls of our group, had to leave around lunchtime, so we made the Basilica our first stop. First we saw a really cool palazzo that used to hold an enormous market, with a few really random things inside it (like a meridian line, an enormous wooden horse that some claim as the Trojan horse, and a punitive stone where thieves were made to sit bare-bottomed three times while repeating something to the effect of "I repent of my sins" and then were banished from the city). I told you they were random. Then, as we continued on our way to a building we saw in the distance and thought it must be the basilica, we passed through their open-air market of shoes. I think all of us except Chen bought shoes. I got some really cute red boat shoes that are really comfortable, and made my day a lot brighter (literally). The saying about buying shoes being theraputic is so true. When we finally were able to tear ourselves away from cheap (price, not quality) leather shoes, we crossed a really cool mini-park filled with Roman-esque statues glaring down at us and arrived at the entrance to the enormous church we had seen in the distance. Turns out it wasn't the Basilica di San Antonio, but some other church. The basilica was in the opposite direction. After walking in circles a bit more, we managed to find it. The most noteworthy part of this church was Saint Anthony's tongue, jaw, and vocal chords displayed in a gold shrine behind glass. I didn't know vocal chords looked like mini-intestines. And let me tell you, seeing a shriveled tongue that was hundreds of years old was almost the second coolest thing about that day, other than my red shoes. I'm totally serious too. After walking around and admiring the paintings and mosaics a bit more, we made our way out and tried to locate il Bo, the original building of the University of Padua. Around 2pm, Chen, Keshia and I decided we could not continue without getting some food in our bellies, and Megan and Margaret decided to go back to Venice to get some work done. After an enormous 7 euro lunch of an entire pizza, a bottle of water, and a coffee each, we set out determinedly to find il Bo. On the way we managed to walk past a sign that said "Casa di Galileo Galilei." We stood there trying to figure out what exactly was his house, because it was pointing at a graffitied, semi-modern appartment building that definitely was being lived in. I took a picture of the sign, so if any of you can figure out where Galileo lived let me know. Finally, after literally hours of wandering in circles, we managed to find il Bo-- a building we had passed at least 4 or 5 times, and is apparently labelled very helpfully "Gimnasio". Chen and I were rather sad that we didn't make it there in the morning, because the classroom where he taught has been kept the same and is still used, but only open to visitors in the mornings. We managed to sneak into another classroom and take a picture or two, but it would've been much cooler to see Galileo's classroom. Once we finished gawking at all of the stone plaques (which someone suggested were medieval "yearbooks") and paintings on the walls, we made our way slowly back to the train station. We stopped in the Giardino dell'Arena, a garden that has grown out of some ancient Roman arena ruins, and took some pretty awesome pictures. Oh, before we got to the garden we went back to that first church, which, we learned, has Luke's original casket on display. It was a very pretty church too. I found it kind of ironic that Margaret and Megan were so eager to find Saint Anthony that they missed Luke in the process. Anyway, overall, it was a very good day and Padua is definitely someplace worth re-visiting. If I have time later in the semester I may try to go back.

On Monday I had to give my oral presentation about Boca in Italian class, which was oh-so-much fun, let me tell you. I'm just glad that Massimo didn't say anything about me reading off of my paper, because I was shaking by the time my two and a half minutes were up. My academic goal in life is to be invisible, and usually I'm rather good at it. I don't know why the professors here haven't picked up on that yet. For example, today in Spanish guy's Tourism class, we had a two-page paper due, and we always go around our semi-circle and discuss what we wrote. I always sit in the center but off to the left side, calculated precisely so that I cannot be called on to begin because I don't sit in a logical place to start from. Except for today, because as soon as Quintana sat down, he looked straight at me and said "CHRISTINA! Why don't YOU start us off today? What similar thoughts about travel did Edward Gibbon, Goethe, and George Sand have?" I don't know what it is about the professors at this school, but I have been getting way more attention from all of them than I care to have. I guess I prefer speaking in the Spanish guy's classes though; at least he doesn't creep up behind me and breathe down my neck like Massimo does. I swear the only way of knowing he's there is because he always smells like cigarette smoke. If he didn't smoke I'd be completely freaked out all the time because he's really good at being sneaky.

I'm really excited about tomorrow though-- Keshia and I are going to Prague for the weekend! We got really cheap tickets to go to the opera, although Candide, a musical, not an opera, is playing. At least it's in English. I realized the other day that it's really rare for me to go to a place where I can't even fudge my way through "hello" and "thank you" in the local language. This semester will be an adventure, because between Prague, Austria, Germany, Budapest, and Croatia, I definitely won't know what I'm eating in the restaurants or seeing at the museums!


Okay so pictures from Padua:

http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014447&l=ea3e5&id=3901306

And now it's bedtime, or I'll never wake up in time to wash my hair and pack. Look for a really exciting update maybe on Sunday night!