I have a lot to tell you.
First, I will tell you about what some of you already know, something that has been pretty much dominating my thoughts for the past few days. My Aunt Maria has breast cancer and it's not such a good situation. In fact, it's downright bad. It's a terrible situation and I miss her so so much and I really hate being this far away and disconnected, in a sense, from her and the rest of my family. We got bad news in the last few days, and I've been really struggling with it. It's not an easy thing to deal with, especially when I am, as I have previously mentioned, 600 billion miles (or something to that effect) away. Please pray for her in these days that she will be miraculously healed. We need to believe in miracles in situations like this. So ask for a miracle. For God says, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). So I ask you to ask for a miracle, seek healing, and knock on the door of hope. These are the things we need right now for our family.
Also, please keep my Uncle Brian in your prayers, as he had a hockey injury last week that somehow translated into a freak accident which affected his spinal cord. It looks as though he will make a full recovery, but it's going to be a long road for him. Please pray for patience and quick healing. Thanks everyone. Prayer is a powerful tool, and our family covets every prayer that is made by everyone around the world. I don't know if you get extra credit from God for praying for people in other countries, but all my Italian, German, Olandese, etc. friends can give it a try. It can't hurt, right? :)
Anyways, now that you all know what you can pray for, let me tell you what you can rejoice for. It is this:
I AM OBSESSED WITH VENICE.
Venice is the most amazing place I have ever been. I actually wrote down the phone number from a "For Rent" (in Italian, "affitare") sign in the window of an apartment. It was across the street from a lovely little hat and glove store. How fabulous. I would never have to leave the house without hats or gloves again. I could make friends with the owner of the store and get discounts or maybe even lots of Christmas/birthday/Thanksgiving/Halloween/Hanukkah/Valentine's Day/holidays-in-general presents. Perfect. It's a plan then. But that's not the point. The point is that I love Venice. The city itself was beautiful, the stores were fabulous, the food was delicious, everything was perfect. The only downfall was that every single tourist in the whole world decided to visit Venice last weekend too. So there were 3,497,012,033,828,432,347,885 people there. In other words, a lot of people visit Venice. Too many. They need to all go home so I can enjoy my new home in peace.
Other than the endless hoards of people, everything was beautiful and wonderful and perfect. Let me tell you about it. We left at an ungodly early time of day (we left from the train station at 7:30...that meant a 6:30 wake-up call for Leslie and I...good grief). We got there at 11-ish after a sleepy, tired bus ride. As soon as we got there, we got off the bus and onto a boat that took us to the little glass making island of. Murano. Some people felt a little seasick being on the boat in what were rather rough waters for Venice, but I felt right at home. It was almost like being on Lake Michigan or Lake Charlevoix except, of course, for the salt that was so thick you could taste it in the air. Gross. Anyways, we got a glass blowing demonstration in which a man made a horse out of molten glass right in front of us. It was crazy. So so so cool. Then we were brought to their showroom where we could buy stuff. Let me tell you, the chandeliers in the showroom were unreal. They were incredibly beautiful and shiny and sparkly and absolutely amazing. For those of you who know about my extreme obsession with chandeliers, you know that this was not a situation. I seriously considered stealing one. All I would have had to do was get one down from the ceiling, dismantle it, slip the pieces in my purse and my pockets and down my shirt, and make it out of the showroom and off the island before anyone saw me. Easy enough. However, as I was very tired from my early wake-up call and running a little low on energy, I decided to wait. Another time when I have more energy maybe. Or maybe I will rob a bank and buy one. Or maybe I will marry rich and buy lots of them, one for each room of my house. Two for my bedroom. Whatever I need to do to get one of these chandeliers, I will do. I'm obsessed. Obviously.
After we left the island (where I bought some fabulous presents...get excited people!), we went back to the actual city of Venice and checked into our hotel, Hotel Messner. We sat/laid on our beds for 20-ish minutes and blow dryed our shoes and socks (it poured rain while we were walking around Murano...it was very wet) and then headed out again for what was a loooooooonnggg day. We toured the Doge's palace (Palazzo Ducale) which was amazing. We then had a couple hours of free time during which (get ready, this is BIG...) I FOUND MY BOOTS!!!!! (I decided before I came to Italy that my one big purchase here was going to be a nice pair of leather boots. I've been looking in every single shoe store that I've seen since I've been here to try and find them. I didn't want to rush it. I was waiting for the pair that spoke to me. I was waiting for the pair that, when I saw them, the heavens opened up and angels started singing and the whole world made sense and everything fell into place. It was a stressful process. I was always worried that I was going to miss them and lose the perfect pair in the sea of boots that are in Italy. That didn't happen. I found them in Venice.) I was walking around the streets with a group of people, exploring, when we walked over a bridge and I looked to my left and there was a shoe store. I ran my eyes along the shelves of boots on display and all of the sudden, I saw them. They were just sitting there, staring at me, calling to me, ready to transform me, to change my life. I stopped walking, turned to my left, and walked into the store like a zombie, never breaking eye contact with my boots. I asked to try them on, and they fit! I decided to wait to buy them until the next day, because I didn't want to carry them around for the rest of the day until we could go back to the hotel at nine o'clock that night. I thought about them for the whole next two days until I bought them. (I sadly had to wait two days to buy them, but don't worry, I got them.) I dreamed about them that night, and the next. I. Love. Them. I am so relieved and excited to have found them. YAY!!!!! :)
After the boot store, I wandered the streets of Venice for a little while. Then at eight o'clock our group had to meet outside St. Mark's Basilica so we could get ready for our private tour. That's right, I said private tour. Our group and a group of students from the University of Michigan went into the cathedral after it had been closed off to the public and got to see it at night. Let me tell you how this all went down, because it was unreal. There were about 60 of us altogether. First we all gathered in the entryway and Jodie gave us a little background information on the cathedral and it's history. Then we went into the actual cathedral. They had all the lights turned off except for a few along the isles to guide us to the chairs they had set up for us. We all sat down and they turned off all the lights. We sat in the pitch black in complete silence for a couple of minutes. Then they slowly, level by level, turned all the lights in the cathedral on, illuminating the whole building. For those of you who don't know, the entire ceiling of the whole cathedral is covered in mosaics that are all gold, except for the small parts of the mosaics where the figures are. So the entire place glowed in a magnificent, unbelievably beautiful golden light. It was totally surreal to see this place slowly begin to glow, to see these amazing mosaics slowly come into the light. It made me cry. Without even knowing what was happening, tears welled up in my eyes and started to roll down my cheeks. It was so completely, absolutely, incredibly magnificent and totally humbling. I felt at once both so small but also inspired and uplifted because I was a part of something that is so beautiful and majestic. It literally took my breath away. I have chills just thinking about it. It was the highlight of this trip. My time in Italy is nowhere near over, but I can tell you right now that no other moment during this trip will in any way match that moment. I don't even have words to describe it. It was surreal, magnificent, awesome, majestic, breathtaking, in all ways absolutely unbelievable. I can't say anything more.
After the Basilica di San Marco, we went back to the hotel and got some much needed sleep. The next day we took a tour with Jodie of the city. She brought us to a few churches, a scoula (which is not a school, but a kind of gathering place for a confraternity), a whole bunch of places. It's kind of a blur. I was super duper tired. It was kind of rough. Post walk, we had lunch and then hurriedly made our way to the train station. Saturday meant a trip to Padua was in order. We took the train to Padua (a half an hour ride) to go see the Scrovegni Chapel (also known as the Arena Chapel) which was painted by Giotto. It was unbelievable. Giotto really was a genius. His work is, to this day, amazingly beautiful and realistic. It was so cool to see this chapel and see such an early example of Giotto's work. Not quite as fantastic as San Marco, but still wonderful in its own way. We really did see some of the most impressive and spectacular art in Italy during this weekend. We are so so lucky. You should all be unbearably jealous. You're really missing out by not being here. Just saying.
Sunday was, besides seeing San Marco on Friday, filled with the most wonderful things of the weekend. First, I went with some lovely girlies to see a Stanley Kubrick photography exhibition at an art institute near the Galleria in the city. It was sweet. He's so incredible. It really blew my mind. I love his work. He was so so so talented. Then I went to the home of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which sits right on the Grand Canal. I am obsessed. I saw works that I have studied extensively, works that I had to do slid identifications for on my final in my contemporary art class a couple semesters ago. It was my favorite (again, outside of San Marco...that will be my favorite moment of my whole four months here, I will tell you that for free) thing ever. I love love love loved it. I want to live in the gallery. Actually, speaking of living in the museum, I think I might. Well, not live in the museum per say, but live near it and intern at it. You see, they have this fabulous intern program there and I am going to apply!!!!! I have an application. It wouldn't be until the fall after I graduate, so two years from now, but I am already so stoked on it. They give you a stipend which is enough to pay for your housing and food, so I would live for free, and then you learn all about how a museum works and you get to give talks on all sorts of things to school groups or groups of tourists or whoever. You also attend weekly conference-type things to learn more about the art there, Peggy Guggenheim herself, and museums/galleries in general. So amazingly fabulous. I can't wait for this internship. I really hope I get it. It would be the best experience ever. We shall see...but for now, I will stay super excited and spend the next two years mentally preparing for three months living in Venice working at the Peggy Guggenheim. Holy cow. Unreal.
Anyways, after the Guggenheim, I bought my boots (FINALLY!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYYYY!!!!) and had lunch and then it was time to go. All in all, a pretty damn good weekend, if you ask me. Italy is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love this country, Venice in particular. Now, time to learn some stuff about art history, explore Florence a little more, and eat some more gelato (my favorite never-ending activity). I have to leave you all. But I will write again soon. In the meantime, you should all SEND ME MAIL. I know it it pointless to ask at this point, because I am starting to accept the fact that you all don't love me as much as I like to think you do. But this is my pathetic last attempt at guilting you into sending me letters and cards and postcards. Here's my address, one more time, for my newer followers:
Sarah Klooster
ACM Florence Program
c/o Linguaviva Scuola d'Italiano
Via Fiume 17
Florence 50123
ITALY
That's all I've got for you. I have nothing else to say. All I want is mail. And prayers. But that's it. That's not too much ask, is it? I guess we'll see...
Love you all tons!!
Arrivederci!
xo Sarahhh
5. ...MY DOGS. My host grandma (Nonna) has a little dog but he kind of sucks. All he does is sleep and beg for food. Not nearly as exciting as my dogs. But then again, how could any dog match the entertainment value of Codi (the reddish one) and especially Lucy (the spazzy black one)? I mean really...let's be real here. But anyways, I miss them lots and lots.
6. ...carpet still, especially as the weather gets colder and the tile floors do the same. Brrrrr! It's nippy noodles.
