asleep on a sunbeam.

After a very sweaty four hours Friday morning (modern and African), Courtney and I quickly showered, packed, and made our way to the train station to go to Rome. Lunch was a delicious kebab from “the kebab place” where the woman recognizes us and sometimes gives us free bakalava.

The train ride was fine. Courtney and I accidentally bought regional train tickets (the one that takes longer, but is cheaper) and got on the faster, more expensive one. Everything worked out though, and we arrived to Roma in one piece.

Compared to Arezzo, Rome is huuuge! The train station itself was a bit overwhelming, but seeing Liz’s (our friend who we were visiting) blonde hair through a sea of brunettes was WONDERFUL. After reuniting after about six months, we went to her apartment to drop off our stuff and rest for awhile. We had been going nonstop since 8 am, so a quick nap was much needed. We ate dinner at a place called Le Fate (The Fairies) where they have a student menu. Only ten euro for two courses, dessert, and wine! The coolest part of our dining experience was having two bag pipers dressed in kilts come in the restaurant to play. The whole city, in general, was full of Scots because they were playing against Italy in a rugby match on Saturday. This made for entertaining encounters at Campo, the square where most University students hang out on weekends. And in case you were wondering, Italy won the match.

The three of us got our first taste of spring weather on Saturday as we made our way through the city. Laying outside the Galleria Borghese at noon in 65 degree weather was just what I needed. Just walking around as we pleased without the pressure of hitting every major tourist location was perfect to say the least.

Liz made us dinner Saturday night with ingredients she bought from a market near her apartment. Everything I eat here is so good that I may just have to get everything imported from Italy once I go home. If only that could actually happen.
Courtney and I got back to Arezzo around six last night, grabbed another kebab from the same place (she loves us) and headed home to the villa. All this week we have Butoh (a Japanese dance form) for about six hours a day. No complaints so far!

In other news, Greece countdown= five days. Whaaatttt?!

In other, other news, even though I’m having a great time here, I miss people. A lot. Maybe some of you will be receiving post cards soon. Keyword: maybe.

velvet pants.

yesterday in dance performance, giorgio's brown, crushed-velvet pants ripped right down the butt seam when he was demonstrating something. google images doesn't have a good example of brown, crushed-velvet pants, so just know that they were definitely one of a kind.

we had pasta for lunch and dinner today.

i'm going to rome this weekend. roma roma ma-a! yes, lady gaga.

greece hostels are officially BOOKED. so, so, SO pumped! if you google image "greece," this is what you get:


that is all.

also, i wonder who reads this. it's not private and the link is on my facebook page, sooo... yeah. i hope you like it. if you don't, that's okay. i eat more gelato than you do.

electric feel.

you have to love dancing to stick to it. it gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. it is not for unsteady souls.

-merce cunningham

cabaret.

last night was our second cabaret, an evening where we can all show each other what we've worked on. the theme for this one was that we had to incorporate material from our classes. all the dancers got together and performed a structured improv. one of the girls will post a video on youtube/facebook soon, so you can all see! other acts included the mfa students doing a tribute to brian burroughs, a visiting professor from ireland who we miss every day, the undergrad theatre kids, claire and jessica being absolutely hilarious, and jasmine playing the guitar/singing a few songs she wrote.

the best part of the night was that students from oklahoma who are also studying in arezzo came to the villa. it was nice to see new faces, speak some inglese, and perform for strangers. a few of them stuck around after the show and i think sometime soon a bunch of us will hang out.

in other news, i currently know three chords on the guitar. i also got a little cough/cold thing, which blows. a bunch of us are sticking around arezzo for the weekend to relax after the past two weekend trips, so i'll have time to recuperate.

but before that, ricardo is throwing mensa part part deux. wahooo!

ocean of noise.

Venice. Whoa my god. We left right after ballet on Friday after picking up some snacks and pizza for the four hour ride. After arriving at a train station outside of the actual city, we made our way to our hostel, dropped off our bags, and took a shuttle into Venice.

For those of you from Goucher/Baltimore, think Fells Point on Halloween. The streets were full of people dressed up in gorgeous, elaborate costumes and masks. It was basically one giant party in the Piazza di San Marco. After getting all we could out of the night, we caught our shuttle back to the hostel around three in the morning, and somehow managed to get enough sleep for the busy day ahead of us.

I woke up at eight to get ready to leave around nine. Five of us hit up the usual tourist attractions: Palazza di San Marco, the Basillica, and the Guggenheim (my favorite by far). We also took a leisurely boat taxi ride down the Grand Canal, which was beautiful to say the least. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of juice so I don’t have any pictures to prove I was there. Hopefully once it’s warmer and calmer (without Carnevale), I’ll make a second visit.

A few of us got back to Arezzo around one in the morning after a very interesting and chaotic journey to the train station. All I’ll say is that it involved getting lost in crowds, running to and in train stations, getting on the wrong train, and then leaping over people’s luggage to finally get on the right train. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be sitting on a train in my entire life. The whole mess also proved that everything always works out somehow.

So that’s Venice in a nutshell.

In other news, two girls hosted an impromptu jazz class Thursday night since we didn’t have any work due the next day. Naturally, we dressed to impress in our finest 80s/crazy workout gear. It was nice to de-stress and just dance like a bunch of crazies. I felt like I was at the ICS (camp reference. perry/mac i know you're making fun of me and i don't care).

Now, after a long week of classes and an exciting weekend trip, the Villa Godiola is without hot water. I haven’t showered since Thursday night, but at least I feel rested after sleeping for twelve hours. Courtney and I plan on heading into town later for dinner and then I’m going to go to bed to get ready for the week.

Oh yeah, it snowed a little here. Nothing compared to the blizzard at home, though.

sleepyhead.

i'm tired and still have seventy pages of plato to read, but i just wanted to post this mini conversation really fast:

- i'm learning how to play the guitar reallyyy, reallyy slowly.
- so you can cover lady gaga songs?

hah! i really am learning, though. a girl here knows how to play and every once and a while she'll show me a few chords. it's tricky, but fun.

okay, plato time.

kodachrome.

these were taken by jesse, a staff member at the accademia. we all wrote three separate things on three pieces of paper and hung them on an olive tree.

1. write something you've learned about someone here.
2. write something you like about yourself.
3. write something you want to learn while you're here.