Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Florence at night

Tuesday- April 3

This morning I had to wake up early to go into the school to correct my Italian packet since I didn't do it yesterday.

In intercultural communication we started the movie The Last Samurai. I've always heard of it, but I've never seen it. We only had enough time to watch half of it, but it was really, really good. I'm looking forward to finishing it next week.

For Italian Art today, we had to meet at San Marco, which is across town near where Bethany, Amy and Erika live. Kate and I ran home before class to drop off our things and grab something quick to eat. It takes about 20 minutes to get there, and we didn't leave until about 12:15. As we were walking we really weren't paying too much attention to the time. When I looked at my watch when we were almost there it was 12:35. We were already five minutes late.

We weren't sure where we were supposed to meet at because no one was standing outside since class started. We walked over to the entrance of the museum and figured we'd at least try to see if they were there. I saw Rocky talking to a big group and knew it was my class. We told the guards that was our class and we were late. They gave us our tickets and we went in.

San Marco is the old convent. It was beautiful to walk through and see all of the frescos on the wall. The rooms where the nuns stayed were very tiny and reminded me of my room in Beall last semester.

After class I went back to the school to get some work done, or at least with the intent of getting work done. I failed at doing so and ended up fooling around on the computer for about an hour. I was in there with Lydia when Christina, our practicum teacher appeared. She asked if Glen was on his way. I was confused, but then it hit me. Thank goodness I chose to stay at the school because I completely forgot she was taking the three of us early to Paolo Penko's goldsmith's shop to interview him for our documentary. Talk about luck!

Glen appeared a few minutes late, and then we left the school. When we got to the shop Penko was with a customer, so we started setting up our two cameras on tripods and made sure the microphones worked. After the two customers left we set up everything while Christina spoke with him. It was going to be interesting because Christina was going to translate our questions for him and then he would answer. Then we were going to have to translate the interview when we got back to school.

Lydia and Glen worked the cameras while I was the one sitting in the chair in front of Penko. When filming interviews, you don't want to person to stare into the camera. You want to make it look like they're talking to someone, so I was that someone. After Christina asked him the first question, he spoke into the camera and Glen had to have Christina ask Penko to talk to me when he answered. This is when it go real awkward.

When he was answering his questions he would look right at me. We kept holding eye contact, which was fine, but I had absolutely NO idea what he was saying. So I just kept kindly nodding my head like I understood what he was saying. Normally in an interview I'll nod my head because I understand what they're saying. I had no idea what to do, and I didn't want to just stare at him. Most awkward 10 minutes of my life.

When we got back to the school Christina helped Lydia translate the interview while I went into another room and recorded the voiceovers we were going to put on top of video we filmed. It was a successful day for practicum.

After class I went home to drop off my books and such and then went over to my family's apartment. We had planned for me to be there at 6:15. I cooked them dinner: Spinaich and Ricotta torillini with pesto, which is one of my favorite dishes now. I was surprised because Jon actually liked it, and I thought he was going to give me a hard time about it.

Ali was really tired and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Around 8 or so we decided we were going to take a walk. We tried waking Ali up to see if she wanted to come, but she said she was too tired.

We walked through the streets of Florence, and then I led mom and Jon up to Piazza Michelangelo, where I haven't been since the first week I was here. When we were crossing the bridge on the Arno, Jon asked where we were going, and I pointed up to where the lights were on the top hill. "We're going ALL the way up there?" "Yup!"

When we finally made it to the top, the view was spectacular; just the way I remembered it. Jon and mom loved it too. You could see the entire city all lit up. I'm glad I got to show them this.

We walked around up there for a bit and then Jon wanted gelato. We saw a little market that had gelato, so we walked over that way. After we got some we sat on a bench and enjoyed the view of the city at night. Having mom and Jon with me there made it even better.

We had a lot of fun walking around, and we just kept laughing. I love how close my family and I are. I'm so lucky to be able to call them my family, and I didn't realize how much I missed them until I was with them. 

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