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Sep. 24th, 2004 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdeWhoops, it's been a month!
I've been back for almost three weeks now but have been quite busy, mostly with meet-and-greets and catching up with uni work (I had to read (The Brothers Karamazov and write a presentation on it in about four days!). I had to give a presentation on Paradise Lost my first week back and it really wasn't very good. Wayne, my lecturer, ripped into it a bit but then very kindly said it wasn't too bad; but compared to everyone else's it was terrible. There seems to be a big gap between lit crit in first and second year uni, and I will really have to step up the the plate.
So needless to say, I'm writing this at the moment because I don't really feel like discussing the problem of freedom in The Tempest. And I intend to do no work on the weekend! So there! Wayne says, just get your essay and notes (which were due on the 1/9 (I got back on the 7/9)) as soon as you can, it'll be fine. Which is so much worse than having a due date because I feel guilty whenever I don't spend time on it, but fuck that.
I was so, so eager to get back, and I'm still very happy to be home and see the people I love and not wear thongs in the shower all the time (well, at my dad's house...but let's not go there), but god, I'd forgotten how depressing it can be to get out of bed some days and think, god, another day in the pattern that stretches past the end of the year and beyond, due dates and assignments and cleaning the house. And I'm a total slacker arts student who doesn't even work.
I did manage to get to Florence on the last weekend I had in Italy. I'm so glad I did; both my parents and Sara's (the other girl from Adelaide) were telling us the whole trip, JUST GO, it will totally change your opinion of Italy and Italians. They were so right. We stayed an extra day so we slept three nights there in a great little hostel that was maybe a K or two from the Duomo itself (we climbed it! The view was amazing! All those terracotta tiles!) so we got lots of exercise walking back and forth. We couldn't see NEARLY as much as I wanted to see, of course, because we didn't have enough time and because the group I went with wasn't really into the museum-and-gallery thing. In fact, we seemed to spend most our time shopping, which was really fine with me and I bought most of my favourite stuff and presents there.
I saw David! He, like everything else, is so much better in real life than photos. I still prefer Pieta to him but he was still stunning. In the same room as him were some of Michaelangelo's unfinished statues, the Prisoners, and the rough, bulging blockiness (and yet they were not ungraceful--they were Michaelangelo, for Christ's sake) made an amazing contrast to David's smooth beauty. Unfortuantely I didn't get to go to his (or Dante's) house, or the Giardini, or the Uffici, or get out to a proper Tuscan town (we went to the nearby Fiesole but aside from the view of Florence it was a bit of a bust) or well, so much, but there's always next time. And there WILL be a next time; aside from the time I spent with my grandparents in Conventry, my favourite part of the trip was Florence.
It's just the most amazing city; SO much more beautiful and cleaner and nicer than Rome, and the people are friendlier and even speak English! You don't get the same sense of ancient history, but you do feel its age all the same; moreover because it's not full of pollution and graffitti and so on like Rome is, the grandeur of the place has stayed intact. Plus the night-life is fantastic (well, I dunno about clubs or anything, we didn't go there). In the two main piazzas they have great buskers and bands and artists and street vendors and there are so many people and it's just lovely. The Arno, the river that goes through the middle of the city, is gorgeous at night, and the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge with all the jewellery shops, has buskers and bands and people too. And this is in the LOW season. I'm sure the locals would have great pubs and clubs they go to, these were really touristy areas, but it wasn't a cheesy touristy like you find everywhere else. Plus on the Piazza della Reppublica there was a nice restaurant with a great waiter who poured us yummy wine all night. I just had the best time, on our first night we all (there were four of us) walked around with huge smiles on our faces because it was such a lovely change from the rest of our trip.
It was a bit of a wrench saying goodybe to everyone, especially because I left by myself (I was going to a different airport to everyone else). Although I didn't hang out with and make good friends with everyone there were a couple of people in particular it was difficult to leave (and one of them was almost a neo-Nazi, how fucked up is that???). I think Sara and I will get together at some point (she actually goes to your Uni, Lainy!) but neither of us has gotten in contact with the other yet.
My nonna and Sara's dad have stages a coup in the Lazio club, they were so unhappy about the organisation of things, eg like us not being told ANYTHING, or being left at night clubs. Her dad is now President and my nonna's in the committee (not that she knows what the committee does).
Well, that's it for now. I'll probably be buried under uni work for a while. But I have a reward planned ofr myself when I finish everything! Due South Season 3 is out on DVD OMG squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
I've been back for almost three weeks now but have been quite busy, mostly with meet-and-greets and catching up with uni work (I had to read (The Brothers Karamazov and write a presentation on it in about four days!). I had to give a presentation on Paradise Lost my first week back and it really wasn't very good. Wayne, my lecturer, ripped into it a bit but then very kindly said it wasn't too bad; but compared to everyone else's it was terrible. There seems to be a big gap between lit crit in first and second year uni, and I will really have to step up the the plate.
So needless to say, I'm writing this at the moment because I don't really feel like discussing the problem of freedom in The Tempest. And I intend to do no work on the weekend! So there! Wayne says, just get your essay and notes (which were due on the 1/9 (I got back on the 7/9)) as soon as you can, it'll be fine. Which is so much worse than having a due date because I feel guilty whenever I don't spend time on it, but fuck that.
I was so, so eager to get back, and I'm still very happy to be home and see the people I love and not wear thongs in the shower all the time (well, at my dad's house...but let's not go there), but god, I'd forgotten how depressing it can be to get out of bed some days and think, god, another day in the pattern that stretches past the end of the year and beyond, due dates and assignments and cleaning the house. And I'm a total slacker arts student who doesn't even work.
I did manage to get to Florence on the last weekend I had in Italy. I'm so glad I did; both my parents and Sara's (the other girl from Adelaide) were telling us the whole trip, JUST GO, it will totally change your opinion of Italy and Italians. They were so right. We stayed an extra day so we slept three nights there in a great little hostel that was maybe a K or two from the Duomo itself (we climbed it! The view was amazing! All those terracotta tiles!) so we got lots of exercise walking back and forth. We couldn't see NEARLY as much as I wanted to see, of course, because we didn't have enough time and because the group I went with wasn't really into the museum-and-gallery thing. In fact, we seemed to spend most our time shopping, which was really fine with me and I bought most of my favourite stuff and presents there.
I saw David! He, like everything else, is so much better in real life than photos. I still prefer Pieta to him but he was still stunning. In the same room as him were some of Michaelangelo's unfinished statues, the Prisoners, and the rough, bulging blockiness (and yet they were not ungraceful--they were Michaelangelo, for Christ's sake) made an amazing contrast to David's smooth beauty. Unfortuantely I didn't get to go to his (or Dante's) house, or the Giardini, or the Uffici, or get out to a proper Tuscan town (we went to the nearby Fiesole but aside from the view of Florence it was a bit of a bust) or well, so much, but there's always next time. And there WILL be a next time; aside from the time I spent with my grandparents in Conventry, my favourite part of the trip was Florence.
It's just the most amazing city; SO much more beautiful and cleaner and nicer than Rome, and the people are friendlier and even speak English! You don't get the same sense of ancient history, but you do feel its age all the same; moreover because it's not full of pollution and graffitti and so on like Rome is, the grandeur of the place has stayed intact. Plus the night-life is fantastic (well, I dunno about clubs or anything, we didn't go there). In the two main piazzas they have great buskers and bands and artists and street vendors and there are so many people and it's just lovely. The Arno, the river that goes through the middle of the city, is gorgeous at night, and the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge with all the jewellery shops, has buskers and bands and people too. And this is in the LOW season. I'm sure the locals would have great pubs and clubs they go to, these were really touristy areas, but it wasn't a cheesy touristy like you find everywhere else. Plus on the Piazza della Reppublica there was a nice restaurant with a great waiter who poured us yummy wine all night. I just had the best time, on our first night we all (there were four of us) walked around with huge smiles on our faces because it was such a lovely change from the rest of our trip.
It was a bit of a wrench saying goodybe to everyone, especially because I left by myself (I was going to a different airport to everyone else). Although I didn't hang out with and make good friends with everyone there were a couple of people in particular it was difficult to leave (and one of them was almost a neo-Nazi, how fucked up is that???). I think Sara and I will get together at some point (she actually goes to your Uni, Lainy!) but neither of us has gotten in contact with the other yet.
My nonna and Sara's dad have stages a coup in the Lazio club, they were so unhappy about the organisation of things, eg like us not being told ANYTHING, or being left at night clubs. Her dad is now President and my nonna's in the committee (not that she knows what the committee does).
Well, that's it for now. I'll probably be buried under uni work for a while. But I have a reward planned ofr myself when I finish everything! Due South Season 3 is out on DVD OMG squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
