Disclaimer: don't get too excited for this post, because nothing THAT interesting happened today (minus several language-lover moments).
We had our usual 10-1 class, and then at 2 we had our first lecture with a professor we're going to be working with about every other day for the next 3 weeks of classes. Her name is Antonella and she is an expert on basically all aspects of Italian literature / history / opera / contemporary society / culture in general. And of course, like everyone at the Umbra Institute, she's awesome. Today's lesson was tough - Dante, Petrarch and Machiavelli. For the readings, we had English translations in addition to the Italian, but those were pretty difficult to understand too... the quote in the title is from Canto VI of Dante's Purgatorio of The Divine Comedy, and its translation is, "And he said to me: 'My writing is plain..." Yeah, not so much, buddy :P
But as difficult as the readings were to read and discuss, the lecture was FASCINATING. I've always been nervous (excited, too, but really, REALLY nervous) about the full semester + of classes I'm going to have to take in the upcoming years that focus solely on Dante, but Antonella really raised my interest. I love when teachers are so intensely passionate about their subject matter - it really makes all the difference! I also really want to read more Petrarch. We read an excerpt from Canzoniere for class and Antonella was contrasting his views of Italy from Dante's - you can tell from his writing that Petrarch was absolutely crazy about Italia. He treats the country with such affection, choosing the most lovely words to describe it, and he's so full of hope for its future. Whereas Dante can often tend toward a more pessimistic outlook, Petrarch has a beautifully positive message in Canzoniere. As Antonella described this all to us, fireworks and exclamation points and smiley faces were jumping up and down in my mind because it was like, YAY! THAT IS EXACTLY HOW *I* FEEL ABOUT ITALY! I literally wrote in the middle of my formal notes *READ MORE PETRARCH* :)
I spent most of the afternoon at the Institute taking advantage of the free wifi. I bought my own internet "chiavetta" (portable wifi key thing) today but it will take at least 36 hours before all the activation sets in. Then I headed over with Rachel and Hannah to a pizzeria a little far away but worth the walk because the pizza was free, courtesy of the Institute. There were about 239847 people there though, so it took actually like almost 2 hours for us to get our food. We were STARVING by then, but fortunately, the pizza was super yummy and worth the wait (as food tends to be here). I actually ate all but one slice of my personal pizza. :O Plus since we were one of the last tables there, I pilfered a half-full bottle of Coke back to the hotel (yay for big bags), which surely beats paying for the can that's sitting in our mini fridge tempting me every day.
ALSO, the Umbra Institute has t-shirts/sweatshirts! Might have to treat myself before we leave for Vasto... :)
Day's Recap:
Hours spent waiting for dinner: ~2
Minutes spent consuming dinner: ~2 ;)
Pieces of pretty ceramics bought for mommy's kitchen: 2
Euros discounted from my ceramics purchases: 4! (the old man selling it said I was pretty :) hehe love Italy)
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