Firenze(Florence) and Oggi(Today)

Tighten your seatbelts....it's a long entry. Feel free to skip around to the good parts :)

My adventure to Firenze (Florence) was truly an unforgettable experience in many ways. I left Spoleto in a group of four new friends: Zach(viola), Jen(mezzo), and Junghye(piano), and we ended up meeting another friend at the train station-Kathryn(violin). When we arrived at the train station, our train was slated to be 30 minutes late. We still had plenty of time to make our connection in Foligno, so we had a nice coffee and pastry at a nearby caffe. During our coffee break, the wait was changed to 90 minutes, then 110, and then 150-Ha! I'm still convinced that train never came. Since we went on a Sunday, there were fewer trains running, so we knew that if we waited for the train to come, we'd miss our connection in Foligno, and we'd have to forgo the trip altogether. We went and stumbled through Italian to ask the ladies at the bar if there were any available buses going to Foligno. After all of our effort in trying to communicate with them, they simply said, “no bus, just take the train.” Harrumph. It was crucial that we went to Florence on Sunday due to certain reservations, etc, so our next options was a taxi. Foligno was only twenty minutes away, and we figure that dividing that cost by 5 people shouldn't be too bad. HA! After the third phone call to a taxi, we finally got someone to pick us up. He was very fast in coming to get us, but when he arrived he said, “you have 5. I can take 4.” Wrong answer, buddy. We pleaded with sweet little per favore's and grazie's, and finally he let us squish in the taxi. He said (in Italian of course), you may be good enough friends to squeeze back there, but the police don't care how friendly you are.” And boy, we were friendly. Needless to say, whenever we passed a cop, I got to dive down into the floor, which greatly amused our driver. He was tailgating unlike anything I have ever seen and he was driving pretty fast, I figured he'd have more than just one problem if the cops saw him. Even despite his fast driving, we still ended up owing him 66 euro. It was a high price to pay, but we had memories to make in Florence that day.

Our train was delayed in Foligno, but only by a bit, so we walked around the small town and found a Blockbuster (I was amazed to find one in Italy, since we don't even have any in the states!), and a beautiful old church that apparently had been bombed during World War I and had been restored in 2004. The parishioners were decorating the church for a wedding, but they let us take a peek inside. For such a small town, they certainly have a magnificent church.

When we arrived in Firenze, it was raining, but we certainly didn't let that stop us. Our first stop was a church and a piazza that gave us our first little idea of Florence. All of the piazzas seemed open and spacious, much calmer and chic than Roma. Our whole time there seemed very relaxed and reflective. Maybe that was because of Florence, or simply because we ventured there on a Sunday. When we turned the corner and I caught my first glimpse of the duomo, it was truly an unforgettable moment. I was more awestruck by this moment than my first glimpse of the Colosseum. Again, I wish that I had taken a picture of all of our faces as we beheld the beauty of the duomo for the first time. Since I'm horribly ignorant of European landmarks, I'd never even seen a picture of it before. But you didn't need to tell me what I was looking at. I knew as soon as I saw the building that this was Florence's pride and joy. We all stopped to take pictures in the road on the way to the duomo piazza. We all stopped to take pictures from the sidewalk. We proceeded to take a few steps and then stop again to take more photos. We maybe made ten steps before we took even more. Eventually, Jen asked if we were ready to enter the piazza. We made it that far and actually saw the entire front facade. We definitely stopped yet again. I just hope I have enough photos to remember it! :)

We planned on entering the duomo later, so we enjoyed spending the rest of the day eating the best meal of my Italian experience at a place called Za-Za's, having the best gelato of my LIFE right by the river(Dad, I got peach flavored just for you), walking by all of the museums (you could spend days wandering through Florentine museums), seeing a few piazzas, shooting the golden doors of the baptistry, and walking on the bridge, over the river. We didn't have time to see David, but we bought a miniature statue that is currently showing up in certain random Spoleto photos. Our miniature statue is also currently wearing a napkin toga.

Fast forward to the end of the day where we entered the duomo. We entered as tourists first and got several blurry shots ( I still haven't mastered the flash-less photo), and then we waited in the rain to attend a 5:15 Vespers service. The guard seemed surprised that a group of young whippersnappers wanted to attend the Vespri service. He said as much to his friend, and little did he know we could understand his Italian...we just smiled sweetly at him and said, “Si!” This Vespers service was particularly unique, because the entire service was in Gregorian chant. Hearing the sounds of mass echo in the duomo was truly a beautiful experience, even though I'm not Catholic, and I can't understand Latin. I wondered what it was like as a peasant, attending church and not understanding the words spoken or the people speaking. I wondered what it was like, having the entire town of Firenze in attendance at this building, back when il duomo was the only place to go to church. I wondered at the quality of the Gregorian chant back in the day. In the duomo, I saw real pages of Gregorian chant “music.” Some of the oldest musical notation around! Before the church service started, the bells tolled for the hour, and it was such a neat experience hearing the bells ringing from inside of the duomo. It was eerily silent, besides the bells, as all of the tourists had been ushered out of the duomo, and there were maybe 15-20 people attending Vespers. I really won't forget the sounds echoing in the duomo. If you ever get a chance, you really ought to attend a service there, just to hear the silence. And to hear the sound.

Speaking of sound, as I'm writing this, I can hear the rain falling outside! It's been raining all day in Spoleto, and all week the temperature has been in the mid to low 70s. I'm certainly not complaining, as I've heard that a heat wave has struck back home. I only wish I would've brought more pants. I've been washing all of my clothes in the sink here with some soap made especially for handwashing. That's been an adventure. A time-consuming and exhausting adventure. While I normally agree with the motto, “if you want it done right, do it yourself,” I'd willingly admit that the washing machine back home has me beat at this job.

This week has been especially difficult, as we're rehearsing Rachmaninoff's 2^nd symphony. This may be one of the most difficult orchestral works I have played. It's relentless. It wears down one's energy pretty fast, not to mention wrists. Each day this week, I've had stop practicing earlier than I want to simply because my wrists are exhausted. And I've certainly learned never to play through wrist pain. (This situation is one of the few exceptions to “no pain, no gain”). The motto for string players is a bit different. It would probably sound something like: play thru pain, never play again. I'm very excited though, because all of my hard practicing is really starting to pay off. Today's rehearsal was the first of the week that I wasn't completely depressed afterwards! After Monday and Tuesday's rehearsals, the orchestra members shuffled off silently, each to his or her doom in the practice room. But today, I heard snippets of chatter and laughter again. It's nice to know the hard work is starting to come together. We're also accompanying a famous Korean violinist (my Korean roommates are awestruck...I think they've mentioned her every night when we're chatting ;) on the Sibelius violin concerto, and rehearsing with her today was very exciting. Whew. I think we're all caught up! Now my hands are sore from typing. Time to run off to the chamber concert!