The Spring that was Summer

It seems like all I've had a chance to talk about this semester so far is my study abroad in Florence! I've neglected posts about my daily life here at the dorms and at school. So here's some stuff I've forgotten to post about.

I've been taking some really interesting and challenging classes this semester. In my multicultural literature class we've been talking about hegemony, racial divide, and white supremacy (three of my favorite topics). We're currently reading Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith, a play about the 1992 LA Rodney King riots. I believe that if everyone read this book and Citizen by Claudia Rankine, the world would be a much better place. With everything going on in Ferguson, South Carolina, Baltimore, and even New York, all of my classes have really started to get into this topic of racial violence. I've written a number of essays on this topic in radically different classes. Here's a sample of some of them: for my feminist perspectives on porn class, I wrote an essay comparing these gonzo police brutality videos to pornography; in my classics in feminist thought class, I wrote an essay about the assumptions of criminality projected onto black bodies and the disparate treatment of these bodies by the justice system; and finally, in my multicultural literature class, we're going to write a final paper about the similarities between the Rodney King riots and the current events. It just goes to show how different disciplines can address a single topic in a whole variety of ways.

On a similar note, I have been reading a lot of interesting articles, books, and texts for my classes and they're all so good I just have to share some of them with you guys. First and foremost is the revelation of Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa. I'm surprised I knew nothing about border theory until now, as it is so useful in feminist theory. In fact, I read this book for two different classes this semester. We approached it from different perspectives in each class, which was fascinating. Since I'm studying so many different disciplines (philosophy, english literature, women and gender studies), there are so many different theories and perspectives that are cross-disciplinary that help me think of things in an interesting and helpful way. For example, in my philosophy class (revolutions in modern philosophy), we're learning about Hegel's social theory; it helps me think a bit about the 'ideal' or most 'actualized' society and helps me reflect on whether we really live in that society or if it is ever truly possible.

Other books/texts that I've found interesting: Assata by Assata Shakur, Regeneration by Pat Barker, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" by Judith Butler, Dora by Sigmund Freud, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

A lot of people struggle to find the connection between theory/philosophy and social transformation. One of the themes of my multicultural literature class is the connection between multicultural literatures and social transformation. A lot of people struggle with a degree such as mine, figuring that it's useless and esoteric, not understanding the value of theory. Yet another great article I would point those people to is bellhooks' piece entitled Theory as Liberatory Practice in which she explains that dealing with the social realities is important, but theory can aid in transforming those social realities. Changing reality depends so much not only on the laws we pass and the physical change that is enacted, but on the prevailing thoughts and attitudes that we inspire in others, in the tidal wave of thought. So much is changing already on so many fronts, but change is not real change unless attitudes change. Laws have been in place for a long time (nearly 50 years) against racial or sexual discrimination, yet these things happen on a daily basis because attitudes largely have not change, or have at least been pushed underground into more subtle (and, in my opinion, more sinister) forms of discrimination. Discrimination that dare not speak its name.

Sorry to get heavy on you guys (all of my classes really are this intense and thought provoking). One of my favorite classes this semester has been my pornography class. I know what you're thinking: all we do all day is sit and watch porn together, and oh wow that must be so terribly awkward. But you know, it's actually pretty great. It's nice to confront those awkward fears. The first week was all uncomfortable giggles, but my professor is unfailingly fearless in his approach to this class (it's his first time teaching it too!). He really isn't afraid to talk about these topics, and so neither are we. It's refreshing to really get an intellectual take on something you would think is so banal as pornography. There really is enough to talk about for 15 weeks. And it's even better that it's not just about denouncing porn as 100% misogynist or 100% sex-positive; there's some complexity to the subject, and we have to learn to be OK with that ambiguity it and our approach to it. There was a reason this class started with heavy readings of constitutional decisions on the attempt (and failure) to define obscenity. It really pushed a lot of people in the class to realize that there's no one way of being a "good" feminist. Even better, the teacher is really all about learning and stresses the importance of our writings assignments being a learning and exploratory experience, rather than one of assessment or grading. That attitude has really allowed me the space and freedom to take chances in writing something I wasn't totally sure of, just trying out ideas, not being afraid to try and fail. I think this is the best teaching method, one I wish all professors would adopt.

On a lighter note, this spring has become summer quite suddenly. In that vein, I have recently become obsessed (and I mean a real problem for my productivity) with looking for Lilly Pulitzer for Target clothing online and at stores. Target does limited collaborations with one designer every year and they're usually very popular. On April 19th, I lined up outside of my local Target at 7:20 AM to buy some Lilly Pulitzer dresses for cheap ($38 rather than $180?? Yes, please). It was me and 15 other crazy women in Lululemon pants and oversized sunglasses in line in front of me, all crazily caffeinated and shifting endlessly. We all had lists of our must-have items and store layouts in hand. The door opened and we rushed inside, grabbing everything we could off the racks and racing to the fitting room. I grabbed 13 pieces of clothing, but only 3 of them fit right or were worth buying. I got this lace crochet top and pom-pom shorts in a fish print, and a bikini top.

Photos: Target.com

I really wanted a shift dress (something that Lilly is famous for!) but the smallest size they had was a 2, and I'm at least a 0. I unfortunately didn't think of trying out the kids' shift dresses, as they apparently fit people my size (desperately trying to figure out how to do this)! The entire stock sold out in 20 minute, and the website crashed for hours. Now I'm looking to buy some of the kids' dresses, but I'm struggling because I never tried them on and I don't know what they would fit or look like on me. The struggle of online shopping. Sigh. To make it all worse, now people are selling things on eBay and Poshmark for 3 times the price! A $24 dress is going for prices as crazy as $75! Totally shameless vultures who just wanted the profit took away the opportunity for lots of people who wouldn't have the chance to buy regular Lilly to get it at an affordable price. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit of a consumerist (my dad, when I went into my parents' room that morning at 6:30 called me "the perfect consumer"), but at least I did it the fair way and gave away what didn't fit me rather than hoarding and selling it for a profit. Just goes to show what capitalism does to our country and moral values. However, I have found a beacon of light in this capitalist darkness: there is a Facebook group where women are desperately scouring their local Targets for items to send to people in different parts of the country who didn't get what they wanted. There may still be hope!

I'll wrap this up since I have a lot of work to do (it's nearing finals week, and I have like 4 papers to write...). I'll post some more soonish/whenever I can get around to it!

Florence Study Abroad Part VII: Milan and the Road Home

So here's the end of my Florence study abroad posts. It's feels so crazy that it was only 4 months ago that I went to Italy. And this summer I'll be going to France! So you'll be seeing lots more study abroad posts from me.

The final weekend in Italy, after I took my final, I took the train back to Milan and spent some time there before flying out early the next day. I only spent a day in Milan, but I covered some of the more famous sites.

 This is the original Duomo. The church was built over 500 years and had hundreds of different architects and designers. It took so long to build this church that it went through the period of Gothicism and into the period of neo-Gothicism. It's a beautiful monstrosity of a building. I climbed to the top which was terrifying as the roof is slanted.

This sign was hilarious and amazing. I think it was trying to warn us about the slanted roof of Duomo.

I was really proud of myself for recognizing this scene on the side of Duomo. This is the annunciation (I only saw about 400 other versions of this scene in paintings and churches).

 This car was just beautiful. (P.S. the police cars in Milan were all Lamborghinis; I don't know how they can afford that)

 The original Prada store in Galleria Vittorio. Kinda geeked out when I saw this as I'm still a bit of a fashion nerd.

 The inside of Galleria Vittorio; it's an outside, open-air mall next to Il Duomo

 Sforza Castle

The view of the Alps from the plane ride home. This is the view I had when I came to Italy and it was  an amazing reminder of how much had happened in three weeks and how beautiful this country truly is. Arrivederci Italia!

Florence Study Abroad Part VI: Class Visits

Of course I can't forget about the actual class I was taking while in Italy. I took a class on the Italian Renaissance, which covered art, history, literature, and architecture. I was lucky enough to study this subject right in the cradle of the Renaissance, with priceless historical artwork everywhere. Part of my class included trips to three different churches and museums.

First was Santa Croce.

This was a Franciscan church, which is why it's so plain compared to the intricate pattern of Santa Maria del Fiore. Some pretty famous people are buried in this church, including Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Michelangelo. We took a tour of some Giotto frescoes on the inside of the church. There was some water damage to the church during the flood of the Arno in 1966, so a lot of the artworks have been damaged.

 Michelangelo's tomb

Our second class trip was to the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi was originally the offices under the Medici family (uffizi means offices). It houses some of the most amazing artwork in the world, including the Tribuna, an octagonal room where there is art covering nearly every surface. This used to be where the most prized art and antiquities of the Medici family were displayed. You can't go in this room, but you can look at it from the outside. 

 Annunciation by Simone Martini

 The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

 Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci

Our last class trip was to the Galleria dell'Accademia. The only truly important artwork at the Accademia was Michelangelo's David and his unfinished Prisoners. 

One of Michelangelo's Prisoners

Michelangelo believed that sculptures were imprisoned in marble and that he as the artist was charged with helping them escape and manifest in true form. These unfinished sculptures really embody his artistic method and his goal of perfection in all his work. But they don't even come close to the perfection of David.

There truly is no way to describe how beautiful this sculpture is. I just stood and stared at it for a good while. And then I took this picture:

Because I'm super lame and needed to do a tourist thing. (Yeah, I know I'm not doing it right, but it's hard when 3,000 other people also want to take this picture!)

And that's just a taste of some of the priceless artworks I got to see in person! My class trips were a great way to view a lot of art and to see the amazing quantity of first-class art in the city of Florence.

Florence Study Abroad Part V: Side Trips and Adventures

Hey guys! Here's some pictures of some of the side trips and adventures I went on in and around Florence. Let me just start with some beautiful pictures of the main attractions in Florence: the Arno River and Ponte Vecchio.

The view of the Arno River from Ponte Vecchio

The view of Ponte Vecchio at sunset from the Uffizi Gallery (not even edited)

I also climbed both the Duomo and the bell tower. I was terrified and pretty much couldn't feel my legs the whole time, as I'm really scared of heights. My legs and feet also hurt a lot afterwards, as I climbed nearly 1,000 steps between the two towers, in impractical shoes I may add. But I got some pretty beautiful pictures of Florence out of it! We started climbing in the evening, and night fell as we reached the top.

 The view of Duomo and Florence from the bell tower.

The view of Florence from Duomo (it doesn't look like it, but Duomo is actually taller than the bell tower).

So I struggled a bit with the food in Italy after just a couple of weeks (so many carbs). I was lucky to find this Italian restaurant owned by a British man that actually made salads and chicken and not just pasta or pizza. I ate here four times in the last week I was in Florence. The place is called Acqua al 2 and they even have locations in America! Below are some pictures of the meal I had there every time I went (plus amazing and cheap wine, of course).

 Oh, how I missed salad until this moment...

 Best balsamic chicken on Earth (probably the deprivation of chicken talking there)

 This dessert sampler made me see the face of God: I have never liked cheesecake until I had this strawberry one (top right), and I don't think I'll ever like it again.

The outside of this restaurant is so beautiful and charming, almost like you're in a fairytale. They have about 5,000 stickers on their door from famous food guides and travel guides. Well-deserved, I might add. The food is delicious. They play really cool, lounge-like music inside that makes you feel like you're in a cool nightclub, and they have all these plates with signatures and notes from famous people and actors to the owner, whom I met every time I went. Apparently this is in the theater district of Florence, which you would never know since it is nothing like Times Square or Broadway.

I also visited Boboli Gardens, the private gardens of the royal family next to Palazzo Pitti.

The famous tree tunnels, where the trees grew together to form a tunnel of shade.  Immensely beautiful.

Speaking of delicious food and wine, the last week I was in Italy, my group decided to book a tour of a winery in Chianti country. And yes, this is where true Chianti wine comes from. The wine is certified by a board to be "true" Chianti if a certain percentage of the grapes they use in the wine come from this region and are grown in a specific type of soil and fermented for a certain amount of time, etc. They put a black rooster on the bottle to certify it. This experience had to be my favorite part of the trip, not only because of the wine, but because of the food.

 This is that amazingly beautiful postcard picture you buy of an Italian vineyard (p.s. this was the view out of the bathroom...)

 Meet, cheese, and bread pairings for the wine. They had this amazing bread with the most delicious olive oil on Earth (top left). That thing in the middle was homemade sweet and spicy sauce that the proprietor made for us!

 My favorite of the four wines we tasted

 Greve, the closest town to the vineyard. Quaint and pretty at night.

Probably the best picture I'll ever have.

Florence Study Abroad Part IV: Weekend Trips; Bologna, Venice, Pisa

I swear this semester is going to be the death of me. Just finished three papers and now my professors have given me about 3 more and two books to read. OK. I've also come to the conclusion that these Italy posts are going to take me basically this entire semester to get up since there's so much information and so many pictures involved in them. I'll try to intersperse them with regular posts, but again my semester has been insane and I'm just now realizing I haven't made a post in a month....

So here's a post about my second weekend in Italy, when I went to a number of cities. On Friday after class, we took the high speed train to Bologna. It only took 35 minutes! We looked at the university, which is the oldest modern university in the Western hemisphere (1088). We walked around and saw the ruins of the old city of Bologna inside the library and the Due Tori (a pair of towers that are both leaning in opposite directions). Apparently, during this time period, towers were signs of power and wealth in Bologna and the city is famous for its competing towers. We ended the night with some famous Bologna fare: tortellini, bread, and great wine!

The city is very medieval looking, but there were tons of motorcycles and Vespas, just like everywhere else in Italy!

Bologna at night was breathtakingly beautiful.

On Saturday we woke up very early to go to Venice for the day. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as great as it was for our Rome trip, but it held out and didn't rain. We spent some time walking through the city and got some lunch at a sandwich shop. Then we took the much talked about gondola tour. This was ridiculously expensive, but totally worth it. For four people for 45 minutes, it was 120 euro (30 euro each). If that sounds like a lot, you'd be surprised that it goes up exponentially at night and during the summer! 

The city itself was beautiful and romantic, the type of place with lots of cute bridges and narrow streets.

From our gondola ride!

After our gondola ride, we decided to go to Murano Island. Getting everywhere in Venice takes a lot of time because it's basically a water city. Venice is a lagoon and is serviced by what I would call a water subway system, which makes stops throughout the city and the "outer boroughs" of the two islands. Murano Island is famous for its glass blowing. On a day like ours during the winter, the island closed at 4 PM, so we got into the last free glassblowing demonstration at 3 PM.

This glass blown horse was made on the spot, right in front of us. I got some glass blown cat pieces.

The sunset from Murano Island.

On Sunday, we took a local train (not high speed) to Pisa. These trains are basically the equivalent of Metro North or the LIRR. It took about an hour to get to Pisa on the local train, since we made a lot of stops. The town of Pisa is actually quite large, and very quiet and residential (although most of everything was closed since it was Sunday). A lot of people told us that you just got off the train and then the tower was "right there". This was not exactly true. After 20 minutes of walking across town, and some time getting lost, we finally found the tower.

Like most towns in Italy, there was a river running through the center, and a big bridge.

Had to get my Pisa pic.

That was my second weekend in Italy! I'll post another blog soon about the class trips we went on and maybe another about the other day trips and activities we did in and around Florence. I'm just realizing how much stuff I did in just a month in Italy!

Erica

Florence Study Abroad Part III: Weekend Trips; Rome

So I know this is about a month after returning from Italy, but I got caught up in the beginning of the semester and forgot to finish this post.

So! One of the best parts of my trip to Italy were the weekends; we had them completely to ourselves and with the amazing railway system, nothing was really too far away. Rome was an hour and a half, Venice just two hours, Bologna a mere 35 minutes. We only had three weekends there so we made the most out of it and took a trip on each one. Each of these trips ended with lots of pictures, so I plan to write a post for each one.

The first weekend, we went to Rome. My group of nine friends stayed in an Airbnb apartment just outside of Vatican City. The first night we relaxed and planned our weekend. A huge part of studying abroad is planning, especially if you're on a short trip like mine, and especially for weekend trips. Rome is a huge city with tons of things to do and see. We basically had to do the Rome 101: Vatican, Coliseum, and (my personal favorite) Villa and Galleria Borghese. Since Sunday is a crazy day to go to the Vatican, we decided to get up early on Saturday and spend the whole day there. Vatican City is actually a small country within Italy, in fact the smallest country in the world. It has its own postal offices, but not its own jails. We started in the morning with the Vatican Museum, which is filled with priceless artworks.

You get the picture. We decided to wait on line to see the Sistine Chapel and then St. Peter's Basilica. Walking through the Vatican just to get to the Sistine Chapel, I kept thinking we had gotten there based on how beautiful the ceilings were. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the Sistine Chapel, as they were very strict about cameras (and speaking). But suffice it to say it was breathtaking. St. Peter's Basilica was immense and impressive. It was about the size of 8 churches put together. I didn't know this, but apparently a lot of churches are actually shaped like a cross, with two chapels on the side of the main church to form the cross. Again, St. Peter's had a collection of priceless art, including the original Pietà by Michelangelo. 

(It's much more impressive in person, since there's a wall of glass that makes pictures terrible)

You really start to get a sense of how much money the church had, huh. St. Peter's Square was equally impressive and beautiful.

On Sunday, we went to Galleria Borghese and the Coliseum. In the morning, we made our way over the neighborhood of the museum, right next to the park, and had some breakfast. One of my friends ordered a hot chocolate and we couldn't believe what came out: an entire cup of melted chocolate with a spoon. Apparently that's a common breakfast drink in Italy. How do these people stay so skinny and pretty??

Galleria Borghese is an art gallery located on the grounds of Villa Borghese grounds and gardens. It's filled with (you guessed it) Priceless Artworks. This is where some of the best Bernini sculptures are housed including Rape of Proserpine and Apollo and Daphne.

Rape of Prosepine

This sculpture refers to the myth of when Pluto, the god of the underworld, abducted Persephone, a vegetation goddess, from the earth and made her his queen of the underworld. Demeter, her mother, searched in grief to find her daughter for months, her despair driving the earth to keep from reproducing. Ultimately Zeus couldn't stand it anymore and told Pluto he had to give Persephone back, and Pluto agreed but he was tricky. He made Persephone eat some food from the underworld, some pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return there for a couple months each year, a time which we now call winter. 

This sculpture is beautiful from every angle; you can actually see where his fingers indent the skin on her thigh. Her marble thigh that is. She's even crying tears. Bernini was a genius.

Apollo and Daphne

Again, you can see the amazing craftsmanship that went into making this sculpture. We actually studied this myth in my class. Apollo, the god of the sun, is struck by Cupid with the arrow of love, while Daphne, a nymph, is struck with the arrow of hatred. Apollo pursues Daphne until she turns into a laurel tree to escape his affections. This myth was a huge inspiration to Petrach's (inventor of the Petrarchan sonnet, and kind of the sonnet in general) tortured love poems about his unrequited lover Laura. But here's where it gets great: he talks about the air (l'aura in Italian) and her hair being like gold (l'oro) and her name itself being Laura. So lots of in-jokes and rhyming (creepy much?). But most importantly, poets are crowned with laurel once they achieve fame: Nobel Laureates. So Petrach was basically comparing himself and Laura to Apollo and Daphne, and in this way using the unrequited love to achieve fame as a poet. And it worked. The original nice guy, friendzoned into the eternal history of poetry.

We ended the weekend with a quick tour of the Coliseum, then we caught the train back to Florence.

But not before some gnocchi, of course.