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Did the semester really start almost a month ago? Inconceivable!

I’m ashamed to admit I have been so overwhelmed by how much catching up I need to do that I have continued in my procrastination and only put myself more behind. For a while, I might make it a habit to touch on one current thing that’s going on and another that passed by un-blogged in the past twenty-nine days.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s try this again.

Ciao a tutti!

My name is Shelby Stillwell; I’m a sophomore currently studying in Italy with the OU in Arezzo program. I am a history nerd and bookworm, a writer and a former theatre kid (though it never really leaves your system). I love stories and adventure, and am on a mission to make my own story one big adventure.

I am currently double-majoring in International Studies and Broadcasting and Electronic Media. After college, I am hoping to go into either International Education (Study Abroad councilor? Educational tour guide? World history teacher?) or Travel Media (Travel Channel? National Geographic? Lonely Planet’s digital media branch?) or some kind of creative combination of the both, which I have yet to imagine. Clearly I don’t have it all exactly figured out yet, but I’m only a sophomore, and I’m working on it. If I have any revelations about it throughout the semester, I’m sure you’ll get to read all about it.

I’m going to leave you at this for now, and if you have managed to get all the way through this introduction I applaud you! I promise it will all pick up from here. I still have to retrospectively tell you about Joust Week, a weekend trip to Cinque Terre, and generally what it’s like to be living in Tuscany (Oh my goodness, am I seriously living in Tuscany??) plus all the adventures to come.

But for now, I have to get back to my homework–yes, studying actually is a part of Studying Abroad, oddly enough.

“Live long and prosper!”
Shelby Stillwell

Buongiorno tutti! As my time in Italy comes to a close, I find myself vaguely nostalgic. I’ve seen so many interesting things and met so many awesome people, it almost seems a shame that I have to leave.

Hey team,

SALVE!

Jason and I have been in Arezzo six weeks today, and I am just getting the blog sorted out. (Perhaps already becoming a little more Italian …)

We are here with Victor (our one-year-old) for a year of teaching and supporting the OUA program. The summer Ciao!Italia program led by Jason concludes on Friday, and with that, we bid arriverderci to 18 of the hippest young travelers I know.

Those of you who followed me at peregrinatio in 2005 will know how happy I am to have an outlet like this for writing about our experiences abroad. There is something more literary about blogging than simply updating one’s Facebook profile like a maniac.

So, I’ll be working on this blog, and plan to share lots of stories, recounting successes and frustrations as we move through this year in Arezzo. I also have a new digital Canon Elph, and will be sharing plenty of pictures.

a dopo!

Monica

Buongiorno tutti! Today was a lovely day with cloud cover and a slight wind, which was nice since the last time I went to Siena, I was basically cooked alive.

We headed off at 8:00 am on the bus (not a train! I’m shocked!) and it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Siena. We started off the day with a trip to the Duomo, which was constructed around the end of the 13^th century and beginning of the 14^th century. They were going to add on to it, but then there was the flooding, the famine, the bankruptcy, all cumulating in the Plague. So yeah, that never got completed. It’s still pretty epic though.

After the Duomo, we walked across the way to the museum of the Duomo, which has Duccio’s Maesta and other cool pieces of art that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of.

However, we were able to climb to the top of the façade tower and get some great pictures of Siena from high vantage point.

After this, we walked over Il Campo and broke for lunch. Of course, my host mother made lunch for me, so I got to have tuna and tomato on real Tuscan bread (my host mother emphasizes this fact). After lunch, we went to the Crypt of the Duomo (Disappointing. There weren’t any dead people.) and the Baptistry. Which had some pretty cool stuff inside.

Following the amazing Baptistry adventure, we all met up at the Siena Municipal Building and headed upstairs (everything is stairs in Siena. It’s kind of annoying. For example:

We went through the fresco series, which tell the history of Siena and show the secular and religious influences on the political world during its time as an independent city-state. Look up the frescos called the Allegory of Good and Bad Government. It’s extremely cool.

Then we just wandered around Siena for an hour, looking for gelato and randomly chatting. It was nice, mainly because of the very helpful cloud cover. Seriously, it was a Godsend.

Then we left at 4:30 pm, returned to Arezzo around 5:45 pm, and I headed home to get some work done on the papers that I have due on Friday. Yeah, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• After lunch we had some time to shop around and we ended up going inside this awesome candle shop. They actually hold the patents for some of the candles that they make, and they were working on creating a new candle while we were there.

• At the museum they had some gargoyles that used to be on the Duomo. Some of the were particularly creepy. Like this one.

• At the Duomo, they have the popes carved into the upper parts of the walls. There’s probably a name for it but I don’t know what it is. Anyway, I found Jesus and Peter, the first Pope!

• They also had a music library filled with the old music books, all of which were hand made from sheep skin with gold leafing. They used to prop them up in front of the choir so that everyone could read them, which is why they are so big.

Ciao tutti! Today is the 14^th of July and though in Italy that is not a big deal, it is in Arezzo and the surrounding towns. Let me give you some background.

Ciao tutti! I hope you all are having wonderful air-conditioned days, wherever you are. Today was a lovely day with a heat that burned immensely. It was good times.

But really it was very fun. I liked Florence a lot when I was there with JTI and it was just as cool this time, especially since I actually knew where we were going almost all the time.

The day started off at 7:30 am at the train station in Arezzo. My host mother made me some breakfast and sent me off with a nice sack lunch (tuna sandwich. Yum!) and we left on the 7:45 am train to Florence.

Arriving at the train station, we immediately made our way towards the Palazzo Rucellai, where we met up with a professor there who went to grad school with Professor Houston. He was pretty awesome and specialized in Renaissance history, so he had a lot to say about the political situation during the time.

After looking around the Palazzo, we all headed to Santa Croce, though we stopped by some familiar sights on the way there. It didn’t even matter, because it was just as awesome the second time as it was the first. So we saw all this coolness.

 

And inside the church were…

Following Santa Croce, we walked to San Lorenzo so that we could eat lunch and walk around the leather market. So we went inside the indoor market and ate, then walked into the chaos of the leather market outside. Some people spent all their money and literally had nothing left. Those who know me know that that did not happen to me.

After spending an hour and a half at the leather market, we met to go over to the Academia, where Michelangelo’s David is located. Once more, I was not able to take pictures, but it is just as impressive the second time as it is the first.

Then we all walked out and down the street, getting gelato at the place run by Sicilians. It was really good and their fruit and nut gelato were the best.

So those of us who were not staying the night walked over to the train station, hopped on the train, and headed home. I’ve had some chicken, green beans, and bread for dinner, and I’m probably just going to chill tonight. Florence was exhausting.

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• So one of the girls realized when we got to Santa Croce that her purse was missing from her bag. Which has all of her money and credit card. So there was this mess with trying to cancel the card and stuff. Then we found out that the purse was found by the police on the train, so that was good. It’s still up in the air if all her stuff is in it, but at least it didn’t get far.
• At the Palazzo Rucellai, there was a summer performing arts program going on with students from Santa Barbara in California. So we were treated to the lovely sounds of classical music as we toured the building.

• Also, there was the guy at the leather market that I bought something from and we got to talking. He asked what I was doing in Italy, and I told him I was studying Italian. He said that I should get Rosetta Stone because it’s a very good program. I told him that if I was going to get Rosetta Stone, I’d probably get it for Arabic and then he said, “Oh, you’re also studying Arabic? Ahlan.”And I just freaked out! He then pulls his computer out of nowhere and pulls up all the languages he has on Rosetta Stone. He had 27! It was ridiculous. His name was Matteo and he is now my new best friend.

 

Buongiorno tutti! It is hot and I am tired, but more importantly, Assisi!! That’s right! The home of St. Francis himself (or San Francesco if you’re Italian).

The day started out with a train at 9:00 am, so I said goodbye to Melinda and Elizabeth (who were still able to sleep, lucky jerks), and headed off to the station to meet up with the rest of the Ciao Italia group.

After taking a nice train ride (1½ hours), we arrived at the Assisi train station (which in reality is part of a suburb of Assisi called Maria degli Angeli).

 

We then visited the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside, but it reminded me a lot of my old parish at home, St. Ann’s. It had the same feel. And smell. All churches smell the same. It’s kind of weird.

 

But anyway. After that, we hopped on a bus to get as close to the Rocco d’Assisi as possible. Of course, this was still a difficult climb, especially since it was ridiculously hot. But the view at the top was so worth it.

Oh, and this is Professor Houston.

 

After walking around the super cool castle (that was once a fortress, but it was really more against the people of Assisi because they didn’t like the people who ‘ruled’ them) we headed downwards to grab some lunch.

After lunch, we walked over to the Basilica di San Francesco. It is really beautiful and there are in fact two churches. One is above the other. Basically, there was so much stuff that they wanted to put in that they couldn’t fit it in the church that was already there. So they built another one. Go figure.

 

Following the Basilica, we wandered down to the bus station, grabbed one back to the train station and then waited around for an hour for the 5:17 pm train. We happened to end up in an air-conditioned carriage (Grazie a Dio!) and most of us promptly fell asleep. Walking around Assisi was absolutely exhausting.

I then waited around in Piazza Guido Monaco for my host family. Since I didn’t actually know what my host mother looked like, and she didn’t know what I looked like, I hoped that my luggage and lost expression would be a clue. And it was!

I was picked up and taken to their apartment (which, by the way, is very nice). I had this amazing chicken salad sandwich (I think?) for dinner and then collapsed into bed. After a very nice chat in Italian. ^_^

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• When we wandered inside Santa Maria degli Angeli, they were having mass. I kind of felt like a horrible person for not participating. Catholic guilt for the win.
• We kept running into these University of Minnesota (?) students. At the Rocco, at lunch, it was ridiculous. They were very nice though.
• Also, the oldest picture of Saint Francis is located inside the Basilica di San Francesco. All the drawings inside were originally done by Cimabue, but later his student, Giotto, was commissioned to go over his work with a more ‘modern’ style. Giotto did this, but left Cimabue’s Saint Francis alone, even though it kind of looks out of place with what was put next to it. It was commissioned sooner after Saint Francis’ death than any other representation of him, making it, most likely, the closest to the reality of how he looked during life.

Buongiorno tutti! Saturday was the day of the Giostra del Saracino, a jousting tournament that has been held in Arezzo for centuries. And it was super cool!!

So yes, the joust. The joust has been a thing in Arezzo possibly as early as the 13th century, and was definitely around by the 14th century. In fact, Dante mentioned it in his Divine Comedy.

Unfortunately, as time went on it became less popular, and by the 18th century it was no longer in practice in its original form. But in 1931, the town of Arezzo decided to restart the tradition in a mock form, using dummies instead of actual opponents.

Now the town of Arezzo is divided up into four quartiere, or neighborhoods; Santo Spirito, San Andrea, del Foro, and Crucifera. Each quartiere has two jousters who each get one run at the dummy. They measure points by how well the jouster hits the target, which has points from 1 to 5. It looks like this.

If the jousters drops his lance, he gets 0 points. If he gets hit by the mace the dummy is holding, they lose 1 point off their original hit. If they break their lance, they get double points. Once the jouster hits the target, it is immediately taken down so that no one can see it and the judges can look at it and decided what the score should be. The winner gains the coveted prize, the golden lance.

So the first thing that happened was a cannon going off at 7 this morning. We didn’t wake up, but it was on the schedule, so I assume it happened. But we were awake for the 11 o’clock parade. Our room at the hotel is on the first floor with a balcony terrace facing the road, so we had a perfect view.

After that, we basically lazed around all day in preparation for the actual joust at night. So we ate some dinner (Cheeseburger!) and headed over to the Center to meet up with the rest of the OU students. And then there happened to be another parade!

Following that, we grabbed our tickets and headed over to the Piazza Grande, where they had set up this huge stadium-thing for the joust.

They started off with the entrance of the drums and trumpets…

…followed by the ‘court’…

…followed by the judges.

To shake things up, they then brought in the acrobatic flag bearers. They were super awesome with their doing backflips over flags and stuff. Just look.

Then came the colorful flag bearers, and let me tell you, band color guards have nothing on these guys. They were a’tossin’. And a’twirlin’. Good times.

After the flag bearers did their thing, the ‘announcer’ read off the poem that speaks of the great battle between the Saracens and the Aretini. I didn’t understand it, but the people in the audience all yelled out the same things at the same times during his speech, so I assume they knew it really well. And then it was finally time for the joust to begin!

The first jouster was from San Andrea and though I couldn’t see what he hit in time, I assumed it was very good from the team, who broke into hysterics and threw themselves at each in joy. And then immediately got into a fistfight with a different team.

Each subsequent team went, reacting with joy or despair appropriately. In the first round there were two dropped lances by del Foro and Crucifera, leading to large amounts of angst. San Andrea got a 5 and Santo Spirito got a 4.

After half time, the next jousters from each quartiere went, and though there were no dropped lances, there were some not-so-hot scores. San Andrea went first, gaining 3 more points, which, though respectable, was not enough the guarantee them the victory. del Foro got a disappointing 2 and then Santo Spirito blew away the crowd with a 5! Unless Crucifera broke a lance on the 5 mark, Santo Spirito was assured victory.

And indeed, victory was theirs! Crucifera ended the joust with a 4, leading to Santo Spirito being declared the winner of this joust!

After the screaming and crying at the stadium, the winning quartiere walked over to the Duomo of Arezzo to be blessed by the Archbishop. I imagine this is what churches were like back in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. A huge party!

We then walked back to the hotel, tired yet wired, and ended up asleep by about 2 in the morning. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences that I’ve ever had, and something that everyone should see at some point in their life.

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• Instead of going to Ristoburger, we were originally going to try to go to DLF, this cafeteria buffet type of place. The map said it was by the train station and so we walked over there. And found a parking lot. With abandoned warehouses. We decided to leave.
• The little page boy for del Foro kept playing air drums when the drum core would play, which was absolutely adorable. I’m sure he’ll grow up to do that in the later jousts.

• There was also a soccer game going on at the same time, so people had to choose what they wanted to watch. Unless you were these guys. Then you just watched both.

 

A dopo!!

The truly beautiful thing about study abroad is that I can construe just about anything as a cultural experience. Grocery shopping? Cultural experience. Falling asleep on my patio at noon? Cultural experience.

Going to the movies, then, is definitely a cultural experience. My friend Sasha and I headed to the cinema inside the mall to see The Hunger Games. We figured it was a great time to see it since it came out two days earlier here (bwhaha).

The movie theater (bioscoop) is sort of hidden and off to the side in the mall, unlike movie theaters in malls back home. We had to walk down a pretty seedy hallway and up a flight of stairs to get into the box office. Once we were there, however, it looked exactly the same. Same guy in the box office saying things I don’t understand, same disaffected youth behind the concession stand, same outdated movie cutouts lounging around. It was pretty comforting.

Sasha and I decided to split a coke (not a Coke, it was lucky that Sasha was the one ordering the Sprite) and some popcorn. The medium sized popcorn was HUGE—definitely the size of a large back home—and when we ordered it, the disaffected youth asked if we wanted salty or sweet.

What?!

We stayed on the safe side and ordered salty, but I’m very curious as to what sweet popcorn is. Is it the same thing as kettle corn? Is it like putting M&Ms in your popcorn? What would it even taste like if you put M&Ms in your sweet popcorn? I’ve got so many questions, you guys.

Once we entered the theater, we were delighted to find the most comfortable looking chairs in the universe. They were red and made of something like velour, and right as I was about to fall asleep, some manager-looking guy stood up in the back of the theater and yelled something in Dutch.

Naturally, I had to go exploring, and I came back with a booklet that appears to be the summary of The Hunger Games in Dutch. We tried to translate it while we were sitting there (“I’ve got this! Something something blue something something I something tasty!”) because we were bored silly—there was no movie trivia! What is that all about? I love me some movie trivia. Don’t even get me started on the terrible radio station that plays during movie trivia.

The lights went down, but instead of the previews starting up, we saw a series of silent advertisements. They moved super quickly (each was maybe ten seconds long) and they were completely in Dutch. Which makes sense, actually, now that I’m thinking about it…

The movie started, and I was quickly engrossed. The movie was completely in English, with Dutch subtitles. It was incredibly easy to forget the subtitles were there and get into the movie, and get into the movie we did. Sasha and I were tensing up at every scene, positively freaking out when Katniss started climbing that tree…

and then the movie stopped.

Right smack-dab in the middle of the action, the movie stopped, the lights went on, and people starting filing out of the theater. Apparently, Dutch movies have an intermission in them. It’s kind of cool because no one gets up to go to the restroom or get more candy while the movie is going on, but it’s also rather jarring to just stop right in the middle of the action. It took me a few minutes to recover.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next movie we see in theaters! Dutch movie theaters are similar enough to American ones that going to see movies is still fun, but they’re different enough that I think this TOTALLY counts as a cultural experience.

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