Chris Brown gets attacked by a seagull
The best bird attack since Fabio was hit in the face by that goose.
oh this is like Christmas
FEMINIST AGENDA SEAGULL should be a new meme.
I hope it took his sandwich and then shit all over him.
And then I hope it comes back for a second round of shit attacks.
I’m not usually that big of a fan of seagulls, but this one seems to know what’s up.
Source: sle4zy
The best thing ever. With this weapon, I will conquer this paper about David and the relationship between Donatello and Tywin Lannister Cosimo Medici.
It’s funny how humor can transcend language. Perhaps there’s something in delivery that’s inherently funny, or perhaps it’s the contagiousness of laughter. In any case, when I hear someone at the dinner table make a joke in Italian, it doesn’t seem to fly over my head as much as it might. I feel like that’s the sign of a good relationship being developed between my host mom Silvia, her daughter, and who I will refer to as her gentleman caller. I’m improving on my Italian (certainly not as much as I’d like to, or as quickly as I’d like to), but it helps, even when it just lets me catch a few words of the conversation taking place.
Dinner is when I really get to practice my Italian and learn new words via the overuse of the phrase “come si dice” (how do you say…..?). Beyond that, though, it’s where I get to tell Italians how Americans think, and what they think about. Even more so than hearing external perspectives on America, having to explain your own country helps you think critically about it. Perhaps I exaggerate, and perhaps I smooth over some of the more embarrassing details (I do the first a lot more), but I get to think about things that I wouldn’t normally think of. Even the food itself is a conduit for talking about American attitudes. I let them know that Americans don’t generally peel apples, and rarely even slice them (both are common practice when sitting down for fruit at an Italian table), which leads me to wonder, how do our attitudes about food reflect our attitudes about how we live our lives? We’re certainly more hurried, less willing to sit down to a planned, structured meal. Going out to dinner is still a big deal in Italy, much like it was a generation or so ago in the States, and when Italians do eat, they divide the meals up into courses. Dinner is a time of comforting structure, where any topic of conversation is valid (mostly) and opinions can be shared freely. I’m not looking forward to leaving that.
EDIT: It’s not like I can’t do that with my own family, but lots of people in my generation don’t like talking politics, or getting into discussions on controversial topics.
Well, thankfully the big man in the sky didn’t see fit to send a thunderbolt to do the talking when my heathen ass set foot inside his lovely church. Or maybe he just doesn’t exist. It all works out the same for me, because I get to tell you about my lovely time in what I guess you would call the most important city in he history of western civilization. After quickly dropping our bags off at the hotel, we hightailed it over to Vatican City, leaving only time enough to take a few convenient photos of landmarks along the way. Every forecast predicted snow, and as we stood in line to enter the vatican complex, we got the first, if small, taste of what was in store for us. We poked our heads into St. Peter’s Basilica briefly, before setting off on what was to be the highlight of our tour - a visit to the necropolis on which St. Peter’s was built. I don’t know if they intended their church, centering upon an obscure grave hidden from the pagans who oppressed them - to be a gargantuan “fuck you” to their once rivals, and I’m sure the historical record holds no solid evidence to this conclusion. Still, if I were to build a headquarters for the secular humanists on top of a Catholic cemetery, I feel that the message would come across pretty clearly. The highlight of the highlight - seeing a few fragments of St. Pete’s bone peeking out from inside a stone box - really put it into perspective the faith that people once had, and still do have, in people of mere flesh and blood to channel something greater than humanity.
I found the power of humanity to channel the divine a bit more powerful upstairs in St. Peter’s itself. That people could create such a place simply defies the imagination. I may not believe in God, but I definitely believe in Michelangelo. I suppose it’s more my style to take inspiration from an astounding yet entirely human work of art, and what a work of art it was. The photos in my facebook album (the link is at the end of the post) are a selection of all that I took, and don’t possess half the power that spending even five minutes inside the building has. Religious or not, it’s an experience that I think every human being should be entitled to before they die. Perhaps like everyone of Jewish descent is entitled to visit Israel, everyone who has a Christian background should have the privilege to visit Rome? I don’t know, you’ll have to take that up with Emperor Palpat- I mean, the Pope.
I think that’s about enough of the sacrilege for now, considering how much I pushed my luck even stepping into Vatican City. Right as we left, the skies opened up, and the snow began in earnest. There was maybe an inch when we began the 20 minute walk from the Basilica to the Vatican Museum. When we got there, I would say there were two or so. Needless to say, our shoes came out worse for the wear. In the bathrooms, people lined up to hold their sopping socks under the hand dryers. I didn’t, myself, but perhaps I should’ve. After we had all gotten bored of trying to have conversations consisting entirely of the words “cold” and “wet,” we decided to go find the art. We found it. It was incredible, as one would expect from the most powerful religious institution in the world’s personal swag closet. If I’ll ever see more pieces of art I’ve previously only seen in textbooks in a day, I have no clue where it would be. I’ve only taken one art history course in my life, and I’m aware just how ridiculous the collection is. Pictures of most of it (everything of note except the Sistine Chapel, they don’t let you take pictures there) are in the album, so I’ll deny myself the smug satisfaction of listing them all.
Despite the concentration of amazing seen that day, I’ve never been more glad on a trip to get back to the hotel. Sam, Jules and I took turns running a hair dryer over our socks - not that it did that much good - before pulling them back on again still soaked for dinner. I think anything would have tasted good at that point, but I certainly appreciated a dinner that was objectively good. I’m not going to tell you how many glasses of wine I had, but I am going to tell you it was enough to warm me up until wakeup call the next morning.
We got to sleep in (did I mention that to catch that train to Rome that I had to wake up at 5:30? I had to wake up at 5:30). That did a lot. I allowed myself a pair of dry socks, it being a brand new day, and then went down to the day’s orientation, only to discover that Rome doesn’t really know what to do with snow. They had recently received more than they had gotten at one time since 1956, and though that would make for some fantastic photo opportunities, it would do fuck all to get us into the Pantheon. Oh well. We ended up spending the first half of the day exploring the Roman forum and the Coliseum and sledding on the Circus Maximus (slightly less interesting than chariot racing, but more feasible, and much cheaper). The second half, we devoted to every church we could get to (none of them were closed; it slightly disturbs me that churches are more prepared for weather than the municipal government in Rome, but at least it wasn’t all closed). After a brief break for gelato, which it is NEVER too cold for, we decided to be tourists and visit the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. After which we ate dinner and drank more wine and I went to bed.
I woke up the next morning, donned my last pair of dry socks, and hoped for the best. It turned out that most of the snow on the street had either melted or been shoveled away. Not much was open then either, but we did get to see a few more churches. This included one with three Caravaggio paintings in a side chapel, as well as an ingenious little contraption that only shined light on them when you inserted a fifty cent piece. I suppose that’s what they call a bargain, considering there were at least fifty people jostling around to see the three paintings. Honestly, there’s not much more to the trip. We packed up and left, and save for a quick stop in the nicest rest area I or any of my ‘Murrican compatriots had ever seen, we made good time back to Florence while watching an Italian dub of the movie Gladiator. And that, as they say, is all she wrote. Expect more on food, wine, espresso, language, and interesting combinations thereof sometime in the near future.
For the pictures, click HERE.
So as my last update would imply, I moved in with my host mom a few days ago. Her name is Silvia, and she’s the sweetest person ever. Although I can’t really speak that much Italian, so that’s not entirely certain… No, but really, she’s awesome. I’m in an apartment maybe half a block from the cathedral of San Lorenzo (about as great as it sounds) and three from the Duomo. Even more importantly, the Oil Shoppe is now a five minute walk, so I can eat amazing sandwiches served by friendly expats whenever I choose to do so!
I’ve finalized my schedule; I’m now taking three courses: an introduction to Italian, a course on the Medici’s involvement in Renaissance art (they’re kind of like the Lannisters in Italy, as far as the having lots of money and making sure they had a hand in pretty much everything thing went), and one about Men and Women in Italian Renaissance literature. For that last one, we read selections from the Decameron, which one might get away with calling the first ever collection of short stories. It’s amazingly modern, as that kind of thing goes. Not only does it present people as the lusty, selfish, idiotic beings that they are (in my cynical and correct opinion), it goes so far as to call out the clergy on being just as bad, and hypocritical on top of that. The conclusion to it actually presents some pretty compelling arguments against censorship.
There’s too much art around. Seriously. If I had twice as much time, I wouldn’t be able to properly digest the beauty that’s around every corner. Every painting, every fresco, and every mosaic still has more to say to anyone willing to study it. I count myself lucky that I’ll be able to give so much of it so much attention, and yet I know there’s still so much more.
This is kind of a fake post from the beginning of this weekend. I need to add pictures first, but a chronicle of my time in Rome will be forthcoming soon. That’ll happen as soon as I can find batteries for my camera, so bear with me.
