From Student Foreign Correspondent Annalyse.
After running around furiously for the past few days, packing, saying goodbyes and re-packing, I’ve finally realized how nervous I am about spending five months in Italy.
How am I going to communicate? I do not know more then five words in Italian, yet I am going to be living in Florence!
I am going to need to take a crash course of elementary Italian the minute I hit Italian soil.
At the library I found several good Italian movies; The Postman, The Best of Youth, Il Divo and Cinema Paradiso. These movies really got me in the mood for the Italian adventure I am about to embark on!
Watching the movies in their original form, in Italian, I realized that Romance languages have similar roots. I recognized lots of words that are similar to Spanish, the language I’ve studied for years.
The Postman is my favorite among the foreign films. I loved the romantic, dreamy nature of the friendship between the Postman and Pablo Neruda; the famous Chilean poet. And the rocky cliffs, crashing waves and Mediterranean scenery inspired me to look into trips to Capri and the Amalfi Coast?
A GIFT
My mom gave me a fabulous book that I read before bed every night: 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go by Susan Van Allen.
The author says Italy “seduces both sexes with irresistibly feminine appeals”. Her descriptions and in-depth explanations of the Venuses, Madonna’s, and Judith at the Uffizi in Florence are fascinating.
She writes about gardens where courtesans once frolicked, spas for pampering, beaches for relaxing, wine bars and jazz clubs, adventures where you’ll be making tortellini with grandmas, shopping for Italy’s prized ceramics, skiing in the Dolomites, or setting up an easel to paint a Tuscan landscape.
I will definitely be carrying her book across Italy with me, as a guide of where to go and what to do as wall as to learn more about the goddesses, Madonna and female saints and other women who have inspired the masterpieces. I like to read about powerful women.
The library also had a plethora of great guidebooks. I checked them all out and am perusing them one by one.