Afghan girl and beyond...

Tonight's highlight wasn't the concert I went to at La Scala, for once, but the photography exhibit I saw beforehand.
It was the first-ever curated exhibit of Steve McCurry's work.
McCurry is best known for his portrait of the Afghan girl with the piercing green eyes, depicted on a NG 1980's cover. The exhibit incliuded some NG-type work, but mainly consisted of portraits, and I was considerably moved by those, especially of children, as he seems to communicate something of the essence of his subjects in his shots. The exhibit opened with a quote from one of his colleagues that basically outlined why and how it is difficult to label McCurry, because he's not just a photographer, but turns out painterly work, often quite spiritual; he concludes by saying, "At the risk of embarrassing him, let's just call him an artist and leave it at that."

OK. We will.



His new Sharbat Gula...

I'm. COLD.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful,
and since we've no place to go,
let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!


I could not disagree more.





Welcome to winter in Italy, where the houses aren't insulated and there exists no infrastructure for snow removal!


Yesterday, I actually smiled while taking the above photo, thinking, "Isn't this magical?" It wasn't til three hours later, when the snow still had not stopped and I had arrived at home to take this photo, that I realized what a problem snow is for this city.





This amount of snow (about 10-15 cm) is a nuisance in Toronto or Montreal, but it does not bring life to a screeching halt, and it certainly does not bring about a state of crisis like it does here. The news last night was nothing but reports on the terrible gridlock, the condition of the rail tracks (trains didn't go), the lack of public transportation above ground, the terrible ice. It was about -6 and it snowed, like I said, no more than 15 cm. Of course, this part of Italy never gets this kind of weather, ever; what did I expect?

Well, I certainly didn't expect the pipes to freeze.

Houses here are not insulated like they are at home. In fact, the room I stay in has three walls to the outside of the condo and those three walls are made from something resembling aluminum siding, and you can bet there is not a scrap of insulation present. Needless to say, without my little space heater, I'd put my room at about 12 degrees at its coldest. I actually had a really terrible revelation the other day; I had my bed against these walls and my suitcase, and I pulled my suitcase away from the wall to clean and revealed a lovely crop of mold; the walls accumulate condensation because of the difference in temperature when I heat the room, and if there is anything cloth against the wall, you can guess what happens. Obviously this is no longer the case, and I keep the room cooler, much to my chagrin.

I digress. Because there is no insulation, the poor pipes don't stand a chance; I really had not thought of this, because it would never happen at home at -6!!! We have no hot water today, so if I would like a shower, I may as well go take a dip in Lake Como, because it would probbaly be about as warm.

As for infrastructure -- I have seen salting trucks here but nary a snowplow in sight, and let's be honest, these roads ain't built for 'em. The news was showing people clearing their sidewalks with gardening implements, like hoes; not a spade or shovel to be found. So I'm not too sure how they are going to deal with the snow we got overnight. I know they've closed the schools; ATM, the public transport company, is insisting that service will be as good, if not better that usual; still, I can't wait for Wednesday, when it's going up to 6 and the rain will wash this mess away, and we can pretend it never happened.

apples and oranges

November 4, 2009



Furniture exhibit at the civic museums, Castello Sforzesco, Milano

It's not so much that there is a fresco hanging in a gallery near a furniture exhibit in a gallery.
It's that these frescoes are hanging everywhere. I would not be surprised to see frescoes hanging over the toilets and leaning against walls in closets in my apartment.
As I come from a country several centuries younger than most of these frescoes I don't have to explain why this is novel.

The image as microcosm of the city itself:
Italy is littered with 2,000-year-old stones, preserved saints' bodies, most of the wonders of the art world in full restored glory, and boasts an incredibly rich cultural and military history.
Cars whiz past the Colosseo in Rome. People on cell phones or headsets weave through tourists on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
The subway system in Milano houses several glassed-in ruins they found while digging the tunnels.
It's 1200 and 2009 in Italy right now.
Milano is an incredibly modern city. It's on the very edge of design and fashion, and the Milanesi strive to one-up each other with the latest in this technology, that runway trend, this car, that artist. There is some serious money here, which makes it all possible (there exists the other extreme, unfortunately, and I have yet to really define a middle class). Although like in other great Italian cities, the ancient presides silently over the progress and the velocity and chaos and traffic and noise of modern Milano, there seems to me here a tension between the old and the new.
This is really only speculation, but let's take Rome. It is really, really difficult to ignore the Colosseo and the Foro Romano, and the rocks strewn about the city, and eventually you make peace with the fact that your past will always haunt you, kind of like the old-fashioned stodgy uncle you really hate because he's always talking about how you should be more like he was at 20-whatever but you can't really hate him, because he's family and you can't choose your family.
Milano, on the other hand, has little ancient treasures hiding in unexpected places. I turned a corner yesterday and came face to face with an enormous Baroque church I had never noticed before, because it was obscured by a modern building housing a bank (Milano is the financial seat of Italy... let's call this symbolism).
I was a little shocked but in a pleasant way, as I am discovering the city as an outsider/tourist and everything is a little bit magical. But humour me and imagine I am a Milanese: I am a self-styled Modern European. I am on the cutting edge, always. I can't find the balance between where we came from and where we are, because I move forward, not in circles, contemplating, pondering. I like fast lunches and long work days like they have in America. Sometimes I eat McDonald's. Maybe I have an inferiority complex... maybe that's why I can't stand the backward, old-fashioned south.
It's hard to put a finger on it. But in my opinion, the table wasn't happy about being next to the old-fashioned uncle fresco.



Emanuele Arciuli played a great solo piano program on Monday night. I sat above him in the gallery and watched his hands.

The Liszt and Schumann were played beautifully with a lot of sensitivity. Visually, they make so much sense to our well-conditioned brains. The keyboard is used in the ways we expect -- up and down and up and down go the hands, moving together or away from each other, moving in parallel lines from left to right and making broad strokes in one direction or the next. There is always a linear relationship between them. Tension grows and is resolved. Western music is so satisfyingly predictable.

The Carter he played, Night Fantasies, took linear relationships and said, "This crap is useless." I described Arciuli's hands to a friend as "robot spiders"; not only was the piece full of 64th and 128th notes (I don't know, it just seemed that way), it worked out musical ideas in circular, repetitious patterns that left the listener stewing over them even after the piece was done. There was cadence and discernible shape to the form, to be sure. But in terms of pitch content and for lack of a better word, musical "shapes", it resembled a scatter graph or an Etch-a-Sketch when realized. While Liszt and Schumann seem to muse out loud, Carter seems to need to brood introspectively over musical "problems" in order to develop and resolve them. In fact, I think this says a lot about the sociocultural "mood" in each relevant epoch. Extremely provocative; caused me to realize all over again that I think of music visually and how important that element of it is.




Today I went straight to the practice room following a particularly harrowing reading comprehension lesson with my class from hell.

Some things just don't feel like work. Some things make you forget anything that's bad in your life and obscure stress, worries, insecurity. They clarify priorities and put your life in perspective. Even a passive experience, like being a spectator, instills calm and replenishes what soul has been sucked that day.

Some things are a job that make you money while you pursue more lofty ambitions and don't deserve time or energy off the clock. This is taught to you by the enlightening experiences you have singing Verdi and Massenet, a clandestine locked away in the corner of the conservatory where no caretakers will find you and evict you from your not-booked, totally not-yours practice room, before a concert in which you hear the Brahms string sextet and Verklarte Nacht.
Or... I mean... other enlightening experiences.

(Aside: I see most of the concerts I go to alone and it's during this time I usually have weird abstracted brain experiences. I think it's why I have never been tempted to try drugs. Verklarte Nacht put me on another plane tonight; I had forgotten how much I love it.)
a wee taste.

To finish:
Further proof of Italy's schizophrenia follows in the form of two towns on the same lake (Como).


Colico in the north...

and Lecco in the south.

Monday, Monday..

The sun is back out in Milano and it's time for another packed week. I'm getting ready for auditions in London, and taking in some top-notch music here in the city. This week is a Schubert recital by Matthias Goerne and possibly some symphonic music and a piano recital tonight; we'll see what we can fit in! Things at La Scala have quieted down, but let me review the happenings thus far.

The 2008/2009 season is officially over, having closed with a plaster-me-to-the-wall performance of Verdi's Requiem, as I said, with Jonas Kaufmann, Barbara Frittoli, Sonia Gassani, and Rene Pape, and Daniel Barenboim conducting (from memory. yeah.. yeah.. I know). And what a way to end it! I feel very lucky to have witnessed the tail end of the season here, as the artistry has been of very high calibre, and I've gotten to see some very big names on the stage and on the podium.

Some of the highlights I've spoken about already; Diana Damrau gave a solo recital with harp early in September, and Olga Borodina graced the stage with a fabulous pianist and they gave a very cohesive, sensitive programme of Russian art song. Both divas really brought it, and it's obvious why they were asked to perform solo recitals: Milano loves them. They each did 4 or 5 encores and we would have definitely stayed for more.

Let's not forget the fantastic performance given by Pollini and Boulez or the programme of Russian symphonic music with Pappano on the podium. This concert was fantastic! A young cellist by the name of Han-Na Chang played Shostakovich's 1st concerto with great panache. Out came this little, self-effacing china doll in a beautiful floor-sweeping emerald evening gown. She was delicate and gracious, and forced everyone on stage to bow before she would even acknowledge the audience's applause. Then she sat down and proceeded to saw away at her cello with more force and power, and CHOPS, than you would have ever expected this delicate little thing to possess! I remember the first time I heard this concerto -- it was Thomas Wiebe. I have to say she gave him a run for his money. She was fantastic -- and at the end, she stood up and became the sweet little thing she was before, embarrassed by all the attention. It was like a musical beast took her over for the duration of her performance! The orchestra went on to play Rachmaninoff's second symphony and absolutely brought the house down. The only thing that ruined it for me was the questionably perfumed man beside me following the score, and turning the pages as noisily as possible. But that was only a little blip on the radar.
Finally, Emanuele Arciuli gave that performance of solo piano music that I spoke about earlier this month. It was part of a festival to commemmorate Toru Takemitsu (there is a very strong rapport between the cultural ministries of Milano and Japan, and this year there has been a good deal of cultural exchange. There are some art exhibits I will speak about). He played a great variety of new and well-loved music, and it was nice to hear a solo piano recital in a hall as acoustically friendly as La Scala.

It really is a great hall. It is circular and not that big; the ceiling has a slight dome. In the second gallery, the topmost seats, you are not any farther from the stage than the back of the orchestra, because the seats are stacked vertically with no backwards graduation, in classic opera-house style. I have posted some pictures in a previous post. My friend Dan said that the sound in the hall was as close as he has ever heard to recording quality, and I think he's right: the acoustic provides a very intimate experience of the sound, as if it were right by your ear, or in your headphones. I must say the Verdi Requiem was a very intense piece of music to experience in this manner! It sounded like the singers were sitting all around me. Their consonants reverberated with extreme force.

The first opera I saw here was Orfeo, which did not thrill me; the design was provocative but the music itself fair to middling. There were not too many voices that excited me, save Orfeo himself, and even then the voice was interesting and not beautiful; however, the futuristic angular costuming and the blackface really got my attention.

Next up was Idomeneo, with Patrizia Ciofi as Ilia, someone I think is overlooked in the wider opera comunity. She is well-loved in Italy, and works often at La Scala; she is a consummate artist, with a beautiful, warm lyric voice, great acting chops, and she's hot. She does Mozart with a great deal of finesse. Her Susanna on the Concerto Cologne recording of Nozze di Figaro with Rene Jacobs is fantastic. I first got to know her through her Giulietta in this production of I Capuletti ed i Montecchi. Blew me away!!!
The production itself was a revival, I think; they have done Idomeneo here on a few occasions, notably in 2005 after the departure of Muti for the inauguration of the season.

The inauguration of the season is a huge deal in Milan; it happens every year on December 7, a Milanese holiday to commemmorate the city's patron saint, Sant'Ambrogio. The crème de la crème turns up in full evening wear and everyone schmoozes. THe production is usually a big deal with tons of famous people. This year, it's Carmen with Jonas Kaufmann as Don José and our VERY OWN Michèle Losier as Frasquita!!!!! How exciting is that!

Though I'll be gone before Joyce di Donato comes to play Rosina in Barber of Seville, I've still been able to see -- and will be able to see -- a good deal of the highlights from this season. How wonderful to spend time in a city with an opera house the calibre of La Scala! I am spoiled, especially since next week I'll be in London -- I'll be able to see Turandot and a staged Messiah at the ENO, and Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera. Nothing beats a few months in Europe for your opera education!

And I thought it was a pretty normal birthday...

It started out like any other day, although I did sleep in. It rained; I taught, had a coffee and read a book; went to the Museum of Natural History on my weekly museum date (it's a great museum, actually, and they had some great Canada exhibits that made me homesick); and relaxed at home for a bit. Then, my expat friend Daniel and his girlfriend Kirsten took me out for dinner.

We went to a Sri Lankan restaurant near the downtown part of Milan. I can't tell you how happy I was to eat pappadum and curry after weeks and weeks of doughy pizza, plates of pasta, and my own cooking which has become variations on a theme: some sort of stew with tomatoes and beans over rice or some other grain because that is all I find palateable-- the selection, especially of vegetables, in the grocery stores is sadly limited.

THe interior was warm, wood-panelled and painted in reds and mustard yellow, and decorated with statues of the Hindu gods. Everyone on staff was south Indian or Sri Lankan and the clientele was mixed; for a few hours, I forgot we were in Italy. We could have been anywhere, really. I have been in similar restaurants in London, the other London, Toronto, Montreal.

The food was good -- not the best Indian I have ever had but I think that's the fault of the ingredients and not the chef. We shared 4 types of vegetable curry -- a dahl (slightly too salty, not enough garam masala or maybe none); a raita (would have been good if the other food was spicy; raita is a cold vegetable dish made with minted yogurt); and a potato curry and a coconut curry. I wished for more spice in everything, but it was such a welcome change from the usual tomato and cheese, salt and oil flavours that it was perfect as it was.

About halfway through the meal we heard the sound of a drum and in came a very graceful young Sri Lankan boy who performed a truly beautiful traditional dance, in what I assume to be traditional costume. A little later he returned with a partner, a girl, and they did two other dances throughout the course of the meal. We were the most enthusiastic viewers by far; the dances seemed to have such clear stories and we were dying to know what they were. The movements were a corss between traditional Indian dance, which you may know from many pop culture outlets, and Chinese traditional dance, with the stiff yet gracefully curved back and neck and careful head movements.

And you can't say you've had a birthday til you've had your birthday dessert heralded by a cowbell and brought to you with the lights dimmed, the whole restuarant clapping rhythmically until you blow out the candle. Not a cake but a delicious assortment of Sri Lankan sweets, it was perfect, and I liked the perfectly browned macaroon best.

Now I can say I rang out my first quarter century... really. More cowbell, please!

Today's moment is brought to you by the Duomo's roof.

I had an "I live here!!!!!?!?!?!?" moment today.

I have them sometimes. They come in two forms.

One form is the type that is accompanied by a contorted grimace of revulsion or sadness and usually occurs in response to one of the following:

1. Berlusconi is on TV saying something incriminating, or having laws made to protect his dealings (actually they rules against his random law-making recently, not that it will change much).

2. I see old ladies curled up on the sidewalk with their hands outstretched. OLD LADIES. They aren't using it for drugs, that's for sure. Why are they so poor? Or, I see desperate buskers board subway trains and begin to play, badly, on a broken violin or a crap accordion, smiling in vain at the obviously annoyed passengers, as their malnourished child goes around and holds out a duct-taped coffee cup.

3. I read stuff like this. Italy's right-wing government doesn't give a ... about gay rights, until three days ago? How many young gay Italians have to conceal their physical injuries and refuse to go to hospitals when they are beaten, because they haven't come out to their parents? How many clubs have to be raided, how many have to emigrate with their partners, how may have to die before this country realizes it's living in a really warped, religion-steeped vacuum?? There was another beating in Rome this week, the homicide rate is way up, and Berlusconi is under fire for a lot of other things, so maybe it's an opportunity to score some points by pouring some of his hard-earned money into a subway ad campaign that will just get defaced by the belligerent youth for whom it is too late, who have learned too early and too well what's right and wrong. Not that I'm proposing a solution. It's a deep-seeded problem. But you might be able to tell I think it's an important one.

4. I try to do things that are green and fail because the facilities don't exist (eg, must take elevators or escalators, must throw out paper or plastic, must use 1290843 sheets of paper to properly document coursework for teaching because everything is so complicated here, must take receipt for every single purchase made because otherwise the police will question whether you stole it, nowhere to compost, too dangerous to bike here, list goes on). Stay tuned for when I try a No-Impact challenge in one of the self-admittedly least green places on earth.

Sometimes, these moments are accompanied by absolute awe and wonder, amusement, reverence, and any combination of these and other similar emotions. Today's was like this and happened on the roof of a building, which, if you're going to have an epiphany, is just as good a spot as any, really. They happen on occasions such as the following:

1. I wander around an ENORMOUS church on a Monday afternoon when I have nothing better to do, see the preserved body of a dead archbishop and numerous very lovely paintings, and then take an elevator to wander around on the ROOF of said Duomo, from which you can see the ALPS and also all the little people and pigeons in the square below, and all the cranes and church spires and wee skyscrapers of Milano around you and all the saints presiding over the cities from their perches on the church spires are at eye level. The gargoyles are fantastic close up. ANd the Madonnina really is a wee little Mary made of gold perched on the topmost spire. THe spires are backlit by the sun and everything looks cream-coloured.
I sometimes have a really hard time getting over the fact that there is so much history just strewn about the cities here, and people go about their daily modern lives as if nothing were amiss, with no air of reverence, no eggshells underfoot, no neck-craning and google eyes. It's amazing to me that I can rush across a square in a hurry to get somewhere and not even notice that the square, and its subway stop, is named after the tenth-century church that is smack in the middle of it.

2. I have chocolate for breakfast, and that's not only OK, it's advised.

3. I sit on the tram or the subway and look around, and there are Italians, Africans, probably Brits and Canadians and Americans, Filipinos, Chinese and Japanese, and I know we all have at least one thing in common: we all speak great Italian. At home I don't take it as a given that you speak English, although most people do speak it. Some speak French, and some don't have a great level of English at all. Sure, in other parts of the world, it's probably the same- in South Korea, I imagine the dominant language is Korean, for example. But this is Europe, where languages mix a lot more easily, and in Italy, the 4 big ones (French, English, German, Italian) are taught in high school. In countries like Germany, the default fall-back is English; France I would imagine too. In Sweden they practically all speak fluent English, as far as my experiences with Swedes demonstrate. Here, you can't really get by -- as a resident -- without a perfect understanding of Italian and a really good ability to speak. Most Italians have very little to no English, ditto French and German. So there is that one thing that each and every one of us on that tram has struggled with and achieved. In a weird way, it's unifying and comforting.

4. Cities are circular and orbit around a main piazza. Life takes place in outdoor open spaces. They are always crowded with people walking, talking, sitting, eating, taking pictures, on cell phones, hanging out. I love piazzas. Why don't we have enormous open public spaces in the middle of downtown where you can set up runways for outdoor fashion shows and rock concerts, and that house enormous artifacts of history called Duomo's, EVERYWHERE?
To me this is indicative of a major cultural difference. It isn't just the church thing. Intersection after intersection in Toronto or New York, laid out in grids that really go nowhere; streets in parallel, angled bunches converging periodically in hubs with bars, banks, street markets, PEOPLE, that help define neighbourhoods and city zones, help drivers easily navigate between zones via roundabouts, and provide a mental and physical resting place from GOING. Which would you rather?
Having these points of arrival along your journey makes it meaningful and somehow, easier. At home I go from point A to point B. Here I go from point A to say, G or H with all the letters in between. I see more and experience more along the way. And resting points are built in. Just like siesta. Yes, that does happen in Milano, too.

5. People have met other opera singers before and they are familiar with the major works in the canon. Most have been to see at least one, usually in their hometown's theatre, and they probably liked it. They might even know someone who could help me, or their mom is a voice teacher. Opera happens everywhere. It's on TV, it's in small towns and it's relatively cheap. Your average Joe knows the words to La donna è mobile, Largo al Factotum, Una Voce poco fa, every soprano aria written by Puccini, and of course Va Pensiero. Entire blocks of streets are named after composers.
My point is... well, do I have to make it? I still haven't gotten over the novelty that I am not a novelty.

I never said it would all be roses, and Italy is a backwards country in a lot of ways. But there are some serious payoffs.

two heads are better than one, I think.

I have weekly Friday afternoon dates with myself.
The Castello Sforzesco Museums, or Musei Civici, are free on Friday afternoons, and they are glorious. You can walk through room after room of ancient Lombardian ruins, Lombardian Renaissance sculpture, and finish at the last sculpture Michelangelo ever worked on, the Rondanini Pietà; you can wander the art gallery and take in the view of the courtyard from the windows; and right now, you can ogle photographs and prints from the original produciton of Madama Butterfly in an exhibit devoted to the opera and guarded by a 400-foot-tall, weeping Cio-Cio San (picture coming).
Or, if the mood strikes and the weather is good, you can just wander the grounds and take in the castle as a sight in itself. It is rather majestic; it's laid out in a large square and fronted by an enormous piazza. In back, Parco Sempione stretches far into the northeast of Milan; previously all that land belonged to the Sforze, who, I suppose, were rich on a Medici scale. The buildings themselves encircle a spacious courtyard and comrise several turrets, a fortress, and a large, imposing central tower.
One of these days I will post pictures. The camera saga ended with me picking up my camera and getting my dad to scour Walmart for an extremely cheap alternative. Consumerism, obsolescence and The Man: one. Danielle's social consciousness: zero.
Anyway, this particular day, I was at the museum in the art gallery alone.
Alone is something I never thought I minded until I came here. I really only mind it sometimes. In fact, I only mind it when I think too much about it.
I really enjoy being alone, so much so that I feared I wouldn't even bother trying to achieve any sort of social life while I was here; I love living alone (I don't here) and eating alone (at home), and I love going to concert, movies, and cafes by myself, and I actively seek out places like libraries and museums where I can move amongst the fixtures and lose myself in my thoughts. Sure, I look at the stuff, but it's like knitting: you occupy your mind with something gross-motor-ish to do so it can abstract itself from reality and figure crap out.
Not that that is why I go to museums -- in fact, I am an avid learner and I like to read all the panels. I really appreciate well-curated collections. But sometimes art or carpets or dead people's stuff can be useful in this way as well. I could never go to a museum and brain-knit with a companion.
Anyway, I, who normally do not mind being alone, mind it here. It's the extremely social aspect of the culture that is a painful reminder of my solitary status. Itlaians travel in packs, and tourists tend to travel in two's, usually lovey-dovey two's; I look twice when I see someone else silently wandering around, because it is so rare. I am still shy about sitting down for a coffee alone here; at home, I have no problem getting my drink at the counter and disappearing into a chair at Second Cup for an hour or two. Maybe it is the lack of anonymity in general that makes it impossible to escape from scrutiny. You have to own up to being alone, because interactions are more personal. But isn't that a good thing? Isn't that what I wanted, or at least part of it?
Also, there are no benches. Because I am too shy to plop down at a table by myself for a coffee, when I have a half hour to kill before a meeting or a concert I am forced to keep walking, walking, walking, until I find a park (few and far between) or enough time has passed. I miss roadside benches.
But you know, sometimes it's nice to be alone. I had a rough day at work and I came to the museum searching for something to evoke a reaction in me, to help the bad mood pass. I guess I wasn't too open to that today. But there is always next Friday.

Bologna, Berlusconi, Biblioteca

I was in Bologna on Tuesday for a voice lesson with Paola Molinari, which was absolutely ottimo. I met her at the audition for Mirella Freni's masterclass -- she is the long-time collaborator of La Freni and others like Ghiarov, real legends. These people are the real deal. I sang Susanna, Gilda, and Giulietta for her, and I was struck by the difference between the style she was asking for and the way we are encouraged to prepare these arias at home. I can remember one coaching I had on Giulietta with a highly respected coach in Canada, who encouraged me to take artistic liberty with the bel canto repertoire; not so with La Molinari. The bel canto style is still alive and well in Europe and there is a way to do it, to sound idiomatic. The same goes for Mozart; I have never felt so strongly that my recit sounded legitimate and natural. Sometimes you just have to hear it from the horse's mouth. Needless to say, I hope to coach with her again.

Bologna is really a beautiful city. It is seriously old. It is home to the world's oldest legitimate university (founded in the 11th century), was a hub of European activity during the Middle Ages, and in my opinion is especially notable for its liberal viewpoints in the Renaissance, during which time women were allowed to attend the University and flourish in their chosen professions.

This photo isn't mine, but I still haven't figured out how to get pictures off my phone. It's the Piazza Maggiore, which I only saw in the daytime, but really is that cool. I took a bus from La Molinari's pad to the public gardens, ate my lunch sitting on a huge outcropping of quartz-like rock overlooking the greenish pond and watched the turtles go by. I walked up through the university and back down through the town and ended up at the Piazza Maggiore before I tripped back up the central Via to the train station.
The town itself, though beautiful, failed to impress me in terms of navigability (word?). Nothing is signed and the streets are a huge circular grid-like maze. Overhead view here-- also not mine.

Compare this to Milan, where EVERY street is signed and it looks more like this.

Have I mentioned I love Milan? I have yet to do anything touristy, but I do plan on it, and soon I will write an entry that will tell you more about it.

Anyway as you can see, in Milano, you can see past buildings to the next street, around the corners, etc, whereas in Bologna, walking down one street you feel as though nothing else in the world exists but that one, because the buildings are constructed such that they block the view of anything else and the streets' curvature makes it first of all impossible to see what's ahead, and secondly impossible to know in what direction you are heading. I went down so many streets for blocks and blocks before seeing a sign and figuring out that I had to turn around!

Despite all that Bologna is seriously cute. It has extreme Renaissance flavour and a really vibrant young population due to the university. There is a lot of graffiti and urine, though, but also great shopping -- it is like a mini Milan.

Shopping in Italy is very important, as I am sure you have guessed. There are no end to the designer boutiques, but for us mere mortals, Zara, H and M, something called Pimkie, and a department store called Coin (a lot like the Bay now that the Bay has gone all designer) reign supreme. Shoes are huge, and they have Timberland and Bata here, but also a great many independent shops and yes, even in Milano and Bologna, ad hoc markets in the streets, especially near public transit. Prices are a little higher than they are at home, even without the exchange - I think things are just cheap in North America compared to the rest of the world. The styles range from hipster to extreme runway and everything in between, but there are NO lululemons, no jogging pants, no running shoes (Converse, though, yes), no hoodies, except where young teenagers are concerned. I saw one shop called Canadian Flea Market in Bologna on a side street, whose owner is probably from Vancouver, which sold Roots and down parkas, which had me giggling. Other than that, absolutely no trace of what we consider comfort wear.

Anyway, I spent the day wandering and caught a regional train back to Milano, which was only supposed to be 2.5 hours versus a very expensive hour-long direct ride on a Eurostar. I spent 30 minutes waiting in Piacenza for my connection to Milano - oh, the joy of delayed trains!! -- and got home in time for a quick dinner and an extended conversation with my "housemates" about Italian politics.

My understanding of the situation is spotty at best; Italian news is in Italian, and the politics are hard to understand even if you've lived here your whole life. But the overwhelming sense I get is that Berlusconi is a bad man, and Italy knows it, and noone can seem to do anything about it. Simply because this post would become too long I won't go into everything here, but the current complaint is one of freedom of speech: it seems this weekend there will be a demonstration against the censureship of the press, which Berlusconi achieves by bribing advertisers away from publications that speak ill of him so as to cripple them economically, not to mention by owning Italy's complement of private TV channels. THe thing is, they are really only speaking the truth-- Berlusconi did this or that, and maybe it isn't so cool (prostitutes, 18-year-old heiresses etc), and whose fault is that in the end? I think his actions in these cases -- to create laws that make whatever it is he's up to legal, to manipulate the press, etc -- really just betray an insecurity in his own choices and demonstrate a lack of moral fiber, something that I think is a serious flaw in a political leader. It has led me to reflect on Stephen Harper in a different way. If I blogged about Harper like this, he wouldn't trace me and shut me down, but it might happen if this was in Italian and had a readership. Harper isn't a terrible human being, though we may take issue with his choices. But you can't even compare the two, because at the end of the day, it's apples and oranges. Berlusconi isn't even really running a true democracy.

Enough on that, and more when I understand it better. Oh! The big news of the day is that they just passed an OFFICIAL law against illegal immigrants, so everyone is scrambling to get their papers in order. There wasn't one before...??

I finally got to the library and got some books. It's great that anyone can be a member. I didn't have to show anything with my address on it. You can have books for a month, as well, and fines weren't mentioned although I am sure they exist.
Though the libraries are small and few in number, it's nice to make use of them. I am reading one Italian book for every English book I read; the selection is not great in terms of books in English so I picked up some Ian Rankin, and The English Patient, which I have been meaning to read, as well as Carlo Levi's Christ stopped at Eboli and some Nick Hornby, both in Italian. I feel like an addict or something -- it feels amazing to be turning the pages of something again!