Castiglioncello! My next Italian Adventure

Ciao ciao ciao a tutti da Castiglioncello (that’s “cast-ing-yon-CHELL-o”), Italia! Yes, I’m here, and yes, I owe y’all a whole bunch of blogging. This one’s gonna be random paragraph-filled and long as per usual, and in the random order in which I think of things. Obviously, I’m not getting easy internet access over here. I need to pay for WiFi and there are only a few places I can do that, and because of my schedule I don’t have the energy or desire to run around looking for where I can find the cheapest signal. So, this is the official apology for being m.i.a. for this month. I’m trying my best to keep track of events, though, so when I do get online I can post these. Although you know I care for you all dearly (and thanks again for checking in with my blog), it is fantastic and liberating to not have the internet. And so far, I don’t even feel a need to have it. I have a phone which keeps me in contact with my Perugian friends and the fam (and any of you others who want to call me!), and other than that, I spend my days dancing and my evenings eating gelato/resting my very sore body/learning my way around the town. I’m glad I don’t have it here to distract me, and it’s nice to kind of go back in time and live like them old folks did without internet. A part of me wishes it was still like that.

First, answers the two questions that all three of my family members with whom I have spoken with so far have asked me, so you all must be dying to know (sarcasm)—
UNO: ankle’s doing great so far! In general it’s a bit more sore than my left but my entire body is aching. But I am still being careful, taping it, I told my teachers that it happened, but so far it has not been a problem and has not gotten my way. WOOO!!
DUE: yes, my Italian is coming back little by little. I am one out of three of us who have any knowledge of Italian so many people are relying on me to help them, so it has kind of forced me to get back into that mindset. But I’m getting there and I remember how much I love that mindset.

And now, the adventure begins.

Getting here was fine. I still can’t believe I did it all on my own. I spent a night in a hotel on JFK property during which I just flipped through channel after channel of Michael Jackson news/stories on the tv, ate an entire small pizza, and attempted to get a good night’s sleep but was so nervous I was not at all successful. In general, the trip was a tad lonely and the few hours during my 12 hour layover in London when it was very very early morning body time and the hoppin’ time at the airport was quite rough. I was so tired and out of it that I tried to order scrambled eggs on toast from a restaurant in the terminal but only managed to articulate “scrambled toast on bread, no, ah, sorry, I mean, the bread on eggs, no, uhh …” until the guy behind the bar just figured it out and gave me a look that I think was a combination of confusion/amusement/sympathy. Ehhhmmmarassing. Once I got to the Pisa airport, I met up with a few other kids from the program and got a van ride (about an hour) to our apartments in Catiglioncello.

My apartment is quaint and cute. Best part by far is our outstanding view from the kitchen of the seaaaaa. We can see motor boats docked, waterside restaurants, and people on the rock beaches and a big span of clear, sparkling blue water. We are still learning the works of the apartment. We have to choose between hot water and power because when the water is on, we lose power. Our land lady speaks no English, so we are just going to leave it be. I share a double room with Summer from San Diego, and Amber from Michigan and Chrissy from Boston share the other room. Our beds are hard as rock, unfortunately. I might start sleeping on the couch that’s in our kitchen because it’s loads more comfortable, especially for our very, very, very sore bodies that are dancing about 7 hours a day and walking 20 minutes to and from the studio to the apartments. But, I swear, I’m not complaining! It’s humbling and necessary to live somewhat uncomfortably at times. It helps you realize what we take for granted and how others survive just fine with things being a little less accessible. Less than perfect is ideal and, to me, kind of lovable. Today I didn’t even turn on the hot water before my shower. I just … didn’t need it. This experience is about challenging myself, anyway, so this is a good way to apply that.

Speaking of sore bodies! The reason I’m here is, obviously, dance dance dance! It’s only been two days of dance, and boy am I feeling it! Thursday and Friday we had two classes in the morning- one contemporary class and one jazz class (the jazz class is taught by a Denison alum!), and in the afternoons we had a 3 hour master class with David Dorfman, well recognized name in the contemporary dance world. All three classes= awesomeeeee. The environment here is a really safe one to learn. Since it’s a small program—there are only 20 of us—they have already learned all of our names (and we know each other’s) and have gotten a sense of our own styles, strengths and weaknesses, personalities, etc. and can cater to those to give constructive criticism. I am SO glad that the teachers have an interest in what we want to get out of our time here and help facilitate an environment in which they can challenge and inspire us while having fun. I love being here with people of all different ages – from 18 to 50ish—who come from different backgrounds but are all here for the same reason, and that is that we love to dance. It’s also nice to be around passionate dancers because already I’ve been able to have some intelligent and interesting conversations about dance in general as an art, choreographing, being in class, teaching, our different experiences, etc. There are also student choreography pieces—I’ve been casted in both of them!—that we auditioned for and will perform at the end, along with pieces that the faculty are going to audition next week and set. Those rehearsals will be in the afternoons/evenings after technique classes. So tonssss of dancing. Getting out of bed/up from a sitting position is painful and we sound like a bunch of old people with our moaning and groaning. Muscles I didn’t even know existed have even joined in on the fun.
One thing I’m really bummed about, though, is that we are no longer learning Indian dance. I guess the teachers, who were coming from India and who have been coming to this for many summers now, were for no reason denied their visas. Booo, I was really looking forward to that. But the hip hop teacher is still coming, in two weeks. Not really sure what to expect from that, but it will be a challenge for sure. But that’s good, because that’s why I’m here

This weekend, we went to Florence to see some of the people in my program perform. We all had the opportunity to put something together, anything we wanted. I really wanted to, but because of my ankle I couldn’t get it together in time. It was technically a competition- it was dancers from my program ProDanza Italia/USA, another international dance program, and two Italian dance programs out of Florence (one was from the University of Florence), and it took place on a Roman ampitheater on the hills of Florence overlooking the city in an area called Fiesole. It was gorgeoussss. We watched a bit of the tech rehearsal, and then me and 6 other girls found a nice pizzeria and had a great dinner and then walked around the market across the street. The evening performance was great, it was interesting to see similarities and differences between Italian and American’s approach to dance. I really wish I could have perfomed, just for the thrill of it. The second half of the show got rained out, though (rain in Florence—what a surprise, right? This marks my fourth time in Florence and the fourth time it rained), although it had already been 2 hours! We took a bus to our hostel, a pretty creepy/crappy one, and then our tour guide Dario, a really funny guy in his 30’s (he is a friend of the program director’s) took us to find food because we were realllly hungry. The problem was it was already 1:00am. Dario found a pizzeria and these poor old Italian women were closing up shop but we were 20 very hungry Americans and a translator who was determined to make sure we got fed and a chance to celebrate the 4th of July so they basically reopened for us. If I were them, I would have told us obnoxious Americans to go away, haha, but it was so very kind of them to reopen, they served us lots and lots of pizza and Dario was like “wine for everyone? Si?”. Those poor restaurant owners. They probably hated us because we were loud and many but we left them a good tip even though it’s not standard to leave one. On Sunday, most of the other dancers stayed to tour Florence, but I was exhausted (and had already done Florence three times) so I took the train back to Castiglioncello (it’s about 2 hours) with two girls who live in the apartment across from me, Mallory from Virginia and Arielle from California. Then another girl, Sarah from San Diego, and I went for a walk in the tent market in what we call the pine park- a man-made park with nice walkways and lots of trees and places to buy cute things and fresh food, and then to la spiagga (the beach)! Most of the beach areas here are private, and the whole span is solid rock. There is no sand. The public beaches are mostly set on concrete platforms with umbrellas and nice chairs. So, getting comfortable in the public spans (especially without a beach towel, which I didn’t pack, go me) was a bit difficult but the sun and water were perfect. So perfect. So I didn’t mind the rocks. All the Italians were laying on them, so if they can be comfortable on them, why can’t I?

I have already spoken on the phone with two of my very good friends in Perugia—Mauro and Antonio—and I will see both of them when I go to Perugia. Mauro is even letting me stay with him, yay. I am planning on going for at least one weekend, but as the days have gone on here I realize that I would love to be in Perugia for more than 36 hours (because of the 5 hours to travel there from Castiglioncello) because I’m here and so close, and most people here will be travelling to places I have been before on the weekends, so why not be in Perugia for two weekends? So, I might actually go this coming weekend, the 11th-12th, as long as the following weekend (during which I MIGHTT see James Taylor perform at Umbria Jazz, the huge famous international jazz festival happening there right now!) so I can spend a decent, relaxed time in my favorite city. Castiglioncello is so different from Perugia—it’s a beach town so it’s much more casual, and it’s beautiful, and it’s new, but I have to admit that it is no Perugia. I think about Perugia all the time.

Sheesh, I am hungry. Haven’t eaten much today. Breakfast at the hostel this morning was pretty fantastic—stale, unsalted bread, chunky coffee, warm water, warm whole milk, and cereal I like to call “hostel flakes” because they have had them in every hostel I’ve been, they’re basically like corn flakes, but gross. Time for some substance--I am going to make myself some gnocchi with pesto, my fave! Go give your eyes a rest, sorry for wearing them out. Piu dopo (more later) and, always, thanks for reading. A presto!