Ciao tutti! Come va? Things are
going pretty well here in Arezzo, but it’s starting to wind down a little bit.
Mainly because Journey to Italy people are leaving this Saturday. Including my
roommates. T-T (<------ This is a crying face)
But more of that later.
What’s been happening this week so far is a bit of a transition between JTI and
Ciao Italia. Luckily, this is the only week where the two programs overlap, so
things will hopefully calm down after this weekend.
So after class in the
mornings with JTI, I’ve been booking it over to the Arezzo University for Ciao
Italia classes with Professor Houston. It’s actually really fun, even though
we’re just reviewing right now. But we also have conversational class in the
afternoon with an Arezzo girl named Alisa. She’s super nice and very helpful
with correcting our incorrect Italian grammar, which to be honest, happens a
lot.
Today, we went a looked at
the frescos in Piero della Francesca, a church here in Arezzo. Though I wasn’t
able to take pictures, I can tell that the fresco series we looked at told the
tale of the True Cross (though a different version than I learned in Crusades
class).
It's a church!
Apparently, when Adam was
dying, he told his son Seth to go to the angel of the Garden and ask for the
oil of mercy. Seth did so, but the angel only gave him a branch from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil and told him to plant in on his father’s grave
and that from it would come salvation. Seth did so and the branch grew into a
beautiful tree.
Fast forward to the time of
King Solomon, and you have the Queen of Sheba coming to visit him. She stops
and venerates a log that is lying by the river and, due to her gift of
prophecy, is told that a true king will die on it. She tells King Solomon of
this, and he is upset. He had in fact found the tree and cut it down to be put
in the Temple. The wood fought him though, warping out of shape and changing
colors, leading him to toss it in the river, where the Queen of Sheba found it.
Copies of the frescos in my hotel. Win.
Fast forward again. It is
the night before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and Constantine is visiting
by an angel, who tells him that he will win the battle if he puts the sign of
the cross on the shields of his warriors. He does so, gaining victory.
At the same time, his mother, Helena, looks for the True Cross in the Holy Land and is told where to find it. She and her helpers dig up three crosses, one for the good thief, one for the bad, and one for Christ. They can’t tell which is the True Cross, and so they pass all three over a dead man. On the third try, the man is resurrected, proving that that cross is the cross of Christ.
In the last scene, two men
are having a battle because one of the them has stolen the True Cross and
committed blasphemy against God. They defeat and behead him, ending the series
with the return of the Cross to Jerusalem. It was pretty cool to say the least.
Now the really cool thing
today was that it was Elizabeth’s 22nd birthday!
Happy Birthday!!
So we went to Ristoburger,
grabbed some gelato from her favorite gelateria, and then had movie night with
one of her favorites, The Importance of Being Earnest. (The one with Colin
Firth, it’s hilarious. Strongly
recommended to the folks at home.)
Interesting Stories of the Day:
- There was an inexplicable midget in the fresco next to Helena. He had a beard. And it was weird.
- We watched Italian music videos, most of which were very strange. European music is kind of odd I've decided. Not necessarily bad, but definitely odd.
- Also, the bacon on Elizabeth's bacon cheeseburger had bones in it. Which probably shouldn't happen, but totally did.
A dopo!
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