Cars and Canals

Two more cities have been added to my list of cities visited: Modena and Venezia. 
A small group of students and I visited Modena last weekend, which is also in the region of Emilia Romagna.  A couple people really wanted to visit the Ferrari museum right outside of town, so I was ready to tag along and then explore more of Modena and its balsamic vinegar tradition afterwards.  The Galleria Ferrari was highly overrated as you basically you pay eleven euro to take pictures of cars.  Not really being a car aficionado, I didn't really appreciate it fully. 

Ready to get going we stopped in a couple Ferrari apparel shops, looked at a couple 100euro t-shirts, and headed back to the bus stop.  Now, before coming I had looked up information in my guide book on the Galleria Ferrari, including which bus to take to get there.  The guide book had extremely oversimplified the process, leaving us very confused, but we still managed to get to the Galleria by asking various bus drivers.  However, getting back proved to be much more difficult.  For whatever reason, it turned out that the bus didn't stop at the same place to go BACK to Modena, which took us a good forty-five minutes to figure out.  We walked for a bit and found another stop to which, after another twenty minutes, a bus came.  Once we started getting on however, the bus driver told us that we couldn't buy bus tickets on the bus, although we had been previously told otherwise.  After some confused discussion, the driver decided it was less trouble for him to just let us on the bus without paying.  By the time we got back to Modena and got situated, it was about 4:00pm and raining pretty steadily.  We walked around for a bit, saw a cathedral as well as the Palazzo Ducale in centro, then headed back to the train station.  I didn't get do the balsamic experience, however Modena is an easy 6euro train ride away and I can always go back.

This past Saturday morning I decided to take the direct train one and a half hours from Ferrara to Venezia for a small day trip. I went armed with my camera, some money, and a Lonely Planet guidebook to help me around the city.  From the first steps out of the train station, I loved Venezia.  I had decided to follow a suggested walking route in the guidebook that takes you in a roundabout way to Piazza San Marco by winding through some smaller, less toured streets. 

Taking my time and stopping into whatever shops looked interesting, I made my way to my first stop, and perhaps my favorite: Campo di Ghetto Nuovo. 
This was the area to which the city's Jewish population was ordered to move in the early 1500s.  This small "island" was locked at night and the inhabitants were forced to follow strict laws limiting social and economic activity.  It wasn't until almost 1800 that the Jews were allowed to live outside of this area.  In this area now there are stores selling Jewish goods, monuments for the Jewish population sent from Venezia to concentration camps in WWII, a good amount of synagogues, and Kosher restaurants.  It was really incredible to see a piece of history still so much like it was hundreds of years ago. 

 



After the ghetto, I walked towards my next destinations, a couple cathedrals including the city's Jesuit cathedral, La Chiesa dei Geuati, then later the Chiesa dei SS Giovnni e Paolo, and the Chiesa di Santa Maria Formosa--none of which I went into since all had an admission fee, but all of which were extremely impressive to look at from outside.
I wandered around for a bit in the shops between the neighborhoods of the Castello and San Marco before finally making my way to the famed Piazza San Marco around sunset.  It was packed with people and, with the light falling, I decided to take the vaporetto (ferry) up the Grand Canal back to the ferrovia (train station)

Overall, one of my main impressions of Venezia is that it is quite well preserved and removed from urbanization.  I love that it is a city with obvious wear and age, but in a very calm, refined way.  I'm really happy that I went by the walking route that took me off-the-beaten-path and also that I went in October, well outside the tourist season.  I think I got a view of Venezia that not many visitors see and am hoping to return a couple more times before my stay is over!

Belluno

About the third day into my stay in Italia, I started missing the Rockies and knew that I would have to get a mountain-fix before too long. My newest venture took me up north into the Veneto region to see get my fix and see some Italian mountains.  Last Friday night I looked through my guide book and found the town of Belluno and decided at about 10:59pm to take the 8:29am train Saturday morning from Ferrara to that town at the foot of the Dolomiti.
The Dolimiti are a unique type of mountains, not an actual mountain range like I thought before reading up on them, that are found in northeastern Italy.  They are actually ancient choral reefs made up of carbonate rock called dolomite, discovered by French minerologist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu. 
I arrived in Belluno around eleven and then ventured out on my own with my Lonely Planet book as my only guide.  It took me a bit of wandering around, but I finally found the main center at Piazza dei Martiri, or Martyrs' Square, which refers to four partisans who were made examples of in WWII.  It's a big open area with a small park in the middle, lined with cafes and shops, which I walked around before finding the center of old town, Piazza del Duomo.  There I found an information center where I got a couple maps as well as information from the woman working there on how I could walk closer to the mountains.
 The tower and Duomo of Belluno

I headed out on the road that wound up and up (after a short, unintentional detour)  to the top of one of the foothills of the Dolomiti.  I rounded around one of the corners to see a flock of sheep and their shepherds--one of the quintessential mountain scenes that makes you look around for the camera crew shooting a remake of the Sound of Music.  The leaves were also changing color, making it a really beautiful scene to take in.  I walked up a bit further, taking in different views of these mountains, then headed back down, completely in my own thoughts about the day.

 It was about ten minutes later that I realized I was on a different road and didn't know where I was going.  I quickly found an Italian couple out for a walk and they assured me that this road also goes back to Belluno.  I ended up following them all the way back down and, nearing town, started talking to them.  He works for a company that has a bunch of different branches all over the world, including one in Dallas, but both of them were born and bred in Belluno.  It was great getting a chance to meet Italians from a different part of the country and practice my Italian a little more.  It was also a great example of how much more easy it is to meet people are start up conversations when you aren't in a giant group of American students.

Schools in full swing, showing itself to be much more demanding here than ever before at home.  With all our readings in Italian coming in at about 40 pages, all of which are in academic language, I find myself reading most of the time during the week and all day Sunday.  We already have midterms this next week with about two months of the semester left!  Hopefully I'll find a good balance of everything before the semester is over...

CIEE webpages

I wanted to let everyone know that my program has a couple wepages with info about the city, our program as well as pictures from some group events throughout the semester.

This first one is their facebook page which has some pictures of our group:
http://www.facebook.com/cieeferrara.italia

The second is their actual webpage with things such as a picture tour of Ferrara and also information about the various things we do throughout the semester (including recipes of all the different dishes we learn to make in our cooking classes):

cieeitalia.org

Una piccola lettura

This is just an article I read for a seminar I'm taking this semester.  I thought that it had some really interesting insights into our concept as Americans of studying abroad and thought it would be interesting to share--it looks a little long, but it's a quick, easy read for those who are interested :)


“American Students Abroad Can’t Be ‘Global Citizens’”
By Talya Zemach-Bersin

In September 2005 I boarded a plane to Delhi with 23 other American students for a semester-long Tibetan-studies program in India, Nepal, and Tibet.  I set off wide-eyed, hopeful, and full of expectations for what was sure to be a life-changing experience.
The program had promised “exotic” excursions through “traditional and contemporary Tibetan and Himalayan culture,” and I was eager to develop a greater awareness of the world beyond American borders.  Both my home university and my program provider had informed me that by going abroad and immersing myself in a foreign culture, I would become a “global citizen.”
“Total cultural immersion,” I was advised, is what makes study abroad such a tremendous opportunity for developing a better understanding of a new culture.  I was encouraged to “act like the locals,” “be a resident,” and “become a member” of my host community.  I was expected to assimilate into my new environment by speaking the local language, bargaining for prices, and participating in everyday life as if I myself were Tibetan.
But once I arrived overseas, I quickly realized that studying abroad as an American student is far more complicated than simply learning how others speak and eat.  International education entails navigating the social, historical, and political realities of what it means to be American in a world of undeniable difference and inequality.
My home-stay parents, Jangchup and Sonam, were Tibetans living in exile in Dharmsala, India--a town flooded with tourists eager to see the Dalai Lama, buy goods made by refugees, snap photographs of themselves with beggars, and trek the foothills of the Himalayas.  While Jangchup made peanut butter in the bedroom (the kitchen was too small) and Sonam knitted gloves to sell to tourists in the marketplace, my American classmates and I studied their culture, language, and religion.
Although they called me their “daughter,” and I called them Amala and Pala, Jangchup and Sonam didn’t treat me life family but as a guest of honor. Despite my protests, I always received five times more food than they served themselves, and I was never allowed to make y bed, step into the kitchen, or even turn on the bathroom light myself.
During the last week of my stay, my academic directors handed me a sealed envelope containing a cash payment for Jangchup and Sonam’s hospitality, which I was expected to give tho them.  As a first-world student, I had literally purchased a third-world family for my own self-improvement as a global citizen.  While I was more than willing to give Jangchup and Sonam the well-deserved payment, I began to question the relationship of global citizens to power and privilege.
A few days after we left Dharmsala, my class flew from Katmandu, Nepal, to Lhasa, Tibet and landed at a brand-new Chinese airport. My classmates and I were aware that our newfound families, having fled Chinese persecution in Tibet, could not see their beloved home again without risking their lives.  As americans, our national citizenship, passports, skin color, and currency exchange rate all worked in our favor, and--complain as we might have done about having only two shirts to wear, as recommended per our packing lists--there was no pretending that ours was a trip about sacrifice.  Unlike our host families, we could go wherever we wanted, from family homes to fancy tourist clubs, from private burial ceremonies and temple ruins to Chinese-owned stores selling imitation North Face jackets.  We had bought a product, and we expected to consume our experience.
The cumulative privilege of my race, nationality, education, mobility, and class shone brighter than all of the candles in the Dalai Lama’s temple.  I was a foreigner in all respects.  It was impossible for me to “act like the locals” when everywhere I went I was viewed and treated as exactly what I am: a white, advantaged American.  In many places, I could not walk down the street without being asked by locals for money or assistance of some kind. In no way did I feel like a universal or apolitical citizen of the world.
Yet cultural immersion and global citizenship remained curriculum ideals, even when they were far from what my classmates and I were actually experiencing.  Caught between a study-abroad education that demanded I “fit-in,” and an experiential reality that forced me to think critically about what it means to be an American abroad, I found that I had not been prepared with the necessary tools to fully engage with, and learn from, my experiences.  Because the curriculum did not include critical discussions about the ways in which my classmates and I were interacting with our surroundings, I had little ability to make sense of the days and months as they flew by.
I can home confused and unable to respond to the flood of questions such as “How was your time abroad?” Or assumptions like “It must have been amazing. I’m sure you have gained and grown so much.” Like many other students who study abroad, I found that the program’s curriculum focused on cultural and language studies while avoiding the very issues that were in many ways most compelling and relevant to our experiences. Why had we not analyzed race, identity, and privilege when those factors were informing every one of our interactions? Why was there never a discussion about commodification when our relationships with host families were built on a commodified relationship? Wasn’t a history of colonialism and contemporary imperialism affecting the majority of our experiences and influencing how host nationals viewed us? Was there nothing to be said about the power dynamics of claiming global citizenship?
My semester abroad taught me that there is avast discrepancy between the rhetoric of international education and the reality of what many students like myself experience while abroad. Although the world may be increasingly interconnected, global systems of inequality, power, privilege, and difference are always present. That is the reality that many students face during their semesters abroad and continue to think about upon their return.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently passes a bill that seeks to create a $80 million annual foundation for study abroad, in order to increase almost fivefold the number of American students who study overseas, and to make such study more accessible to lower-income students.
This affirmation of the values of international education is a positive step, but it is important that we examine the quality and content of study-abroad curricula.  American students who travel abroad cannot be expected to transcend historical, political, social, and global systems of power in order to become cross-culturally immersed “global citizens.” We can, however, be asked to become internationally conscious and self-aware American citizens who are responsible for thinking about those critical issues.
An international education that focuses on American-based discursive ideals rather than experiential realities can hardly be said to position students in this country for successful lives of global understanding.  Rather, such an education may inadvertently be a recipe for the perpetuation of global ignorance, misunderstanding, and prejudice. It is not possible for me to be a citizen of the world, but I am an American citizen. Higher-education institutions would be wise to integrate that same truth about American students who study abroad into the international education they provide.

Le città di Siena e Orvieto

Finally the continuation of my four day trip! 

***Just a reminder that you can click on any of the pictures at any time to enlarge them***

After our day in Perugia, we were lucky enough to get to travel to a vineyard for a tour and a tasting!  Our destination was the Agricola Pucciarella in Magione where they grow their own grapes for their various wines, spumanti (sparkling wine), vin santo, and grappa.  They also grow olives to produce their own olive oil (which I was upset that I didn't get to try!).  We were shown around the building where they do everything after the grapes are picked--I use the term "building" loosely, as it resembled a small castle as everything in Italy seems to do...The tour ended with a tasting of a white, red, spumanti, and vin santo, accompanied by salami, cheese, bread, and ricotta cheese with homemade jam.

(I am aware that information like this illegitimizes any complaining I may do while staying here)

We spent our last night in Magione and then headed out to Siena early the next morning.  We arrived in this red-bricked city and met our guide. Siena is a very interesting and very beautiful city, and is an important religious site as the home of St. Catherine.  She is the patron saint of Italy and also, as proclaimed by Pope John Paul II, the patron saint of Holy Europe.  We visited her cathedral and were lucky enough to gaze upon her skull and thumb...we Catholics get a little weird about our saints sometimes :)
Siena has an ancient culture associated with il palio, a horse race in which different contrade, or neighborhoods, compete every year to win the palio, or victory flag.  Each contrada has a very strong sense of pride and heritage which was apparent all over the city as each border of the contrade held small plaques indicating which neighborhood was on each side of the street.
After a long day of walking and exploring the city we had a big dinner together and our guide announced that we were going to get a big surprise.  The night we were there happened to be the night of a big street party for the recent winners of the palio and she was going to take us through those contrade.  We were very excited as we walked through the streets that can only be described as a giant street theme-party with each neighborhood choosing a theme from ancient Egypt to One Thousand and One Nights, the original story of Alladin.  We were so excited in fact, that it took us awhile to realize that we weren't really supposed to be there.  Our guide had mislead us to believe that this was an open party, when in reality it was supposed to be a party for those of the neighborhood, a fact which was made very evident to us as the night went on.  It was unfortunate that this bad ending to the day had to taint my otherwise lovely experience of Siena.

The pictures above show the Duomo of Siena, which was built in competition with Florence during the rule of the Medici family. Competition hasn't produced something that beautiful in a long time.


Next stop: Orvieto, a comletely different feel than Siena with only about 30,000 inhabitants, but similar in that Orvieto has a Duomo to rival that on Siena.  Inside Orvieto's Duomo we found famous works of the painter Signorelli, of whom I don't know that much but at least understand to be of significant importance in the history of Italian art :)  Orvieto is also home to an immense system of underground tunnels, which I didn't have the time to see for myself, but would like to if I have the chance to return.

 It was in Orvieto that I really noticed the first signs of fall in Italy--orange leaves on the ground.  It was unexpectedly comforting to find these same signs of autumn in Italy that I am accustomed to in Colorado.

After a quick lunch, we boarded the vans and headed back to our homes in Ferrara.  I think we were all happy to be back in this town with which we have all become familiar and that we are all starting to think of as "home."