A City of Masks and Exciting Plans

So, I know I have been doing a seriously pitiful job of keeping up this blog lately, and I do apologize but I'm not going to waste time going on and on about how sorry I am, because there isn't any point.

Lots of interesting things are going on. Monday and Tuesday I had no school because of Carnevale and on Monday I went to Venice with my friends Asena from Turkey and Ursi from Australia. Madalena from Portugal was going to come too, but her host family wouldn't let her.

Venice was absolutely incredible. I decided that it's my new favorite city in the world. I guess I just love the mysterious, magical-ness of it and the fact that it's not like anywhere else. What other city has canals instead of streets? I'm pretty sure I'll be going back to Venice more while I'm here. Going is really very easy. The train takes just under two hours, which isn't bad at all. 

So, in short, here's what my day in Venice consisted of:

• Dancing with a very old, very Italian man on the train
• Eating a delicious lunch at the Trattoria alla Madonna, a restaurant once featured on Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods
• Buying a pretty, sparkly mask
• Having tea at the beautiful, frescoed Caffe Florian
• Exploring Piazza San Marco
• Taking lots of pictures

(Piazza San Marco)

(Caffe Florian)

(Masks with Ursi)

(Gondolas with Asena)

Venice even inspired me to write a poem which you can read by clicking here. I don't usually rhyme when I write poetry and I don't usually share much of the poetry I write, so it's a bit different, but there it is all the same.

If you want to read more about it, go have a look at the articles I wrote for the Herald. I had so much to say, I decided to split the trip into two articles. As of now, only the first one is out. You can read it by clicking here. And I'll give you a link to the second when it comes out, which will probably be this Thursday.

I've decided I'm kind of too lazy to routinely copy and paste each article into a blog post. I apologize. I think I'm probably trying to keep up too much at once right now between this blog and my tumblr and my twitter and all the articles. (I'm having too much fun making words into links to the things they're talking about.) It isn't that it's too much to do, it's just that after almost 6 months I still haven't figured out where to post what. And often I'm too busy actually doing all the wonderful things to keep up with telling about them. Oh well, though. It's not such a big deal. The people who are crazy to hear all about everything (specifically, my family) keep up with everything I post everywhere anyway.

Okay, so in some SUPER EXCITING NEWS I am leaving for a trip to Ireland the day after tomorrow. With my class. I've known this trip was happening for quite a while, but for the longest time it looked like I wasn't going to be able to go, because my Permesso di Soggiorno (or residence permit) hadn't arrived yet, and without it I wouldn't be able to come back into Italy on my visa if I left. The whole policy is quite confusing to me, but it turned out not to matter because I got notification last week that my Permesso di Soggiorno would be available to pick up at the Questura on February 24th. That was yesterday, just three days before the scheduled departure. I am super super super lucky. 

According to the program they game me at school, I'll be in Dublin, Belfast, Howth and Dalkey, seeing Trinity College, the Guinness Storehouse, the Troubles Front, James Joyce Center and other things. I am quite excited. And they speak English in Ireland! Not just English, but English with an Irish accent dialect! It will be such a relief to hear my native language again for a while! And I won't be forgetting Italian or anything because I'll be there with my class and speaking Italian with them! So perfect.

Anyway, I'm particularly excited about this trip to Ireland because I've been thinking about how many incredibly talented people are from there. Like Glen Hansard who was in my favorite movie Once, not to mention in the incredible music groups The Swell Season and The Frames. Then there's Lisa Hannigan, and Damien Rice. Then all the writers! Oscar Wilde! JAMES JOYCE! (I've been reading his story collection Dubliners and it is excellent. Makes me want to read Uylsses, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And maybe even Finnegan's Wake sometime when I'm feeling brave. He writes sentences like "Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory" and "But my body was a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires" and "The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns." Ahhhh.)

You can definitely expect a post about Ireland when I get back. Until then!!