Shared Holidays and More Rain

Happy Valentine's Day! It turns out that this is one of the rare occasions when an "American" holiday is also celebrated in Turkey. Complete with the delivery of half-dead roses to sweethearts in homeroom and pink and red blouses and ties worn by students, for once all the symbolism and ritual surrounding a holiday was completely familiar to me even if it continues to make no sense. I found out that in Bahrain, where one of my colleagues taught last year, there are actual police raids on houses where flowers are delivered. In Saudi Arabia, Valentine's Day is forbidden as it is seen as promoting promiscuity. Who knew?! I know of a few grumpy singles in America who complain about this "Hallmark Holiday" every year, but I doubt even they would go as far as the Saudis do to prevent its celebration. This year, I am still basking in the love of my cat, Loki, the love of my life. My brother Damon has found a more conventional sort of love with his new wife, Renee; their marriage in Cozumel Mexico took place last month although I was here teaching at the time. She got him to wear a black suit in Mexico but gave up on trying to get him to wear a tie, an ability to compromise this early on surely must indicate good things to come.

My trip to Italy left me with a water-borne illness that has taken a week to clear out of my system, so my Valentine's Day will most likely involve something fairly low-key and indoors, out of the rain that has been falling steadily for the past week. The moss and mold on the walkways here are glowing neon green from all the moisture; I am glad the plants are happy but the rest of us could really use some sunshine!

I am trying to set up a trip to Troy, Ephesus, and Gallipoli for spring break; the area is south of here and hopefully will mean some sunshine to dry me out! In the meantime, I'm teaching Romeo and Juliet to a bunch of ninth graders and trying to get my preps to save the world, so it should all be pretty much business as usual.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Italia 2009 Part III

Each time I've been to Italy, the highlight of my trip has always been the few days in the middle I've spent in Florence. After a few soggy days in Bologna, I decided on Thursday that it was time to hop on a train and go to my favorite city in the world once again. I packed a small bag, knowing that a "day trip" would not quite suffice, and caught a bus to the train station, where the next train to Florence was leaving within minutes of my arrival. It was the first full sunny day since the day of my arrival in Italy, and I was all smiles as I watched the Italian countryside roll by my window. An hour later I was on the streets in Florence, determined to see a few of the places that I had neglected to visit on my first two trips to the city, in addition to returning to a couple of my old favorites. First stop was the Museo del'Opera, the museum dedicated to preserving the tools and artwork instrumental in the building of Brunelleschi's dome and decorating Florence's grandest church. Two of the highlights of this museum's collection of masterpieces are Michaelangelo's "Pieta del Duomo" and "The Magdalene" of Donatello, the latter being carved of wood and the former being intended for Michaelangelo's tomb until he attempted to destroy it (for pictures of the tomb itself see below).

The next museum on my list of those I had not yet seen was the Museo di Storia della Scienza, which is where many of Galileo's telescopes now reside, among other things. Half of the museum was closed for renovations, but the half that I did see was well worth the trip. My high school geometry teacher, Marty Hawthorne, would love this place. There were all kinds of interactive exhibits showing the angles of light within a telescope and showing how Galileo figured out how to measure the height of the mountains on the moon (the existence of which was against church doctrine at the time) using the Pythagorean Theorem. I was just proud of myself for remembering what that was and how it worked! After I'd had my fill of science I made a quick stop to pick up some handmade Florentine leather souvenirs and then made my way to my favorite of all Italian churches, Santa Croce. This is where the tombs of Dante and Michaelangelo sit across from those of Galileo and Machiavelli, and a portion of the robe of St. Francis of Assisi is in a nearly unlabeled little room at the back of the church. In the adjacent (former) monastery buildings, there are works of Byzantine mastery that rival those found in the most famous museums in the world.

I finished my day with a trip to the San Lorenzo leather markets, and dinner at my favorite restaurant in my favorite city, Cinque Amici. I even managed to get a room at the same hotel I've stayed in each time I've been to Florence, the Hotel Balcony, where Domenico gave me an especially good rate and welcomed me back. Of all the places I've been in the world, Florence is the one that never disappoints!

Italia 2009 Part II

The next great museum in Bologna was the Pinacoteca Nazionale. On the way there I saw graffiti reflecting the city's political persuasion ("Viva Che Guevara!") alongside effigies of Bart Simpson... a very modern paradox, I'm sure. The Pinacoteca Nazionale is situated near the University of Bologna, "probably the first University in the Western world" (according to their website and pamphlets), which was established around the year 1088 a.d. The art in the museum ranges from the 13th through the 19th centuries, and while it is primarily paintings there are also frescoes, marble busts, wooden carvings, and Byzantine wooden paintings (specially featured in the current exhibit). The paintings' themes, like those in most of Italy, mostly focus on either Biblical stories or Greco-Roman mythological stories, the latter of which has been my obsession for some time, so I was delighted to see the many interpretations of the Rape of Europa, Perseus and Andromache, and various images of Poseidon ("Nettuno"), who seemed to be something of a secular saint in Bologna. The next museum on my list was the Museo Civico Medievale, which houses some of the most amazing works of bronze I have ever seen. From archbishops to St. Michael, fish to unicorns, Greek heroes to butterflies, these were some of the most finely wrought metalworks in the world. The museum also holds funerary reliefs, marble statues, reliquaries boasting the digits of some of history's most important figures, and a wonderful collection of antiquated weapons that I have only ever seen the likes of in Venice's Palazzo Ducale. Everything from wooden lances and muskets to maces and armor for horses filled the cases, much to the delight and fascination of the male schoolchildren who were there on a field trip.

Italia 2009 Part I

One of the greatest advantages of working at a school where the kids actually do work is that we get plenty of breaks; both religious and secular. Currently we are on a two week long mid-year break, and so it was time for me to return to Italy. I began and ended my trip in Bologna with a short trip to Florence in-between, and a bout of food poisoning (technically water poisoning) at the end. But first, a bit about Bologna. Nicknamed "Il Rosso" both for its red roofs and the Communist political leanings of its inhabitants, Bologna is one of the oldest cities in Italy and has changed hands many times with each major change in power the region has undergone. It is primarily a college town, but the students there are far more tame than their American counterparts. In the first few days I discovered that the museums are free (for the most part) and that they have no problem with people taking photographs of their greatest works, so long as you do so "senza flash."

I explored the City Art Collection in the town's City Hall building (they refer to it as the Palazzo d'Accursio after one of the more famous leaders who presided there) and found quite a few beautiful treasures, though regrettably that was the one day I forgot to bring my camera with me. I wound up returning to the other museum I visited that day because some of its collection was just too awe-inspiring to miss: the Museo Civico Archaelogico. From the bust of Nero to Grecian heroes this place had an amazing collection of marble, plus bones and other archaelogical artifacts including several very creepy skeletons (by the way, I want it on the back of my headstone that I am never to be put in a museum!) and some random items from the invasions of Celts, among other things.

Their Attic collection and the items from the Certosa necropolis were particulary amazing, with gold jewelry that was so exquisite it was hard to believe it was from the 7th century b.c.