September 28, 2011

September 28, 2011

Wow, as of today, I have been here in Florence for one month! Pretty crazy, right?! I can’t even believe that a month has already passed…if this were an interim trip like when I went to London in January I’d already be going home. I simply can’t even believe it. Anyway, this morning my Dante class met at Santa Maria Novella at 9:30 to discuss the crucifix by Giotto, how the layout of the specific church was symbolic of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the fourteenth century chapel with the paintings representing Inferno and Paradiso as depicted by Dante, once again in his Divine Comedy. It was incredibly interesting because they were painted after the time of Dante’s works so they were very parallel to his telling of the story. It was interesting to follow the painting to where we have read so far. After about an hour in the church, we headed back to the classroom where we further discussed the cantos in Inferno that we had read for the day. Class got out at 11:30; I ate my lunch and then headed over to the Uffizi for my next class. I got there a little early so I read for Weaving the Tale on the steps in the middle of the courtyard until the rest of the class showed up. At 1:00, we got our tickets to go into the Uffizi and my Weaving the Tale class went to see the exhibit on tarot cards by Francesco Clemente, which was fascinating after reading both The Castle of Crossed Destinies and The Tavern of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino, who uses a method of storytelling through the narration of tarot cards. We spent the entirety of our class there, noting the differences between the tarot cards of Clemente and those in our books, noting the mediums used by the artist, and looking at the cycle in which he created them. We also saw his twelve apostles, which are paintings of each of the twelve apostles with symbols pertaining to them specifically but each had the face of the artist, Clemente. Although they were almost eerie, I really enjoyed them.

After class, I headed back to school to pick up my backpack and then caught the bus home. I decided it would be nice to get my homework done early and maybe even get ahead a little bit. I read the article for my Medici class tomorrow and made sure my Italian homework was all finished for tomorrow as well. Then I did the reading for Monday for my Dante class, got started on reading for my Weaving the Tale class, and took a shower. All in all, I had a pretty productive afternoon. Because we had the concert tonight at 8:00, Daniella made me dinner at 6:30 so I would be able to eat at home before I left. Franzi had drawing until 7:00 so those people were on their own for dinner before the concert.

At 6:30, Daniella called me into the kitchen where she had dinner waiting for me. She and Andrea were going over to their son’s house for dinner so I had my own dinner in the kitchen. I was completely overwhelmed as I saw what she had “thrown together” for me. First of all, she had made me a big bowl of pesto (because it was my favorite) and bread. For the second course, I had both green beans and an entire caprese salad all to myself. For dessert, she had set out a peach tart. I was so hungry so it was just the perfect meal and I really appreciated it. Apparently Italians have a different meaning of “throwing something together” but I’m definitely a fan :) I enjoyed my “little meal” very much! Daniella and Andrea left for Mattheo’s house just as I was finishing dinner so I had about half an hour with the house to myself before I had to leave for the concert. I had just been talking about how I hadn’t really been able to sing in a while so it was the perfect opportunity! I spent the next half hour singing and it was absolutely wonderful! Around 7:15, I caught the bus to the Santa Maria Novella station where I met Erin and we walked to the Teatro Comunale together for the concert.

The concert was absolutely incredible! First of all, we had amazing seats in row S of the orchestra level and my seat was smack in the center! And Teatro Comunale is really a beautiful theatre! Wayne Marshall conducted the orchestra and choir, but also played piano in the first half of the concert and was brilliant. The first half was composed of music by Gershwin and the second half, by Berstein. In fact, they opened the second half with Chichester Psalms (which we sang last year at St. Olaf Christmas Fest) so I definitely sang along in my head! It was so much fun to know a song so well and hear it again after almost a year. The performed incredibly and I really enjoyed it. Overall, I enjoyed the Berstein half better but both were just wonderful. I cannot describe how happy I was to be at a concert, listening to music, and just taking the music in—there was no need to analyze anything or take notes…I could just listen. I think I smiled through the entire concert :)

After the concert, we walked back to Santa Maria Novella and caught the bus home. It’s already 11:30 so I had better wrap this up so I can post it and get to bed. Thankfully, I don’t have class until 1:30 tomorrow so I can sleep in tomorrow morning! I hope you all had a wonderful day and I hope you have a wonderful evening.

A domani (until tomorrow),

Kari

My personal dinner :)

At the concert!