La felicità

My literature class this semester is about Carlo Goldoni, the eighteenth-century playwright who reformed the Italian theater. Today, we learned what he said in a 1753 letter to Francesco de Medici about happiness. According to Goldoni, these are the necessities for being happy:

1. To exist.

You cannot be happy if you do not exist.

2. To be a Christian. Specifically, a Catholic.

Goldoni was not a religious person. He avoided the subject entirely. The recipient of the letter, however, was a devout Catholic.

3. To have a "well-organized body." That is, to be physically healthy.

The soul is equal for everyone, so it's only the health of your body that has any effect on happiness.

4. To have had honest parents.

Presumably, having had honest parents means that you will be, as well?

5. To have been born a man.

Self-explanatory, really.

6. To have been born is a good country: free, cultured, democratic, and with nice weather.

He was talking about Florence.

I can’t actually post this now, because my ridiculously expensive internet only works when it feels like it, but I can write it, at least. Yesterday I bought a gorgeous new leather jacket. I got talked out of the green one I wanted, but I’m very happy with the one I ended up with, and it was a good deal, too, a good enough deal that I might still buy a really cheap/fake green one. Expect pictures soon. The man at the leather store was the first Italian to comment on my name. “O’Hara! Come Via col vento!” and then when I told him that the S. on the card actually does stand for Scarlett, he got really excited, pointed it out to his colleague, and said he’d have to tell his wife when he got home. Men are always telling their wives my name.

Last night I went out and got appropriately drunk: not quite so drunk that I don’t remember how I got home, but drunk enough that I had the balls to ask an Italian guy at the bar why the hell Italian guys are so aggressive/rude. He had no explanation. We watched the Yankee game, and too many of you will be too happy with the outcome for me to comment further on it.

This morning I went running with my roommate, which was nice because she runs at the same pace/slightly slower than I do. We were talking in English, and she mentioned how she’d lost a sports bra, only she called it a “breast-holder.” I managed to not laugh out loud at her. I’m that mature. When we got home, the house was smoky and smelled like burning. Whoops! She left a pot of water boiling on the stove while we were gone! If your house is burning down in Italian, you have to call i pompieri. (We didn’t, but it was close.)

While I was eating dinner that night, the same roommate asked me whether “that boy who was here” (that’s you, Matt) was my boyfriend. When I said no, she asked whether American boys are respectful enough of women that they don’t “try to touch you” when you’re not together. I thought she was wondering whether Matt had tried to jump my bones while he was staying in my room, but in fact she was segueing into a story about how a guy she had class with spent the whole weekend trying to get her to “go to the hotel” with him. (For the record, I told her that there are assholes everywhere, but made you all look good by saying that my friends are respectful. Girls, feel free to comment about whether this was valid.)

Then after dinner, I taught Anna how to French braid. She’d always commented on my hair when I wore it braided, and I thought she was just commenting on my remarkable skill in French braiding my own hair, but apparently she’s actually never seen a French braid. She asked if it was an African style. I guess it’s not very common around here. Is this another of those things that isn’t as French as its name?

My landlady is selling this apartment, so my roommates are all moving. I can stay through the end of the semester (that’s June 15), but at least both of the girls are moving out May 1, because they found other places to live. I don’t know when the boy is leaving, but he’s never really around, anyway. So I’ll basically be living by myself for a month and a half. I may actually be living by myself for some of that time, depending on when he is moving out. Kind of creepy. Besides which, Aurelie has lived here for a long time, and apparently a lot of things that were in common use in the house are actually hers. The really cool garbage pail with different sections for recyclables and for trash disappeared from the kitchen. Half the spices are gone. In the living room, the big mirror and the English-Italian dictionary are both gone, and the DVD player is Anna’s so it will be gone as soon as she finishes packing. On the bright side, though, they’re both going through their things to get rid of stuff, which is benefiting me greatly. I got a poster and a calendar, and once Anna decides whether or not she thinks her coat fits her well enough to keep, she may or may not be giving it to me. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed; it’s green.)

Geez, Michelle, so demanding!

Well, since Michelle insists on pictures that I didn't get from Google image, here are a few:

We went to Assisi a few weeks ago:

That's the Umbrian countryside.

That's the Basilica of San Francesco (That's St. Francis, for those of you who don't speak the lovely Eye-talian language), from the medieval fortress to which we climbed. I don't have any good pictures of the medieval fortress, but it was awesome. I'm a sucker for a good medieval fortress.

Here's the ground in Assisi. Yes, I think pictures of the floor are cool. Alexa and Laura (my Laura), you can both just shut up! I've been taking pictures of cool floors ever since Pompeii, and you can thank yourselves.

When Matt was here, we went on a bike tour for his birthday:

Here are Amanda, me, Lauren, and Matt himself, with the Duomo in background. This was when we were still relatively low and hadn't climbed any real hills yet. Notice that Lauren made sure to take her helmet off before taking a picture.

Her priorities changed a little after a few hills.

There's the birthday boy!

Some Tuscan vineyards.

That day, we went to Parma, where I failed to take any interesting pictures, and then the next day to Bologna:

Here are Amanda and Lauren in Bologna. I think.

Here's a fountain in Bologna.

When we got back to Florence that night, we went to a bar to watch the Final Four game:

Amanda and Lauren at the Red Garter.
Hoya Saxa!

In more recent news, there's a mystery in my bathroom! Or else someone stole my toothbrush. Something like that. A few weeks ago, I realized I needed to change my toothbrush. It was getting worn. I had a spare in my room, but didn't bother to change it immediately. The next morning, though, when I woke up, my toothbrush was gone! [Shocked gasps from audience] I guess I threw it out the night before when I decided I needed to, and didn't remember in the morning. I didn't see it in the trash, which was funny, but I didn't really look very hard. I got my new toothbrush from my bathroom and brushed my teeth. And didn't think about it again until this morning, when my old toothbrush was in the garbage - on top of the garbage. Which has been emptied several times since my toothbrush disappeared. Which could only mean that it was thrown out that very morning. I don't care about the toothbrush. It needed to go. I was about to throw it out myself. But where the hell was it for two weeks? And who takes someone's toothbrush for two weeks and then throws it out? And what on earth was that person doing with my toothbrush for two weeks? I'm so curious! I'm trying to figure out how to casually ask around about it in Italian, but I think I'd just sound accusatory, which I wouldn't be. Just curious. Really, really, curious. My roommates are such nice, normal people. I could understand a normal person stealing money, or food, but a toothbrush? The most plausible answer I can come up with is a ghost.

Also, I got a postcard from Juan today. That makes him my new favorite friend. Take a hint, the rest of you! You could learn something from Mr. Mata.

I'm baaaack

If this semester has taught me anything, it’s that English isn’t an easy language to learn. Italian’s not easy, either, of course, but I already knew that. I’ve been helping my roommate write a speech, in English, for her application to get her doctorate at an English-speaking university. It’s actually quite fun. I get to feel like I’m really good at something, even if she does want me to talk in a British accent because she doesn’t think American English will be well-received. Her speech is tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. I’m very invested in her being accepted to this program.

Other than that, I also get to give lots of little English lessons every time I go to Judo. One man told me that he and his husband…actually, he never told me what they did. Once he asked what husband meant, he got so embarrassed he just stopped talking and walked away. Earlier this week, I tried a certain move on the kid I was working with. Afterward, he stopped to consider it, assuming the traditional thinker’s pose:

*

“Come si chiama questo?” he asked. “What’s this called?” The move? No. His chin. And I also get to try to wax linguistic in Italian to explain the pronunciation differences between word and world or thing and think. (Tangential story: Tonight at Judo, I worked with someone I’d never met before. He introduced himself, and then said, “You study at Georgetown University?” I said yes, and that was it. He didn’t tell me how he knew, how he’d even heard of Georgetown here. My best guess was that he’d already met some Georgetown students, but it was weird that he didn’t think to mention it. When I finally asked how he knew where I went to school, he pointed out that I was wearing a Georgetown t-shirt. Oh. Right.)

Other than my new calling as an ESL teacher, the most exciting things to happen since I last wrote (quite some time ago now) have been the visits of Matt, my family, and my cousin Michaela. (That’s in chronological order there, not excitingness order.) I worried that the cold Italian spring weather, on the cold Italian floor of my unheated Italian apartment might actually kill Matt, considering that he’s used to…well, Africa. Luckily, he survived, with the loan of my pink-flowered pajama pants. (He wouldn’t let me take a picture, or I’d be sharing it with you now.)

We took a bike tour through the Tuscan hills outside of Florence, which was fun but somewhat “strenuous,” and stopped for lunch at a restaurant on top of a hill, where we got to know our (psychotic) tour-mates, who laughingly recounted the story of seeing a man being beaten to within an inch of his life. “The guy had it coming to him. He was making faces,” they said. “At least it was amusing for us.”

We went to Parma for cheese, ham, (exquisite) pumpkin ravioli, and a really nice hotel. (I snuck in as the fourth person in our three person room. It’s easier to do this in a really nice hotel than it is in a bare-bones hostel.) The next morning, Matt and I were intrigued by what our map showed as the ruins of a medieval fortress, so we went looking for it. It was a park; there was a moat of grass (which looked really cool), a playground, a jogging path, basketball courts, etc., all where a medieval fortress used to be, but they hadn’t left many of the ruins, apparently not anticipating the visits of people who love medieval ruins. Shouldn’t medieval Italian cities know better? We saw a gorgeous, brightly-painted, beautifully-decorated church in Parma.

We spent an afternoon in Bologna, saw a rather plain church, with a “vibrant” band playing in the square outside of it, and walked around for ages looking for dinner, before finally settling on a rather mediocre apperitivo. Back in Florence, we watched the Georgetown Final Four game, with its disappointing conclusion, at a bar. I don’t remember getting home.

My family was late getting in the next morning, which was overall a good thing, because I was still getting sick at two o’clock that afternoon. When they finally called, we got good and lost trying to find the hotel on a street none of the Florentines we asked had ever heard of, and then Matt got to meet my sisters without any clothes on. Okay, so they did have towels on, but it’s not nearly as interesting to phrase it that way. Matt was then lucky enough, over the course of the next 4 days, to spend several hours of his Spring Break hanging out in my parents’ hotel room. I’m sure he enjoyed it.

If I get around to it, I'll write about more visitors, sightseeing, etc. Or maybe I'll just skip right to the present day. You know, if something exciting happens. We'll see.

*Not an actual picture of Marco thinking.