17. Settembre 2011: Love and Some Verses

Before I start this post, I must give a huge shout out to my wonderful mother:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I love you!!!

And if Shany is reading this (which I don’t think she will be because she’s just starting college this week), Happy Birthday to you (and your twin sister Mor) as well. The big eighteen!

Wow, today was a big today…in fair Verona, where we lay our scene! I went to Verona with Kari. We woke up at 5:30 a.m. to make our train. I have written up a schedule for what times in Italy correspond with times in Illinois and California and put it up on the wall. When I glanced at it this morning, I realized that I was awake probably before any of you reading this were heading to bed last night! That would be 10:30 p.m. for Chicagoans and 8:30 for all you west-coasters. It brought out a surge of emotion in me though, even now, I’m not sure what the emotion was. Just realizing the extant of my separation from the U.S. from a different perspective, I suppose.

Anyways, we made it to the train station by 6:30 and we greeted at platform nine (no, not 9 ¾) by an extraordinarily chipper Italian train attendant. It was quite jarring but a smile never goes amiss in my book. We changed trains in Bologna (and almost missed our train because there are two different sets of platforms and we were waiting at the wrong platform 6 for ten minutes before we realized) and arrived in Verona by 10. It was at that point that we realized how minimal our knowledge base for Verona was; we didn’t even have a map. So we followed several different groups of tourists until we finally found the center of the city (a note to tourists: if you are carrying a guidebook around with you, expect to have dumber tourists follow you). The first thing we saw was the Arena, a roman coliseum that still plays concerts and is surrounded by cheesy, costumed “Romans” who will charge you an obscene amount of money to take a picture with them. We actually saw some English women taking a picture with them and after they had taken the picture, one woman asked, “so I’m not sure what’s customary…do I pay you now?” Kari and I looked at each other incredulously and snorted. I am honestly amazed that any tourists are ever gullible enough to fall for those traps.

We walked from the Arena through the most expensive street in town (I gaped at all of the designer stores) to a colorful and beautiful square. From here, we simply wandered which was a nice change from our first two weekends as a part of one huge tour group. We passed the Scaligeri graves (very gothic and extravagant tombs), a towering statue of Dante and a simple art fair where I witness a man dying leather and binding journals right in front of us. We reached the Fiume Adige and I realized why Shakespeare was so inspired by this town. The campagna, countryside is breathtaking.

These two gentlewomen in Verona walked along the river and found the remains of the Teatro Romano. These ruins were overgrown with beautiful greenery and, for the most part, blocked off to anyone but the paying tourists. So we gazed in through the gates and I smiled to notice a pomegranate tree by the edge of the ruins. I was reminded of one of my favorite scenes from a Shakespeare play, when Juliet is trying to convince Romeo not to leave after the first night that they spend together.

Juliet: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale and not the lark that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

And then we realized that we should visit Juliet! We crossed back over the river and began to search for Juliet’s house until I was distracted by a trickle of fancily-dressed couples walking towards town. I veered off-course, dragging Kari with me and we followed the dresses to the church of San Anastasia. We were actually able to enter the church and witness the wedding ceremony that these guests were clearly invited to. I raised an eyebrow at the tourists who were taking pictures of this wedding ceremony, then realized that I was one of those tourists and immediately hurried out of the church, slightly embarrassed.

Finally, we found the Casa di Giulietta and swarmed in with the mass of tourists. The courtyard is a sweet, romantic place with the famous balcony next to an ivy covered terrace. I’ll be honest here; I wasn’t overcome with a romantic need to be with a loved one. I understand that before Shakespeare got to it, the story of Romeo and Juliet was supposedly based on a true story. But before Shakespeare got to it, the story of Romeo and Juliet was just a tragic case of two overly-obsessed teenagers who took their love to an extreme. I do not find the story of Romeo and Juliet a romantic story; I find the Shakespeare poetry that is inspired by their story extremely romantic and beautiful. So no, I did not pay to have my picture taken on the balcony. I did have my picture taken with the statue of Juliet—touching her left breast will grant one everlasting love, legend has it. Frankly, I think there are better and more reliable ways to go about achieving everlasting love but I was there so I touched it and then gratefully accepted some of Kari’s hand sanitizer. Excuse me, if you couldn’t tell, I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the hopeless romantic. But I did write a letter to Juliet, for the sake of being a tourist and woman. No, I didn’t ask for advice or leave my address for her minions to respond to. What did I write? Let your imagination run wild.

After Juliet’s house, we joined some of the wedding guests (it was over, apparently) at a quaint little restaurant and enjoyed some of the best ricotta and spinach ravioli I’ve had and some of the worst prosecco (a sweet, sparkling white wine) I’ve had.  After lunch, we realized that we probably didn’t need an entire day to explore Verona. On our student’s budgets we had pretty much done everything to be done in Verona…though I would have loved to have tried on that splendidly forties-style pencil dress in the window of Dolce and Gabbana. So we continued to wander along the Fiume Adige and stumbled upon a castle. That’s right, we stumbled upon a castle! Only in Europe can one realistically stumble upon a castle. On the drawbridge, the sign said that it was that Castelvecchio (literally, the old castle). Again, we stuck to our budget and did not pay to enter the museum but we appreciated the beauty of this classic castle and then walked back into town. We got some gelato, watched street performers do gymnastics, and then found ourselves in the middle of a renaissance-costumed band and flag throwers: the first annual Festival della Dottrina Sociale.

We returned to Florence safely (and on first class…an unexpected and unpaid upgrade!) though to a different station than usual and ended up winging it by bus. The bus schedules have been updating in the last week so it’s been very confusing to follow but we managed to get on the right bus then off again before it veered too far away from our neighborhood. We ended up walking the last dozen blocks back to our house which started out slow. Then, while going through the tunnel, we both jumped, startled at what we realized a second or so later was the loudest, most obnoxious wolf-whistle we had ever experienced. The Vespa zoomed away as his whistle continued to echo through the tunnel and the each of us laughed at the other’s reaction. Still, it was enough motivation to make the rest of our journey about twice as fast as our initial pace. Personally, I find cat calls to be some of the most obnoxious actions in the world…and are they really productive in any way? But there you go! Verona adventure accomplished! My plans for the next month are pretty exciting too. Venice is next weekend, followed by Oktoberfest in München, then for fall break Kari and I will be spending a week in London! Plenty of things to look forward to. So until the next adventure…Ciao!