31 January/ February 1st

I have finished Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory- IN ITALIAN! Exciting. I also trekked into town to watch a horrible movie in Italian "Bacciami Ancora". The scary part is I understood most of what was going on, but it was just a bad drama.

On Monday I bought some neccesities- pillow, food, bus pass (to get to and from town in the snow). That's it for now - I continue to improve at ping pong.

4 Thursday, February- 1st day of Classes

From 2-5 I have Italian Art History with Giusseppe Bombrezzi. He normally teaches philosphy in Italian, and does not know the name of all the renaissance art techniques in English, but he is definitely competent. The class was interesting and thankfully in Englisih.

After that I went to a bar; no, class wasn't that bad, it was for my next class, Italian Civilization and Culture. Our teacher, Peter Cullen, is the man. Basically, he had us skim an ideologically diverse array of newpaprers and figure out what the main issues are in Italy. After that he brought the bartender over and had us ask him questions (in Italian) about the workings of an Italian bar (e.g. why the hell would people open a bar at 6:30 in the morning and why is not full of truckers, who would be the only people at a bar at that time in the states? And why they drink their dainty caffe's with such relish, and don't bother to sit down?

Wednesday 3,4th February- Urbino In the Snow!

Cool Pics!

5, Friday February- Classes, part 2

Peter Cullen is still the man. 2 weeks ago I told him about my interest in the Italian Renaissance and asked him if their were any more classes I could take on it here. Immediately, he offered to allow me to do an independent study with him, a directed reading class of the history of the Rennaisance, with an emphasis on how it relates to Urbino!

For 3 hours we went over maps of Italy as it existed hundereds of years ago and discussed all the different factors that made Italy so important: spice trade, cultural legacy, papacy... We met at the state archives, which is located underneath a elementary school which was dedicated by Mussolini. At the archive he helped me interpret a census from 1581, among other documents. The reason they took a census that year(and not any others) was not for tax, or immigration reasons, they only counted men and women and did not bother with the children. That year, the Marches were hit with a terrible grain faminie and the purpose was to discern how many mouths they'd need to try to feed.

After a short break I had Peter again for his contemporary Italian history and Geography class. This time however, there were a few more people in the class with me! The main thrust of the class is to understand why Italy works the way it does today. Italians think about issues differently than americans. They have learned and are immersed in a very different history than Americans. This affects the way their political and economical institutions function today, in addition to affecting their ability strenghten their infrastructure. If you want to build a new road, or building in Italy you must first order a lengthy archaeological survey. And because you are in Italy, the researchers usually find something of "great" historical importance. This make building a wallmart here a whole lot harder than in the States. However, I don't know if that thought makes me terribly sad!

6 February Saturday- Italian Market

This morning, I went to the weekly Italian market. Although it was raining their were still well over a hundered vendors sporting their products; from socks and shoes, to coats, fruits, and other dishes. Anything you wanted was right their and even on a rainy day it felt like most of the town was their.

Tonight, the Villanova students and myself are going out to dinner with Peter, to some local restaurant which is supposed to be excellent. I hope it's good, but I'm sure it will be because Villanova's paying!

7 February, FANO CARNAEVALE

Incredible! That's about all I can say. Today I went into the nearby port city of Fano, (15 miles south of Pesaro) for their Carnaevale. It was spectacular.

Huge floats came rolling down the street, one after the other. Some at least 50 feet high and filled with dancing people, or, at least, I think most of them were real people behind their masks. It was a twisted mix of Macy's day parade, 4th of July and Halloween. Candy rained down from the floats, and it was hailed back just as mecilessly by the exicted bystanders. Although it was a bright, sunny day everyone was bying umbrellas! It was only until they started chucking that I realized the umbrellas were turned inside out to catch the Candy. From little girls dressed up as princesses, to the full grown men dressed up as clowns, to their own parents whereing funny spike hats everyone was their in support of the parade and fighting for the candy. Although I was very succesful, even without and umbrella I had to accept a limited degree of defeat. As I reached my hand down below the crowd I saw a little shoe cover the orange flavoured candy I was after and I looked up at its owner to here a stubborn "la dulce mio!"

In addtion to the parade their were food and hat vendors everyhwere. There was also loud dance music blaring from all the floats and at all the street corners. Among the many groups, I recognized lady Gaga, basshunter, and Aretha Franklin with her "I will survive" (yes, there were a few songs in Italian songs to). My favorite part of the day were the DANCING SMURFS trailing behind the huge mushroom where they lived. Thre were also dancing tribal warriors, children, and two different bands. One was your typical marching band, but the other was pulled on a float and they played the most ridiculous instruments. One looked like and upside down pair of scissors which had jingle bells stapped on it. It was crazy.

At night they capped the day off with some fireworks, and around 8:30 we caught the 1:30 long bus back to Urbino. I can only imagine

7, Wednesday February- Argentine Tango, Italian Style

Today we went to Urbino's Ducale Palace, its most famous landmark. The palace is huge, towring high above the neigboring buildings. Built in the 16h Century by the Dukes of Urbino, the Palace was built to impress. Urbino is odd, in that it's main entrance faces South, while most of the other entrances of that time were towards the sea. The architects of Urbino however, wanted to make sure that the best view was offered to the Popes who would travel up from Rome, through Urbino on their expeditions.

The main courtyard is visually pleasing. At first glance it looks like a perfect square. However, after counting the equidistant supporting columns I realized that their was one more column for the width than the length. The Renaissance artists were masters of perspective and did a very good job of fooling me. Their is another room in the interior which is visually tricky. The tiny room is painted with cabinets that appear to be jutting out at you, although the walls are flat. On the "ledges" there were a number of interesting items: books, pens, and even a magical flute. No matter where you stand in the room the flute always points at you! I'm dead serious. And if you move along the wall while tracking the flute you're sure it's following you.

The rest of the Palace was grand and had a lot of fine, historically famous artworks, including Raphael's mute. But, if you ask me, the reason why her lips were pursed so tight were to keep from screaming from the cold. We went on a cold day and I swear it was colder inside that building than out.

And than at night I went Tango Dancing at a Dance studio in town. The head of the studio picked me up from the center of town and brought me over for free. He was really nice, as was the instructor, although I was in a bit over my head. It was a intermediate/advanced lesson and that would test me, even if it were in English!

I think I'll go back next week!

8,9 Monday, February- Running

Just another day. On Monday I had my first language conversation class, pretty easy. Both mornings I went for a run around town, can never get over how pretty this place is. I noticed I wasn't too tired, despite not having run in over 3 weeks. Must be all the walking up the never ending hills. That's what you get when you move to a hill town!

10-12 Wednesday-F February- Roomates

Wow, it's been a while since I've been able to update this. I'd like to say it's because of all the homework. Well, we'll just leave it at that, although the arrival of my long awaited ping pong paddles was stupendous...

Wednesday I went back to tango. It snowed again and the roads were terrible, but that did not deter the owner, Robert, from picking me up. It was a lot of fun and I learned some new phrases in Italian namely; "could we try that again!" I also got a history lesson regarding the origin of Pizza. Roberto is from Naples, where the first Margherita pizza was born.

Thursday was all classes and a bit of ping pong. Normally my art history class has three people. Thursday 2 skipped. It was a very interesting three hour class! Friday more classes.

Oh, I do have some interesting pics. One is all my roomates. From left to right we have the the French, Swiss, American, Chinese, Lebonese, Albanian, Italian (Ravena). We were missing another Italian.

13,14 Weekend February, VENICE CARNEVAL

Not much to report over here for Saturday. However, after receiving several hundred hints (thanks Mom and Nicole) I have decided to try to do something radically new with my writing. Proofreading! I think it mite b a good id!

Sunday morning, at five o’clock, I boarded a bus for Venice. 5 hours and 1 packed train later I was in the midst of a massive sea of masked humanity. The costumes were incredibly elaborate and ornate. They ranged from the frightening (long nosed freaks) to the adorable (little babies dressed as kangaroos.) There were several different shows going on across the city and I’d like to say we purposely from event to event, but the reality was we were completely lost majority of the day and we mostly followed the crowd. In fact, we did not have much choice, because all the roads in Venice are really 5 feet wide alleys and it is not easy to squeeze past a fat Italian and his wife who is wearing an elaborate dress for Carnevale.

Despite, or perhaps because of, our aimlessness we did stumble upon several exciting acts. There was the best costume contest, fighting insects (30 feet tall) and 2 fire acts. The second fire act was huge and entailed a bare chested French men throwing fire across the stage while the women balanced it on their heads.

When it was time to leave, we got miserably lost and ran through the streets screaming “dove e la stazione?” the whole time terrified we would miss our train. Well, we did miss it; however, there was a later train which took us out of the city to our bus, which waited an extra half an hour for the tardy American contingent. Viva USA!

15,16 Monday,February- Sleep

I slept, I slept, and I slept some more. Caught up on my sleep and did some homework. Getting ready for Rome this Friday!

16th February Tuesday- Pesaro Pesce

I always heard from people about how good Italy's fish was; today I believe them.
This morning we took the bus from the center of Urbino to the nearby port town of Pesaro. Pesaro is a mere 45 minute ride away and a neccesary stop if you want to travel anywhere else in Italy in Europe. From their you can catch a bus, or train, to any of the bigger cities in Italy.

The city itself, however, has more value than just a waystation. For starters, it has a beautiful beach along the Adriatic sea. Today Pesaro was covered with snow and ice and the contrast was stark between where the snow ended and the sand began (the highest point of the tide). Despite the inhumanly cold temperatures, we witnessed several shirtless locales engage in a furious snowball fight on the beach.

The highlight of the day however was the food. We went to this little place down one of the backstreets. You know its good and cheep, because all the local construction workers were their. We ordered the special for ten people and they brought out two huge platters of the special- Crab and Eggplant over penne and spaghetti. I ate so much it was unhealthy, unhealthily incredible. And than I realized, we had more coming! They brought out all these fabulous meats on kebabs and incredible fried calamari and shrimp. I don't even like octopus and I thought it was heavenly.

2 hours later we staggered out of their and headed over to a nearby bar where we all had cioccolate con panne (hot chocolate with whip cream) that was as thick as syrup. By this our leader was so inebriated that he agreed to pay for virtually everyting.

Today was a very good day. It's going to be a shock when I actually have to start class on Thursday and can't spend 6 hours a day eating!

17,18 Wednesday February, 9 hours of classes

Tango dancing Wednesday. I actually understood a bit of what the instructor said!
Thursday, 9 straight hours of class. 6 of them just me and the teacher. I'm pretty sure I'm getting my money out of this place! Today, I also saw the sun and it reached 60. INCREDIBLE!

19-21, Weekend February, Rome: From Ruins to Robbery

When in Rome, don’t get robbed. If I learned nothing else from this trip I will always remember to lock my door.

Sunday morning, I awoke to find my wallet missing. Thinking it was simply misplaced I began to ransack my room. I finally gave up the search when I heard that the other guys from Villanova in the hotel room next to me couldn’t find their wallets either….
The lady at the front desk calmly informed us that the door to the front door of the hotel was locked all night and that the only other couple in our hotel was an old an Italian couple and that we had to have lost our wallets outside the hotel. I very calmly proceeded to tell her she was out of her mind. Unfortunately, however, the security cameras don’t record and are money was probably long gone. Luckily, the money was the only thing the nightmare took.

A half hour later, the cleaning lady showed us our wallets. She had found them nicely stacked on the table of the foyer while doing her rounds. At this point in time, another friend remembered that someone had entered his room in the middle of the night and then, after seeing him awake, walked out. It appears as if he was only after the cash. So we went down to the questura (police station) filled a perfunctory report and carried the rest of our possessions on our persons until we left for Urbino in the afternoon. I can’t say Rome wasn’t exciting!
But now, about Rome. In short, it’s really cool and everyone should go there for at least a day or two- right now! The first day we had a very dry tour guide to lead us through the Roman Forum, but it wasn’t all her fault. They call them ruins for a reason; you really have strain your imagination to envision 3 reconstructed pillars as part of a once massive temple. However, those ancient structure which are still mostly intact are incredible. The Coliseum was still very imposing and the Pantheon looked as strong as ever. If you want to talk about awe- inspiring buildings Saint Peter’s was my favorite. Everything is done on such a large scale and the dynamic figures are so lifelike and formidable. I definitely got the message, while exploring the wide streets and beautiful piazzas of Rome, that this was Rome. All roads don’t lead to Rome; rather, the ancient mapmakers measured their units with the Forum as their starting point. Rome is the center of Italy and she knows it.

22-23 Monday February, Rest and Classes

Monday morning I spent most my time catching up on the work i didn't do in Rome. I took a language placement test (I'm now intermediate!) and spent the entire night talking in Italian about world politics and the state of US health care. In short, we've concluded that the middle east will explode and that although Lebanon will be in the center of that explosion we should all move there, because they have a phenomenal health care system.

Tuesday I started two new classes. My language class was interesting enough, but my Italian philosophy course was incredibly boring. Surpisingly, I understood everything my teacher said, but because she was just an assistant filling in none of the 150 students paid her any attention. Everyone openly talked and played on their cell phones throughout the lecture. Although I was surprised by such a blatant display of disrespect I could sympathise because she wasn't very good.

24-26, Wendesday-F, February, Tango +food

Wednesday I went to tango class and I learned quite a bit more than a few dance moves. On the car ride over the owner was giving me quite the Italian lesson. He says I can speak fairly well (although, he believes I could pronounce my words much better). However, my Italian emails are atrocious. Not only are they bad, because I rarely write in Italian, but they are also poor because, like in English, I hate proofreading. Regardless, he was kind with his corrections.

While I was waiting for the class to start I started up a conversation with his 10 year old son, Luigi (I figured he wouldn’t pick on me too much. We talked about clothes, homework and everything. He was quite willing to help me with my readings. After that the lesson was very good. I actually started giving advice to some of the other dancers. It’s difficult enough to do it right in English; here, I have not had to worry too much about it.

Thursday, we went out to a Villanova sponsored dinner at a local restaurant. The food was very good, the desert even better. You can’t go wrong with potatoes and pork.
Friday was class, class, and class.

27, Sat February, Boh?

Frankly I can’t remember. I know it was absolutely beautiful and I went for a very taxing run around town. Met some friends at the weekly market, did some work.

28 Sunday February, Eccezionale

This was an awesome day. Very strange, but pretty cool.

The morning was normal enough; woke up, did some studying nothing exciting. However, by the time the afternoon rolled around I was get pretty antsy so I went for another run around the city. Bad Idea, it was still as hilly as yesterday! Near the end of my trot I ran into my friend Claudio from Sardinia. He speaks English very well, but he practices with me because he has to pass the big English test in a couple months. He’s a graduate student studying Political Science and plans on being a diplomat! However, we were very surprised to see each other because we had just at lunch two hours before about how we would be studying all afternoon. So I went for a run and he, “ha fato sua aquilone” had just finished flying his kite (it was a pretty windy day!)

Later, while waiting in line for dinner I struck up a conversation with a very interesting French girl. Amandina (Amanda for Italians and Americans who can’t pronounce her real name) Was born in France, normally studies in Belgo(Belgium) and is here studying Economics in Italian(she’s also fluent in English). However, despite knowing so much, she was absolutely clueless with how to deal with the lunch ladies. This was her first time at the cafeteria and in all fairness it is pretty confusing. You get bread, then you have to choose one primo piatto(pasta or soup) a second and third (meat and potatoes), and one fruit. However, you can’t get two of anything, e.g. meat dish or they will yell at you. I felt very smug helping her because I remember how absolutely helpless I was a month ago.

Next, we went to sit with her friends from Syria! They speak just about 0 Italian, and are here studying architecture. They saw some flyers and they want to learn Tango and salsa. I agreed to teach them only if they’ll teach me traditional Syrian dances. It’s really cool. They all get in a line, link their arms and start kicking in units(I wanted to tell them they looked just like a male version of the rockets!) After Dinner, Amandina and I decided to return to my room to get some tango flowers for her friends. Only problem was, I forgot where I lived…

The dorms are incredible for their symmetry, everything is the same. The only question is how far down the steps your block is and whether you live on the left or the right. I live 5 floors down on the left. I walked into the block right above mine! The first hint that I was in the wrong place was the girl sitting at the table who I’d never seen before. The second was when my key didn’t open the bedroom door. Then I looked around and realized that there was a reason why I had never seen this girl before, the kitchen was entirely different.

After uttering some quick excuses about being a stupid American we found that it was no problem and she was quite amused. She was preparing to eat this fabulously strange looking dish with noodles and a sauce I couldn’t recognize. Turns out, she’s from Romania and she came over a year ago. By the time we left her dish was cold because she was happy to chat for quite a while.

20 minutes later, we actually arrived in my block. Although it only took me 2 minutes to find the flyers we didn’t leave for close to two hours. We chatted with my Lebanese block mate for a while and we learned all about Belgium’s government, or rather, lack thereof for large stretches of time. Then my friend who knows French showed up and I had fun trying to guess they were saying. It was not before 12:30am, after I defended my views on the Iraq war and the possibility of one with Iran (in Italian!) that we called it a night.

29, Monday February, Anahi

I spent about 3 hours in the morning talking with a girl from Buenos Aires! She is the girlfriend, of my ping pong archnemisis Pierre from France. Pierre is fluent in English but his girlfriend also wants to pass an English proficiency test. Although she’s from Argentina, her family moved over 4 years ago from work and now she’s fluent in the language and hopes to teach it. However, her English is only so so, we agreed to do a tandem project. What that basically means is that we get together a couple times a week and talk, first in English, then Italian, and we work on correcting each other’s grammar and becoming more comfortable in conversational settings. It was great because Argentina is the Tango capital of the world, so I had a lot of questions for her. I also learned that Argentina’s government is horribly corrupt, sounds like a trend.

Later in the afternoon, after I finished my work, I went out with a bunch of Italians to play il calico (soccer). We played on a little enclosed turf field nearby. Although they were all really good, I felt like I held my own. However, we played for two hours and I was cramping pretty bad after one. I can now say I played soccer in Italy!