oh. jesus.

painful.
painful.

aaaaaaand.....tina fey, i adore you:



going to watch the debate tomorrow night with a bunch of expats! huzzah!

irregular rectangles

I love walking into a room at a museum and being transfixed by every single piece of work you see...as was the case today in one small, slightly hidden room in the top of Italy's national museum of modern art. 

Their main exhibition right now is Mario Schifano, who dabbled in everything from monochrome to pop art to gorgeous, rich large-scale paintings. But what struck me most were some jaunty little watercolors he created with the poet Frank O'Hara. I can't find any of the good ones online, and got yelled at for attempting to sneak photographs in the museum, which of course didn't sell postcards of the works...but this was the poem on the one I liked best, a very simple painting of 2 rectangles, one very rigid, and one with rounded corners inside:

"What I wonder, does love have to do with an irregular rectangle inside a regular rectangle, or for that matter the grass to do with the lawn---it has all become so puzzling recently that a straight line is hardly more assuring than a wiggly one---in drive-in movies, for example, you find the image quivering when you're not quivering, but since one is quivering it all adjusts into a perfectly definable and unreassuring image of unreality, as seductive as a brick lollipop.

Now that you know I am dead, I trust you will send flowers.

Thanking you in advance, I 'remain,'

-- True Love Number One"

look him up if you're really interested...but nothing struck me more than that little painting. it's moments like that, where you're transfixed or inspired by something pretty, that made me want to leave drab ol' seattle and see something else in the first place. i don't even care if that's vapid. and my apologies for the lack of pictures or videos in this post. it was my own stupid little moment.

italians invented music. and shoes.

shop display. totally my favorite so far.

today we're off to the villa borghese and the national museum of MODERN art. MODERN!!! i refuse to have anything to do with the renaissance today. but tomorrow we're doing the vatican/sistine chapel....whichwillprobablymakemecryagain, ahem.

melissa's neighborhood, san lorenzo, used to be a low-income blue collar crazy left-wing paradise...and is therefore revoltingly trendy today. every night there's a giant block party, and the streets literally don't quiet down until dawn. it reminds me of the east village, or brooklyn. 

also, the light in rome is something i've never seen before. everything radiates either golden or pink...i tired to capture it with every combination of settings on my camera, but i just couldn't. maybe it's light reflecting off all the marble combined with all the rusty changing leaves on the trees...but it's a photographer's haven. not that i'm a photographer by any means. but if i were. ahem. anyway.

oh, and italians like shiny things. my eurotrash shoes fit in quite nicely, though my red hair and fair skin do not. everyone immediately speaks to me in english, and then they're surprised to hear my american accent, saying "I thought you were irish! or british!" i'll take that as a compliment. cheers, mate.

.......

i just got to rome, and as melissa has not only a constant internet connection, but also a lovely american mac book pro, i've been staring hungrily at the screen at all the news i've been missing.

...........i think i'm just going to stay in my european hole and not come back. here, it's bright and sunny, scooters are racing by, foreign sounding sirens are maintaining the safety of the roman people, there are parties in the streets celebrating regional food. while italy's government may be just as screwed as ours (albeit in a much different way)...at least they admit it. (caveat: i can't read a word of italian, so newspapers mean nothing to me here).

sigh.

pics are up on facebook today.

 

cinque terre.

carrie and i have agreed not to speak of cinque terre.

no postcards for anyone.

florence is incredible

we took a walking tour of florence yesterday morning, seeing all the medici palaces and the OTHER palaces where they used to hide their mistresses...also the tiny wine and bread doors that used to be used to combat the spread of germs...and the medici walkway that they used because they were too important to walk on the streets with the common folk...

and then we saw boticelli. and michealangelo. as a complete renaissance nerd, i was simply amazed by seeing the birth of venus up close, and to walk through rooms at the uffuzi and literally see all the 2dimensional madonnas suddenly have cheekbones, and expressions, and life. oh man. art hangover.

and real hangover. we found an irish bar near our hostel, and the bartender is from WA...he gave us a great recommendation for a restaurant where i had spaghetti with fresh mozzerella and carrie had ravioli, and we both had chianti...and then we went back for some good galway style snakebites.

ok, another tour this morning...more art! hooray renaissance! so far florence kicks venices ass.

ugh, the lack of punctuation is killing me here. i cant make the keyboard do what i want it to.

venice

the buildings in venice remind me of grandparents whose children and grandchildren are sucking the life out of them. they all heave a collective sigh of fatigue, waiting to sink into their watery graves. they're like old actors and actresses from silent films, who used to be so beautiful, but are now just tired.

not that i didn't enjoy venice. carrie and i got CLAPPED at by an italian shop owner for trying on carnival masks (apparently you're not supposed to do that, but jesus, i'm not a dog). my face literally burned i was so embarassed, haha.

anyway, we're at a dream palace of a hostel (hot shower with....wait.....wait.....WATER PRESSURE!!!)...also FREE internet and FREE hot breakfast (dream heaven, dream heaven, especially after CAMPING JOLLY in venice)...so I will try to upload pics tonight of the rest of paris and venice, plus the first day of florence. we're here for 3 nights, then cinque terra for 2, then off to see melissa in rome!

ciao ciao.

where to begin...

oh man. i think i have to say this one in pictures.











much more in a bit, still trying to figure out this uploading images in french thing.

ps the red beer is kronenberg and grenedine. everyone drinks the shit. it's positively awful until you've had a few.........weird.

beginning to be a bit homesick, just the ease of having everyone understand you. yesterday we took a bus in montpellier the wrong direction, and had to practically pantomine to the bus driver what was wrong when we didn't get off at the last stop...it involved carrie doing a lot of enthusiastic pointing at where we were supposed to be, and me explaining very clearly (and possibly loudly, and repetitively) in french, "LOST. LOST. LOST." i also had to pee really bad, to add to the malaise...oh, adventures.

kissed oscar wilde's grave today too (ahemwhichmademecry)--so sorry, Steven, if i bring home any grave-kissing diseases.

tomorrow we're flying to venice, wish us luck as we look like complete assholes pretending to know italian!!!

love/miss you all.

i fell in the louvre

this french keyboard is insane, so my apologies for the short length of this/lack of detail and punctuation.

our flight was delayed for about a trilliçon hours, but besides that, the journey was smooth. my french has gotten us through so far, but there is a lot of pointing and nodding. i did manage to have a mini conversation about a broken train, and also ask for water this morning after a night of drinking Kronenburg with these wacked out australian dudes...

so paris. every street in paris smells like freshly baked bread. which we've eaten a lot of. we?ve gone to the louvre, where i slipped and fell on my ass outside of Louis XVIII's apartements down a flight of stairs, causing carrie to lapse into hysterics and me to sit bewildered...it was amazing. we also did the eiffel tower, montmarte, sacre coeur aka the most beautiful place i've ever been, notre dame, where the pope is today, etc. etc. etc.

more exciting post with pictures next time i swear. i'm off to le centre pompidou and then for dinner....