I am going to warn you by saying that my English is terrible. Im apologizing in advance for what might be an incoherent entry for two reasons. First, Im literally still in awe of everything that Ive seen and Im not sure how to express it into words. Secondly, the better my Italian gets, the worse my English gets. Several times a day I have to pause and think about words or grammar. I wrote postcards yesterday and could not spell the simplest words. Yesterday, my friend spelled today with an ‘e’…Today, I was trying to explain to a friend my favorite sight at Verona and I could not think of the word in English. I ended up picking an Italian word instead. Good news is that my Italian is getting much better (not that my grades in class show it)…bad news is that I my brain is on over load and now you must decipher whatever it is Im trying to say.
ANYWAY…
On Friday we all went to Ravenna, which is about 2.5 hours from Padova. We toured around a few churches, saw Dante’s tomb, and had some amazing food paid for by the program before returning on the bus home.
I loved the churches. The mosaics were the most intricate and elaborate works of art I’ve ever seen. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more blown away, we entered the most amazing church. The one half was in the style of a mosaic. It was brightly colored and generally massive and impressive. However the second half was done centuries later in a 17th century, Baroque style. The dome was so tall and from where we stood it looked like there was a balcony and series of angel statues and impressive carvings on the beams. We were astounded to find out that everything was painted. It looked so real it was unbelievable!!!!! I took pictures, but it doesn’t begin to do it justice. It is by far the most impressive thing I’ve seen so far. What made the church is better was that I recognized one of the mosaics from my intro art history class. I have taken art history with the sole objective of having a moment like this. One minute I was looking at this great depiction of where Abraham almost sacrifices his son Isaac and the hand of God comes down to stop it, when it occurred to me that I knew this picture, and had studied it in great detail in class. I was ecstatic. Luckily, my friend Kelcey the art history major was having the same revelation so we were able to converse about it.
The professor who always takes us around tours on the weekends is named Pierre Luigi. He is hysterical and very knowledgeable. I am pleased to learn that he will be my art history professor in March we I take other classes. He is married, or just living with (apparently marriage here is not as big as life partners) Maria Pia who is the program mom. She knows everything about everything and is great. We love her to death.
Anyway, on Saturday I went to Verona with my two friends Christina and Hannah. Verona is about an hour away by train. MOM, DAD WE ARE GOING TO VERONA. It is my favorite city thus far. I could’ve spent so much more time there. We toured this giant castle museum, a Roman arena and several churches. We climbed up to the top of this tower to over look the whole city (over three hundred and sixty stairs). For lunch we found a grocery store and bought bread, olives, wine, and cheese and then ate in a local park. For fear of sounding redundant – though everything really was amazing and beautiful – I’m not going to describe further and assume that you all will check out my facebook photos. (Verona pictures are coming, but I’ve already put up Ravenna)
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