Today was blissful!
The lecturer is coming from Rome, so we all got to sleep in! I slept in until 1030, but poor Meg couldn’t
sleep past 0830. She, on the other hand,
did manage to get some work done :o)
Once I was up, I was in a great mood!
I was happy to putter around and I got a little work done too. Meg’s dad is coming in tonight and she’s
really excited!
Hard to believe this is the last week already! It’s flown by. Today and tomorrow, Erika (from John Cabot
University) will speak about Italian film.
She was recommended by someone who has lectured before, but couldn’t
make it this year. She’ll talk to us
about the three films we’ve watched and hopefully about some other aspects of
Italian film too.
Meg & I got a quick lunch at the place across the
street. The food’s decent, but they’re
not Italian. I think I can taste the
difference…or maybe that’s just me being imaginative. I have had cappucini or espressos
every day and last night I had a caffeine-withdrawal headache because I’d not
had any for a day. That is the whole
reason I don’t drink caffeine at home…..I don’t want to rely on something and
suffer when I don’t want it or can’t get it.
So, no more for me.
Meg needed some money so off we went to find a bancomat
(ATM). You’d think that’d be easier than it sounds, right? No such luck!
We walked all over trying to find one.
One of the things that drives us crazy is that Italy is a cash
society. Thus, they don’t really want
people using their cards (a merchant said it costs them up to 12%. That seems high). However, if you give them a 50€ bill (which
is what the machines give us), they look at us and get grumpy because they don’t
want to make change. Can’t have it both
ways.
The lecture was pretty interesting. She spent almost the entire time on Roma,
Open City. It’s a great movie and she
did a great job. One of the students (who studies film) said he didn’t like all
the history of the films. That concerns
me because if you are going to make movies, you must have either a sense of the
history surrounding the situation or some sort of cultural awareness….which is
founded in historical knowledge. I hope
as his craft and education matures he’ll see the interconnection.
Next year I’ll ask her to discuss several movies rather than
just the one. You could spend an entire
semester/year discussing neorealism movies.
She did show a little bit of the Bicycle Thief, but there are others
that are great too. After lecture, she
was off to find a gift for her friend and Meg and I found a new restaurant.
Mozzarella and Basilica is the name of the restaurant. It’s open continuously, which made Meg
happy. We were able to eat dinner at 6
instead of 8, haha! Then we went to
Milano Centrale because I still needed to buy some tickets for the trip on
Wednesday. I love the convenience of
buying them online. I need to figure out
a more reasonable way to get them to the students. I think next year I will need to be more
creative. Right now, I just send them to
my email address. I think next year, I’ll
send them to the students’ email addy and then they’ll have their ticket. My problem’s solved :o)
Left Meg to wait for her dad and I came home to do a little
more work. I have managed to find some receipt
pictures and Meg says she has some.
Hopefully we’ll be able to piece together the first two weeks so it
makes sense. The excel spreadsheet is up
to date….now I’m nervous….and I have everything going to my Dropbox. This experience has made me hyper-vigilant
about things yet at the same time, I’m anxious that I’m not being vigilant
enough about everything…..like there’s something I’m missing that will come back
to bite me in the butt. I think it’ll
pass as time goes forward and I don’t have this so fresh in my mind.
With that note….time for bed!
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