In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

(there were no ancient grudges breaking to new mutiny, I promise)

Hi guys,

I know I'm a week behind, and I'm sorry. I'm going to skip ahead to this weekend and fill you in and then go back and describe my first week here. Needless to say, like everything in my life, it was epic.

On Friday, after posting an unusually angtsy and self-loathing LJ post about how lonely and isolated I'm still feeling, my friends gave me the slap in face I needed and I decided to email some people to see if they wanted to hang out this weekend. I really had nothing specific in mind, maybe a day trip to Lake Como or Venice. Just, you know, something to be around people. I ended up getting invited to spend a day in Verona with Anne, my roommate, Sarah, and a bunch of other people.

Here's how much of an idiot/nerd I am. As soon as I started talking to Anne about the trip, I said, "Oh yeah, and isn't....some Shakespeare play is set there. Not Merchant of Venice...Oh! Of course! Two Gentlemen of Verona!"

Lit and English people, feel free to slap me in the face for forgetting that THE GREATEST LOVE TRAGEDY OF ALL TIME is set in that damned city. Woops.

Also Friday night, I went grocery shopping and cooked for myself for the first time. I made a simple marinara sauce, which turned out really well. It was nothing special but I was proud of myself.

Anyway, so I got excited. Verona is about an hour and a half outside of Milan (there are no Shakespeare plays set in Milan, as far as I know). Anne and I got up and headed over to the train station and met the others at 9. Buying the tickets was interesting, as there were no trains indicated on the monitors as going to or stopping in Verona. It took a bit of deciphering through the thick plexiglass and our collective lack of italian skills which train we wanted, and then when we got our tickets, they all said "Posto Non Garantito."

Che?

We found out soon enough. Turned out the cheapest tickets we could buy were a sort of standing room only seats. Instead of seats in the compartments, we got to crouch in the aisle on these little fold-out seats with a bar sticking into our necks as we tried to sleep a bit on the way there. There were beautiful scenes of the Italian countryside flying past the window, with mountains and sprinklings of villas...all of which I could not see, because the guy sitting in the compartment in front of me pulled the curtain down. Gee thanks.

Verona was quaint, but very touristy, at least the parts that we went to. Two FYIs: if you ever find yourself in Verona, buy yourself a VeronaPass. It's a 8 euro card that lets you into most of the major tourist spots for free. Totally and completely worth it. Also, La Casa di Giulietta is cute, but unless you think it's worth 6 euro to go into this house, stand on a balconey and pose cutely for the dozens of people below while your friends take your picture, and then walk around a "museum" which has basically nothing in it, don't bother.

The entryway to the courtyard where the balconey is (yes, this is supposedly The Balconey [except it's not, cause, you know, these people didn't actually exist]), is worth taking a gander at. The walls are completely plastered with love notes and declarations, either stuck there on a piece of paper, or carved into the wall. I mean, COMPLETELY. PLASTERED. It's far, far worse than a postering kiosk in the Yard. Also, in the courtyard, there's the supposed statue of Juliet that the Capulets erected when she died the first time. It just basically looks like a statue of a young girl, except one of her bronze breasts is completely discolored. As I watched people walked up and take pictures with the statue, I suddenly felt as though I was in an Italian Harvard Yard. Supposedly if rub you the statue's right breast, it brings you good luck in love. I don't quite understand the logic behind that, considering, you know, SHE DIED, but I supposed it makes as much sense as rubbing the thouroughly urinated-upon foot of a man who's not John Harvard, hoping to get into Harvard.

We visited two other major sites, the Castlevecchio (Old Castle), and the Arena di Verona, reputably the third largest outdoor Roman Ampitheater still standing, and is still used to stage a regular opera season and Shakespeare Festival! Not kidding! It was huge. And of course there was no shade anywhere. Castlevecchio is exactly what is sounds like: an old castle that's been refurbished into an art museum, displaying all sorts of religious art and statues and interesting architecture. Most importantly, it was indoors, therefore out of the sun.

Actually, this entire trip was spent pretty much sweating as much as possible. I once happened to glance at a thermometer and discovered that it was in the upper 30s (that's Celcius, people). By about 4 we were all sufficiently pooped and eventually headed home.

While we were there, we must have run into about a dozen wedding parties. Literally, 12. We asked our waitress at lunch what was going on, and she explained in italian, which I understood surprisingly well, that getting married in Verona is extremely popular for Italian couples. Apparently, the tradition is to rent out one of the huge cathedrals around town (trust me, there's no lack of those), get married there, then go to Le Casa di Romeo e Giulietta, write a declaration of love on the wall of each of those houses, get pictures taken, etcetera, and then go visit "Juliet's Tomb" (that's one site we didn't get to), and emphasis the "Til death do us part" part of the vows. Cute, no?

But wait! There's more to come...interesting events the following night involving an unstoppable force (yours truly) meeting an immovable object (the locked door to my apartment).
As well as the rest of the preceeding week of orientaion and disorientation.

Ci vediamo!