Spring "Break" Part 2

Ah, Paris. What a handful that city was.

More excerpts from the travel journal:

March 21 (Wednesday)

Sacre Coeur

[After a stressful, bad-first-impression Tuesday]
"Today! Today was a stairway to a better view of Paris. And I don't just say that because we climbed hundreds of them to get to Sacre Coeur. Today elevated my spirits and my mood, and even though I am exhausted from all of the walking we did, the day itself was very relaxing..."

"Crossing the Seine, catching a glimpse of the Eiffel in the smoky vapors of late afternoon, feeling the last chills of winter retreat from the golden sun, reminded me why people keep coming to this city. It's the idea they are searching for, not the location. The lonely writer, the newlywed couple, the lost tourist...they are all looking for the Paris of their imagination, the ethereal city frozen in time and untarnished by modern distractions. Memories mix with expectations, drifting among hope and disappointment. Longing and nostalgia well up within, spilling out in ways all too familiar to the tourist trade: overspending on trivial keepsakes, desperately attempting to conform dream and reality.

No wonder ennui is a French word."

Stained-glass reflection in Notre Dame chapel

"Next: Shakespeare & Company, the greatest bookshop I've ever set foot in. I shuffled sideways through narrow aisles and ducked under bulging shelves brimming with new and used classics. I was wrapped up in a literary safety blanket. Warm and fuzzy feelings abounded, I assure you, but for good reason. In each cozy niche I stumbled upon strangers becoming friends over common interests, even sharing their life stories while perusing the biographical section. If ever a bookshop could have essence, it would be Shakespeare & Company."

March 22 (Thursday)

Megan arrived on this day. I ran up and hug/tackled her in my excitement. Then we went to Louvre and got lost in the Egyptian relics wing. Mac played patty cake with a monkey statue. It was a very successful day.

March 23 (Friday)
Quote of the day: "You can call me White Pepper." Thanks, Megan.

Meg & I at the Temple of Love at Versailles

At Versailles: "Megan and I ambled around the beautiful grounds and Marie Antoinette's estate, drinking in the contrast of colors and general splendor...We picnicked on the back steps of the Chateau, took a tour of the Apartments, and waltzed (or tried to) through the Hall of Mirrors. Then an early train back to see about exchanging Megan's train ticket for an earlier departure. Success! A chocolate eclair to celebrate. Later, a nice dinner at a cafe, sitting outside to people-watch, just like real Parisians."

[An interesting turn of events led Megan and I to get a different hotel room for the night.]
"We had a discussion about the facts of life, soaked our feet in the tub, and watched Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman dubbed in French before going to bed."

March 24 (Saturday)
"I feel as if we got the true French experience today. We started out with breakfast (croissants) on the riverbank, then had a fantastic time at L'Orangerie, the museum famous for Monet's Water Lilies. Lovely."

"For lunch we stopped at an elegant café just off the beaten path to the Tower, and I had the most amazing goat cheese salad "with a touch of honey" and a delicious cup of coffee (café au lait). We sat there in true French style for over an hour, chatting and enjoying the atmosphere. The waiter was funny, too, humming to himself and practically dancing between the tables."

"Then another stroll to the Tower and a crêpe on the steps under the bridge. We observed there some ducks and documented what was most likely their very dramatic life story. After a while we headed to the Jardin des Plantes. The garden was so magical! It had a menagerie (we saw wallabies) and there were tiny French children everywhere, adorable with their foreign gibberish. We took in the warm family atmosphere and thought about "La Vie En Rose."

Au revoir, Spring Break. Even though you were not much of a break. Your misleading name tells me you will not be much missed.

(Note: These are just the highlights of the trip. For more details, you can look on Facebook at my London photo album by clicking here and my Paris photo album by clicking here. Enjoy!)

Spring "Break" Part 1

I am a professional procrastinator. This refined talent surpasses the lazy and indolent masses, impressing even the most slothful of students. Sometimes my sheer ability to put things off until the last moment shocks and awes.

Today the subject of my dilly-dalliance is a paper for my IPLF class due this Friday at 5:00 pm. Our professor, the wonderful Dr. Grillot, has already so graciously extended the deadline for this paper because we have been so busy with the Board of Visitors this week. However, that still leaves plenty of time I could be using to be productive with my life, and instead I choose to...not. I choose to not a lot.

Fortunately, in order to procrastinate one thing, I usually end up doing something else of equal or lesser importance. So today, for instance, I cleaned my bathroom. Then I caught up on my email correspondence. Even now, I'm using this blog post as an excuse to further put off The Dreaded Paper.

Usually somewhere in this routine I will have a moment of weakness and begin the project at hand. This time that weak moment produced three-fourths of a page and a witty title for my paper. Thankfully, a Skype date interrupted my progress, and now here we are.

About last week.

First, London. 

I kept a travel journal of the whole experience, so I think I will just copy a few excerpts of it here:

March 16th (Friday)

"Our taxi driver, Hank, drove us to the hotel. So quaint! We're just down the street from Hyde Park and the famed Oxford Street. I love London already. They use words like "queue" and phrases like "it's been here for donkey's ages."

"I still love London, and my ardor is growing. To walk the streets of this city of ideas, of intellect, of fish and chips! Which we had for dinner. Then we conquered the Tube and made it to the Tate Britain, enjoying a short jaunt along the Thames. Oh, the view of the Thames at night is surreal. The afternoon fog - which coats everything in a dreamy, 19th-century daze - has faded with the setting sun, and the crisp air smells of dusty book pages."

March 17th (Saturday)

"It started raining in Kensington Gardens today, but it was beautiful and I got to see the Peter Pan statue so I didn't care. Then Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament."

"If I ever come back to London, I will refuse to do the major tourist destinations. I guess I just have a penchant for the obscure and/or experiential, but I would rather browse a street market in Camden or spend a couple of hours in a 300-year-old bookstore that Hemingway frequented than take the same picture of the same building that millions of other Americans have already taken. However, tourism is also a big part of the London atmosphere (economics and all that) so I should appreciate observing it first-hand."

March 18th (Sunday)

"It didn't feel like Sunday. We hit the ground running early this morning, and have had little to no rest on this Day of Rest. I'm still sad we didn't get to go to the Evensong service at Westminster, but I can be thankful for the few hours I have this evening to get refreshed."

"Shakespeare's Globe Theater was amazing! The best part was not being in a reconstruction of the open-air, thatched-roof theater that performed the Bard's plays. The best part was our tour guide, 'a spry old British woman who could kick my butt' according to Mac. An astute observation. That lady was hilarious and really knew her stuff. We learned about groundlings and costumes and Pudding Street. (Shakespearean insults to follow.)"

March 19th (Monday)

"Monday morning on the Tube: life happening quickly all around you. Swarms of city folk converge and disperse, everyone hurrying to work, or reading the paper intently in their starched suits and shiny shoes. Business is booming and the workers are walking walking walking-

"Until the sanctuary of the church (pun intended). Peace and stone welcome the weary traveler at the door and the tour of Westminster begins. My favorite part of this medieval church experience was not Poet's Corner, which was far and away one of the coolest places I've seen, but it was the minute of silence for the hourly prayer, interrupting the hum of the unconcerned visitor with humble words and good wishes."

"A short break at the end to reflect and pray, seated in the pew and head bowed, and a sudden realization flooded in: never before, in this palace of grandeur made to honor royalty, in the midst of these manmade tombs of monumental prestige, has it made more sense to say that God is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Those noble men are so far above the common man, and He is so far above those fools with shiny crowns. Praise be to the One this church was made for."

Thoughts of Paris to follow...

The Life and Times of a Study Abroad Student: An Update

Buon giorno, principessa!

We recently watched "Life is Beautiful" (which was filmed in Arezzo by the way) in my IPLF class, so we now go around greeting each other with a boisterous "Good morning, princess!" in our most obnoxious Italian accents. It's lovely.

Wow, a lot of time has gone by since my last post. In fact, to emphasize my point, you should listen to "As Time Goes By" from "Casablanca" by clicking on the link. It seems so long ago that I was making a list...checking it twice... and still forgetting to pack shampoo. Oh well. The week leading up to Spring Break went by smoothly all the same.


Saturday Elisandra and I took a day trip to Assisi. The city is so beautiful, set on a hill with a huge duomo and castle at the top. My favorite pictures were taken at sunset, when the rays set the church aglow in a simmering golden blaze. Here is an example:

It was a lovely peaceful day, and we explored the entire city, walking up and down, up and down, up and down the hills and stairs. We even met some of the local animals, and I made friends with a stray cat. I named him Oliver.

One of the highlights of the next week was the Tandem Project, which allowed OUA students to connect with Italian UNISI students in Arezzo and discuss pop culture while practicing our (lack of) language skills. For once, the Italian students outnumbered the American students, so each of us were paired with four or five Italian students. My group was really fun, although I felt completely inadequate in my ability to communicate in Italian, since I've been studying it for 2 years and they have all been studying English for at least 8. Nevertheless, we stumbled through the standard topics (food, music, extracurriculars) and found out that almost all of us love Harry Potter.

We made plans to meet later in the week to have more conversations. On that Thursday they took me to their favorite gelato place, called Sunflower. We talked about sports and movies, and one of the girls said that there is a well-known comic in Italy whose main character resembles Audrey Hepburn. It was a very productive meeting, to say the least.

We didn't end up getting to see the monks chant Vespers on Wednesday, but it was for the best since we were all so tired from Art History earlier in the morning. Instead I got the chance to sit and talk with Nancy Stephenson, who is pretty amazing. She shared a lot of stories, and I learned that Dr. Stephenson plays Dungeons & Dragons, among other things.

Thursday was a little crazy because I was trying to finish everything before leaving early Friday morning. After my last midterm, I came back to the apartment and met Lindsay's mom, who had just arrived for a visit. We had a dinner party to welcome her to Italy, and I gave up trying to get a good night's sleep before a long day of traveling, so I convinced Mac to come to karaoke night with us. We danced to our heart's content, and then this Cinderella turned into a pumpkin for a few hours before waking up again at 5:30 to catch a train to Pisa.

Mac says she regrets staying out so late, but I know she secretly loved it. I saw her bippity-bopping to the music. She had a ball.

No time, Toulouse!

Life is getting kind of crazy as the days count down to Spring Break.

Today was a splendid break from busyness, though. This morning we had a Getting to Know Arezzo class, and we got to hear about life in Arezzo from fellow Aretines, who told us the good, bad, and funny. Then we took a small walking tour of the town, led by a wonderful old man in a green corduroy vest. The tour ended at a museum dedicated to the Joust, an annual event that Arezzo is famous for.

The historic center of Arezzo is split into quadrants, and these quadrants have strong rivalries against one another, always competing to see who can win the Golden Lance at the end of the festival. Over 300 people dress in medieval costume and parade through Piazza Grande before the big event, which the riders train for during the year.

Pretty cool.


In the afternoon, a few of us went to a pasta-making class. I have been waiting for this event all semester. I've always wanted to be able to make pasta from scratch!

The whole process is simple enough, just time-consuming. We had (probably too much) fun rolling the dough, eating the dough, using the fancy ravioli cutter, eating some more dough, getting flour everywhere. We learned the proper terminology for the pasta-making process, including:

"Make an egg volcano"
"Mash and smash"
"Soft little pillow pastas"

I felt like a little kid playing with Play-Doh, but somehow I ended up with three different, delicious-looking pastas, and then it was time to go.

For dinner I cooked the gnocchi, which is a potato-based pasta reminiscent of dumplings. But they're Italian dumplings, and they taste delicious with a butter pesto sauce. They are also really fun to cook, because when you put them into the boiling water, they sink to the bottom until they are ready. Then pop! Up they come. It's like a tiny surprise party every time.

Tomorrow I am going to the market early in the morning, and then catching a train to Assisi for the day with Elisandra. It's our last hurrah before the busy week begins, and I am so excited to tour that beautiful city.

Next week is going to be a little ridiculous. I have activities every day, right up until I leave. Here's a breakdown of my schedule:
Sunday I'm going to a prayer service at the Stephenson apartment, and then Skyping with my dad (and hopefully Sonya and Dalayna!).
Monday I have a double dose of my IPLF class, with a Student Advisory Council meeting in between.
Tuesday I have an Italian midterm and a Video Project meeting, as well as the first meeting for the Tandem Project, created to bring Italian and American students together. There is also a Faculty-in-residence event that night.
Wednesday we go to Florence for Art History, and then stay after to watch monks chant Vespers at San Miniato. That night we have a SAC event.
Thursday I have an Understanding Music midterm and a monthly community meeting. At some point I need to pack because...
Friday we leave on a 6:57 am train to start our Spring Break Adventure.

Wow.

Time is racing by in a Vespa while I jog along, trying to catch up. I don't mind the slow lane, though, for it's a chance to "stop and smell the roses." Or in my case, the flours. Have a wonderful week, friends!

Trial by Fire

Ciao a tutti,

Finally I have some time to update you of my many misadventures. This morning I took my Art History midterm. The test lasted 3 hours, contained 20 slide and term ids and 2 essays, and required at least 10 hours of study and preparation.

In a positive light, I can now tell you all about the qualitative assessment of the Vasarian paradigm and explain the nuances of Neoplatonism and the stylistic effect this philosophy had on High Renaissance art. I can also look at many early Renaissance pieces and rattle off facts like a true tour guide. For example:

Giotto - "Trial by Fire" (1320s)

"If you look to your right in the Bardi Chapel, you'll see 'Trial by Fire,' part of a series of frescos painted by Giotto in the 1320s that depict the life of St. Francis, for whom this church was founded."

I hope I passed!


Even though I am relieved that this test is over, I'm still aware of the multitude of work ahead of me, and I don't just mean my classes (which can be a distraction in and of themselves). I am so blessed to have such encouraging friends back home who lift me up when I'm discouraged, who impart wisdom without realizing how desperately I need it, and who love me enough to gently correct me when I stray.

God has been so faithful this semester, when I have been so unfaithful to Him. Never before has He so consistently answered prayer, and so timely! Just last night, I was talking to Him about how I've been failing at having a ministry here, and I asked Him to create in me a pure heart (Ps. 51:10), to give me wisdom from heaven (James 3:17) and encouragement to have boldness (Eph. 6:19).

Then, when I opened my Bible for my daily devotion, I was reading in II Corinthians about everything that I had just prayed about. In chapter 5, Paul talks about the ministry of reconciliation and how we are Christ's ambassadors, compelled by Christ's love (one of my all-time favorite passages, just so you know). In chapter 6, he talks about the ways in which Christians commend themselves, such as endurance, purity, patience, and kindness, and at the beginning of chapter 7 he gives a reminder to pursue holiness. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say God directly answered my prayer.

Not only does He work through His Word, but God speaks through other people. I had incredible conversations with Annahlyse and Lauren via Skype. Annahlyse told me some hard truths that I needed to hear and prayed with me about my struggles, and Lauren encouraged me and gave me wisdom from her own experiences. I can't even express the beauty of God's timing. He is so good.

Knowing I just said so much - maybe without saying anything at all - I ask forgiveness if the message is confusing or disjointed. I guess it's a dissipated look into the mechanics of my heart.

Regardless, these next weeks will be a testament to what I've learned, and I hope I am ready to withstand the test.