spring break part 1: i-talia

Last week was spring break. A full ten days of no marking, no lesson plans, just me and my passport. So obviously I stayed at home preparing for the coming weeks and catching up on my pedagogical readings…not.

Sunday night – flight from Eindoven to Bologna. I don’t think I stopped laughing from the minute I met up with my traveling companions. Except, of course, when they would switch to Dutch, and then I would tune them out completely. Meet the crew:

Ester – fellow English teacher, medieval lit/art enthusiast, probably my favorite person I’ve met in the Netherlands (and this is going to be awkward if she ever reads this, she’s not so much into feelings)

Erik – history teacher, war/military strategy enthusiast, and resident know-it-all (in a useful way)

Thomas – biology teacher, and to much chagrin, the butt of most jokes (sorry Thomas!) 

We arrived in Italy late and caught a cab to our hostel, which looked like something out of a horror flick. No joke, it was out in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. Rows on rows of identical cinderblock residences, covered in a thick mist. Upon finding number 38, we walked into what can only be described as an oversized closet with beds. The ‘living room’ was a little better than a card table next to two twin beds and some cabinetry. The bedroom room was sequestered off by a wall that didn’t quite reach the ceiling which made for an excellent game of “throw stuff at the guys over the wall” around bedtime. The guys quickly claimed the room, leaving the twin beds for Ester and me, which conveniently could be sequestered off by a folding wall. We didn’t bother using that. It was no Ritz Carlton, but it had a bathroom, running water, and beds. What more could you need? After throwing down our stuff and commenting on who would be the first to die in this slasher-movie-waiting-to-happen temporary residence, we set out to find food. Leaving the map in Erik’s hands, we wove down through the outskirts of Bologna. I say "outskirts" because Erik wasn’t so great with the map (to be fair, we started out in a location that wasn’t quite on the map) and so we spent a better part of the night walking through quiet business parks and dark streets. At long last, we found a restaurant that was still open. The beer was cold, the pizza was hot, and we were starving. Absolute perfection.

ester with the patron saint of grammar

The next morning we woke early and headed into the actual city center (not the area that we thought was the city center the night before) and caught the train to Florence. First discovery of the trip, I love traveling by train. Love it. I don’t know why, but I think it is so cool. I digress, arriving in Florence we found the office for our hostel. Two points to Ester for finding the best digs in Florence. Not even ten minutes from the city center, a small apartment with a kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom big enough to fit a queen-ish sized bed and two twin cots with a dome shaped, raised ceiling. This time Ester and I claimed the prime bed-real estate. I guess the guys didn’t want to spend the week as cuddle buddies, go figure. We dropped our bags and hit the streets. I don’t know if it’s all Europeans or just the ones I traveled with, but it was the easiest adventuring I have ever encountered. First of all, the Dutch “bluntness” really just translates into knowing exactly what they think all the time. A staple of every trip I’ve ever taken has been the “what to do next dance”. All you Americans out there, don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. The “welllll, I was kind of, maybe thinking that we could go here, and then possibly, maybe, if you want to, later on, if we have time, go there” and then it takes fifty gazillion hours to make a game plan. Not with this crowd. If someone wanted to go somewhere, they just said so. If they were hungry, or tired, or annoyed, they said so. As a point of reference, for those of you who know me well, I’m considered blunt by American standards but reserved and polite by Dutch standards. Mother of pearl, I love the Dutch.

So, in our honest and carefree wanderings we toured churches with splendor unlike I’ve ever seen. Except for the Duomo, I couldn’t tell you the names for the life of me. All I can tell you is that I remember standing in center, surrounded by the soaring stone arches and centuries old painted stories and just feeling so very small. We always associate smallness with being a negative thing, but in this case, it was fantastic.

Coupled with our church visits, we wandered up and down the streets of Florence, talking in the architectural splendor while picking our way through the slightly precarious cobblestones. By the way, I think Italian women can’t actually be human. The way that they navigate the cobblestones in high heels cannot be anything but superhuman. We stopped along the Ponte Vecchio to take down some coffee ice cream in a most unladylike fashion. As we were enjoying the view and the sweet treat, a Jamaican (?) man approached us and pressed a beaded bracelet into my hand and tried to do the same for my friends, we all refused as he talked about the beads being the colors of his country, thinking that it was some scam artist. But when I tried to return the bracelet, he said, “no, for you, it’s free” and then wandered away. So now I own that.

We also learned that Ester and I both are interested in “reading” paintings, which pretty much just boils down to playing “I-Spy” with the elements of portraits and paintings. What that meant for us: we have an amazing conversation topic in common. What that meant for the guys: we spend a really, really, really long time in museums.

On Tuesday we had plans to visit a myriad of museums, including a return to Dante’s house, which we found the day before, much to the excitement of the English teachers.  But the sun was warm, a sensation we hadn’t felt in ages. So we decided that wasting the precious sunshine was about the dumbest thing we could do and hopped on a Pisa-bound train instead. Cue the “I’m holding up the Tower of Pisa” tourist photos. I will not apologize for those. We wandered around the city, stopping to buy some bread and cheese at a hole-in-the wall grocery, then sat next to some Roman ruins (casual) and eat lunch/people watch.

After covering most of Pisa, we still had hours of daylight left so we boarded the train again heading to Luca. We wandered around for a bit, just exploring the city and then made our way to the city wall. Like a kid in a candy shop, Erik began a mad exploration/explanation of the uses and functions of the various walls. Let’s be honest, secondary ed people aren’t normal. We’re just not. But you have to be some kind of crazy to work with teenagers everyday and work way harder than you get paid for, and love it. And teachers, more than anyone I have ever encountered, have this weird, innate desire to spew information at anyone. But that was what was really cool about traveling with teachers. We all understood the need to share knowledge and welcomed the opportunity to learn. So I'd like to think that he had a pretty decent audience for all of his explanation. 

worth it

For our rainy Wednesday we hit museum-a-mania. First Dante’s house – be still my heart! A little bit of a let down though, there was more about Dante’s time period than about him. But we can’t have everything. Then the Galleria degli Uffizi. It didn’t take us long to realize that Ester and I were going to take way longer so we decided to split up and agree to meet at the museum entrance at closing time. Highlights of the museum: I got in trouble for taking a picture of Adam and Eve (it was a Milton throwback, I couldn’t help myself), seeing the art of Botticelli, da Vinci, and Michelangelo, making fun of disfigured baby faces (on the art, not real babies), and the world’s worst waitress at the museum cafeteria – seriously, she took two of our orders and then wandered away.

in the Uffizi

Even Ester and I grew weary of dissecting paintings, so we went in search of the David. Turns out, the David isn’t in the Uffizi. So, we headed over to the Galleria dell’ Accademia. But admission was 11 euro and we didn’t have enough time to make it worth the money. So we headed back in the direction of the Uffizi, took a couple of side streets and found ourselves a cute little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with the doorway iced in lights. There was hardly enough room for the crowded counter, and even with just the two of us plus the owner it felt a little claustrophobic but it was precisely the authentic Italy we were looking for. After three days some serious Converse to cobblestone action, we were ready to give our legs a rest. We ordered, and were delighted with our cheese, prosciutto, and artichoke bruschetta. When we had more or less licked the cutting board clean, we decided it was time to track down our traveling companions. Surprise, surprise, we found them in the corner of a café, three beers in and in high spirits. After sitting for an hour or so, we ventured out to find dinner.

No one was ready to close the door on our last night in Florence, so we opted to wander Italy by moonlight. It soon started to rain again, but we didn’t let it put a damper on the evening. We wandered and gawked and I tried to swing dance with Ester in the street, because what else would you do after Erik breaks out into “Singing in the Rain”? Unfortunately, by swing skills are pretty limited to just the girls part and so you can imagine the giggly mess that dissolved into.

The next morning, we made our way over to the Pitti Palace for one last round of art museum. Erik entertained with a history lesson of the major battle scene portraits and the chronology of the featured paintings. Then we collected our belongings from our hostel and got on the train headed back to Bologna. There was still a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we walked around the city, ate dinner, including real bologna in Bologna. Oscar Meyer ain’t got nothing on that stuff. Dinner ran a little too late, so we had a mad dash through the streets to catch the bus that would take us to the airport. My companions checked into their flight, and I waved them off. Our holiday was over for them, but my clock hadn’t run out just yet. But as this post is already a short novel, we’ll save the next leg of the trip for tomorrow.

Without a doubt, Italy was my favorite part of spring break. I encountered literally the most delicious food/red wine I have ever had the pleasure to ingest at every single meal, the sights were absolutely unreal, and my traveling companions weren’t to shabby either. The whole trip was punctuated with jokes about the I-talians, weird American culture, weird Dutch culture, the anatomy of certain Greek statues, and, of course, each other.

Honest to goodness, Europe is spoiling me rotten.