Good morning blog-readers! I pray to you to let my enormous three month blog-hole slide. My sincerest apologies. Anyway, it would be close to impossible to recap from mid october until present day, however i can fill you in on a few things.
First of all, the first semester is over! we had finals that were literally so so stressful, especially my psychology final that had me crying and not sleeping, and stressing to the nth-degree! it ended up going well, thank the heavens, but it was my first university-in-italy-oral-exam... I'm sure you can imagine! before that my friends David and Lauren and I went to Amsterdam and it was amazing! Aside from being freezing, we had an amazing time and visited many places (my favorites of which were the Van Gogh museum, the tulip museum, and the cheese museum... where on a whim i bought 60 euros worth of cheese and payed 30 euros to get it sent to California for my father, lucky man, empty Tess wallet!) The culture in Amsterdam is so different, and it was really strange for us to hear so much english.
And then came the day in which all the other BU students left to go back to the states (on december 17). It was very sad but i know they all had amazing experiences here. I feel extremely grateful and lucky and blessed that i will be staying here for another 5 months, its going to be nose to the grindstone, learn italian time!
I'm switching host families for a slew of reasons, but the woman who will host me is named Maria Grazia (like my Maria Grazia in Puglia, don't know how common of a name that is but its still a nice coincidence) and she used to work in a bank (like Angelo!) but now she is retired (even though she is younger than my mother) and lives in the center of Padova, which will be super convenient and make everything more doable, even if its just psychologically more doable.
Courses for next semester begin on February 2nd at the BU center, and March 2nd at the University of Padova, where three or maybe all four of my courses will be, still trying to decide.
Currently it's looking like Morphology (in the sector of linguistics), literature (maybe 2 courses of literature), french if i can make it work, and if not french, then Art History. I'll be sure to keep you updated!
I spent the holidays in Puglia with my family, all of us! (Titti, Angelo, Leda, Francesca, and Nonna Leda!) we went to Napoli for christmas and all stayed in a hotel together with Angelo's sister Anna and her family. It was completely different than all christmases i've lived before but i loved it and I'm glad i got to be with family for the holiday. We did a lot of cooking at the Caiati house! Making pasta by hand, typical Leccese deserts, and so much fresh produce, so many colors, flavours, it was heaven, i'm sure you can imagine! I stayed in Trani until the 3rd of January, including New Years that was spent with all those lovely southerners that are so dear to my heart!
Then I embarked on quite a journey, from Trani to Roma by myself for 4 days. I took the train, in first class (because all the other seats were sold out at the time of last-minute booking), made my way from the station to my Airbnb right by the Colosseo, where Isa hosted me in her home, all the while with a huge creature on my back, affectionately my backpack, which easily weighed 50 pounds.
Galleria Borghese, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, and MAXXI were the three museums on my list, and I managed to see all of them! (all worth it). I fell in love with Bernini-- he is a sculpting genius, i spent far too much of my two hours in the Galleria Borghese just sitting and staring and being in awe. seriously breathtaking and unreal and magic!
Then Mamma Ruth arrived from sunny California and brought with her the sun! I met her in Rome and we went to Sicilia together for a few days, relaxing, eating well, and walking along the beaches of Ortigia, the historic center of Siracusa, on the south-east coast. We rented a little apartment, again with Airbnb, clearly obsessed, it's amazing can't say enough about how amazing it is... in which we had a kitchen, a bathroom, a roof-top terrace with a spectacular view of the city and the expansive sea, and an enormous bed ! Then we headed to Padova, where we rented yet another Airbnb(!!!) centrally located, sweet little apartment with all we could have ever asked for. I took my mother around this city and showed her all the wonders it has to offer, or at least those I know of!
We took a day trip to Venezia and visited the Peggy Guggenheim museum, which is marvelous. She tried some typical plates of Veneto and loved(i think) everything. She just left last week.
And so we are basically caught up! Four of the new BU students have arrived, they are with the Management internship program rather than the Italian Studies or European Studies programs (of which the students arrive next wednesday) they are sweethearts! I've been playing tourguide but it turns out i don't know as much about this city as i had previously thought, which is fine because there is time to learn, thank god :)
I went to mass (oh my gosh so unlike me, no one would have ever thought in their wildest dreams that Tess would go to mass, on a monday) but I went and to be honest I loved it. Its not that i'm becoming religious, but i have a newfound appreciation for the spirit and energy within the church, that the people (mostly old italian women) create. It helps that it was at the Basilica di Sant'Antonio, which is an utterly gorgeous space. I'm going again this morning! who would have ever thought.
But it's not too surprising, a lot of things about me are changing. I am no longer vegan, nor vegetarian, but rather omnivore, (whoops!) and i sometimes eat buffalo, or horse. I would have never thought that this would happen! where have my values gone? I no longer wear clothes that could be considered inappropriate, I cut off about 10 inches of my long long long hair that is now just long hair (but healthy now). I'm working on my fluency in italian and it's coming along although its not come as far as I would have wanted so far , and I know i'm a little at fault because english is often spoken amongst us american students (lets be honest, almost always spoken amongst us). It's definitely a LIFE-CHANGING experience going on over here!
Life is going on, this is one hundred percent my life now, this life here in Padova, I don't want this experience to be over, because then my life as i know it would be over. It's wicked strange and I'm not sure how re-adjusting to a life that i no longer feel such a strong bind too is going to be. Thats too far off in the future to be worrying about !
hope you all are having a beautiful 2015.
baci da Padova,
Tess
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