One week down, several more to go!

So, it's a gorgeous day in Florence and the heat is actually not terrible for once!  I'm once again sitting at Lion's Fountain Irish Pub because I get free Internet here and there's hardly ever anyone here, so I don't feel bad about sitting here for hours if need be.  In fact, yesterday there was a soccer match and I just slipped in and sat down and waited for someone to take my drink order for about 2 hours, but no one did, so I had like 2 hours free Internet.  Alas...

As I've been writing this I've been catching up with a friend that lives here and friend from Belle Ile and now it actually is getting hot out.  Not terrible though.  I don't think I've talked about my frustration with how this is such a touristy city.  When I was in Lucca, I don't know what it was, but I apparently looked the part of an Italian and people would speak to me in Italian, but I guess since there are so many tourists here that I just look like another American and everyone just speaks to me in English.  Even if I speak in Italian they speak to me in English.  And thus my Italian is becoming slower and slower and harder to use.  So, I think I'll steal a trick from someone at the music festival I just left.  One day someone was speaking to him in English instead of French, so he said he was Spanish and didn't understand English.  So I think I'll start saying that I'm French and don't understand English.  I may get busted, but I think I speak enough French now that I'll slip by.  And if nothing else I'll get to keep my French up.

I guess there's really not much more happening.  It's their vacation time here, so there really aren't that many Florentines around.  I haven't seen my host since my first day here.  I've only talked to him once since then just to let him know I found a place to live.  The first Rotary meeting here will be September 7th at 8 p.m., so I'll be going to that.  I'm hoping I have all my supplies I need by then, but who knows.  I don't even really know my address here yet.  I don't think I even have a mailbox at my apartment.  I feel like it will be the kind of thing where stuff is just slipped under my door or just left outside of it.  The biggest thing I want is my bike. It would make it so much easier getting around I think, plus I've been seeing lots of cyclists out in the mornings.  I also found this site http://www.ibikeitaly.com/ that seems really cool.  I may try it this week or next weekend just to get on a bike again.  I really hope I meet some Rotarians who are into cycling and maybe I can go on some rides with them.

Well, I thought I had more to write about, but I guess I don't yet!  Hopefully I'll start meeting more people this week as I think most people should start arriving for school.  A presto!

Starting to settle into Florence

So, I'm in Florence and have a little apartment!  A very little apartment.  Pictures to come.  I think I'll have Internet in the apartment, it's just that there is a key for the wireless and I don't know what it is and my landlord hasn't called me yet.  I'm betting he's still on vacation, so I may not have Internet until September.  But, I have figured out how to work the washer, which was quite a feat and now my clothes are hanging to dry very very slowly.

The first few days here were horrible because I was just sort of left on my own and didn't know what to do and didn't have a place to stay or even leave my bags, so I was constantly lugging my bags around with me in 90 degree heat.  But, since I finally got a place to call my own and a phone things have been becoming much nicer.  My Italian is improving, but kind of slowly.  Since this is such a big tourist town a lot of people speak English anyway.  So, seeing as I have mostly American t-shirts, I get spotted pretty quickly and people just speak English to me.  Some of them though will speak Italian if I just keep going with it.  I do miss speaking French though.  I've been writing to friends from Belle-Ile in French, but that's a whole different challenge.

My house is across a bridge just outside of the center city here.  I found out today that it's about a 25 minute walk to school.  But I'm in the middle of a lot of museums and up above me are big gardens of historic names.  I tried to go up to them one night but apparently they're gated and you can only get in at certain times.

Anyway, I was about to start uploading pictures, but since I'll have to upload one file at a time and I have probably 100 from Belle Ile, Paris, and here, I'll just have to wait until later or something.  So, until another time!

In Florence!

Just a quick update that I'm in Florence.  Not exactly the warm reception I expected, other than it's really freakin' hot.  And I've been hauling 100+ lbs of luggage everywhere with me.  Got a hostel last night that was nice, today is the search for an apartment.  May have a hostel for the next few days as well while I search.  Wish me luck everyone!

A la fin!

I've come to the end of the festival.  And I'm actually leaving a day early!  We finally got all that sorted out.  We weren't supposed to sing in the last concert anyway, but the festival wanted us to stick around for some reason.  Finally they just gave us our tickets and told us that if we wanted to leave early we'd have to change them ourselves.  No skin off my back!

Tonight will be my first time singing the bass solo in Mozart's Sparrow Mass.  I don't feel like trying to spell it out in German right now.  There was an older singer singing it for the first three concerts, but he's French and so he left early and I'm left to sing it.  It'll be okay I guess, it's just that I've never had any rehearsal for it and that can be a bit scary.  Last night was also our second and last cocktail concert.  I opened the concert with Questo Amor, vergogna mia from Edgar by Puccini.  Then halfway through Ryan and I sang the duet from La Boheme.  I've performed both better before, mais c'est la vie.  I had a coaching earlier in the day with a principal artist here whom I've become great friends with and it was fantastic.  He and I have pretty similar voices (I think) and so I've wanted to work with him a lot.  It's just hard to get instruction in a coaching and then be able to perform it 7 hours later in the same day.  However, everything is a work in process.

After the concert we all piled into a car and went to see the sunset, or couche' de soleil (the sun going to bed).  It was the second time I've been to see the sunset here, and both in the same week!  Since we live on the East side of the island we never get to see it set, so one of the drivers very kindly took us to see it twice.  And at two different places!  Yes, pictures to come, but the Internet here is so bad it just takes too long.  Maybe I'll open a Flicker account and put things there....though I do have a Google account and could use Picassa....hmmm...

So, not much longer here.  I think I maaaaay have housing worked out for Florence.  It still seems weird.  But alas, all will work out in the end!  Until next time!

A blog is a joke!

Woops!  I mean a blague is a joke...heehee... :)

That is, in French the word for joke is 'blague', but it sounds like 'blog' when people say it.  So yes, I had to look it up on Google translator to make sure I spelled it right, but I thought it was funny that this phenomenon of blogging around the world was actually, quite literally, a joke to French speakers!

Not much more progress since yesterday.  My host sent me a website that I'm trying to translate because it's something about student apartments.  Every day the French and Italian switch in my head is becoming easier, but it's still difficult.  Especially when people won't speak whatever language it is back to me!  arg...

Yesterday was a blast though.  Sang in a masterclass with Ryan.  The instructors were great.  Sadly we had to use music, but we talked to them before hand and they were perfectly fine with it.  It limited us some but we still worked for 45 minutes.  After that we got a little bite to eat with them; them being most of the cast of Cosi.  And then after that we went to a party for the festival at which some of the festival sponsors spoke and then gave us presents!

Body wash, hand cream, and a couple wrinkle reducers.  One for the day, one for the night.  All pomegranate  scented.

Also, I had a lot of pics I had forgotten to upload, so here are some beach pics!

Walking down to the beach

The beach

Ryan on the beach

Ryan playing on the beach

My feet getting hit by water that was really, really cold

Rocks!

Feet in the water.  Cold!

Ryan burying my feet in the sad under the water.  Jerk.

Underwater shot!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little side beach past the rocks

Ryan perched on rocks reading.  I was perched on my own rock.

Good times at the beach!  Yay!  Off to another day of trying to find something to do on the island.

Oh dear....

Soooooooo.....I've been e-mailing a lot this morning with my host Rotarian in Florence.  We're trying to find a place for me to live, which is great!  Except that I had to send him my budget.  Now, while I'm very grateful for everything Rotary has done for me and the money they have given me, I discovered this morning that the scholarship given is more inclined for those studying in smaller countries than in big, touristy cities.  So, we're going to have to be creative.  After figuring out what I need for school and my plane ticket I came out to $6,211 or 4,697 Euros to live on for 10 months.  So, for an apartment and food, in a touristy city, it's not very much really.

Once again, I'm very happy with everything that Rotary has done for me.  They've helped me in numerous ways and given me a huge opportunity with this scholarship.  This is simply one more hurtle I must overcome.  However, I have learned not to be afraid to look for advice.  So comment!  Or send e-mails about what you think!  I've been e-mailing my sponsor back in the USA today as well and he is helping quite a bit and I know that some Rotarians and the Jonesboro Club and District 6150 are all following this blog.  So I'm looking for advice :)  I've hinted to my host in Italy about living with him or with another Rotarian, but I don't know how to actually ask to do that.  What would be rude, what would work, etc.

In other news, I think I'm 100% better.  I wanted to go for a run today but went to a masterclass here today instead and then had to work on a duet with Ryan.  We're going to sing in a masterclass tomorrow and get some advice on what to do to sound better together.  So then I had to cook dinner.  So no running, but I will get back into the swing of it pretty easily because the weather here is so great and it's usually beautiful scenery.

Okay, tomorrow I'll try and let everyone know how the masterclass went.  Until later!

Vending machine with a conscience and Robert Merrill

So, two things to post about today.  First is my story about a vending machine with a conscience and the second is about my favorite baritone, Robert Merrill.

The vending machine.  This week I went to a final dress rehearsal for one of our operas and I really wanted a fizzy drink.  Ryan lent me 2 euros (that's for a 33 cl can, super expensive!) so that I could by an Orangina.  Oranginas are delicious!  Sadly, I put in the money and the machine said that it was out.  I was very sad because I really wanted an Orangina before our performance!  So, I decided on a coke.  I hadn't drank a coke since 2009.  But I remembered how amazing cokes in Europe were because they're made with real sugar instead of corn syrup.  Well, apparently the machine felt bad for me because it gave me two cans of coke!  And on top of that, it gave me back the two Euros!!!!!!!!!!!  So Ryan got a coke and his money back.  I was very excited.  Sad part of the story:  the coke did not taste that good, which I guess is also good because I don't want to drink another anymore.


Now, onto Robert Merrill.  This has nothing to do really with current happenings in my life other than I just finished his autobiography about five minutes ago.  It was a tough read because he was a singer and not a writer, so it was sort of ordered chronologically, but it was pretty scattered none the less.  In the first few chapters it's all about his extremely difficult childhood and how his parents were always fighting and a lot about how he hated singing.  Then he finally decides to start singing and begins enjoying it.  The rest of the book is just the progression through his life but it bounces between him being very shy and humble and thinking that he's not worthy of certain roles or opportunities, to him thinking he is too good for things he is offered or simply thinking he is better than so many others.


It really had me debating how I felt about him as my favorite singer.  It is truly amazing to able to read the words of someone you look up to so much and know how they felt and what they were thinking.  Examples of his being too proud are that he won the MET auditions and then refused to learn any small roles.  These days you would just be fired and forgotten about, but he eventually got his way and only ever performed leading baritone roles.  But then when he was offered really big, important roles (such as Rigoletto, often regarded as the greatest baritone role) he turned it down saying he wasn't ready.  But then when young hopefuls would try to sing for him, as he often did when he was young to try and be discovered, he comments about how he would tell them to just go become a doctor or lawyer because they would never have a career in music.  All very strange.


But I think the thing that finally sold me on him was that for the whole book his mother had been portrayed as the villain and everyone was sort of on his side.  And if the things he says were true, she was evil.  The stories of her are too numerous to recount.  But as I wondered how the book could possibly end, it was actually with his mother's death, and he talks about how it wasn't really a surprise because she'd been pushing herself to death for years and had been going in and out of comas for several months.  But in the end he realized that she really was the reason for everything he had been able to do, even if she never seemed happy with what he was doing or wished she had had his life.  It ended up being truly touching.  In the end, I think it just took him a long time to grow up, but with time he did become one of the greatest singers of all time.

Check out this new layout!

I've been toying around with the layout on my blog to try and find something that's pretty simple to navigate but still has a lot of info.  I looked at some other blogs and saw things like "to-do lists" and "what's on my kindle" and "what's on my iPod."  Well, there are almost 30 books on my Kindle because most of them are free and there are thousands of songs on my iPod, so I just put the books I'm currently reading on my Kindle on the list and won't worry about the iPod thing.

So, almost everyone in this house got sick the last few days.  We believe it was the local cuisine.  Before one of our concerts, since there was a very small window of time, they gave us some pre-made sandwiches.  Most of the people who ate them had an upset stomach that night or the next couple days.  Of course, I had a fever before I ate it, so I'm getting by.  Don't eat the local food!  That's the moral of the story.


I was thinking this morning that my French has gotten good enough that I may see if there are any nearby Rotary clubs that I could visit.  Well, I just got finished searching and I can't find any, sadly.  I didn't really expect much on this little island, but one could hope.


I have started reviewing my Italian grammar again.  I'm also trying to think of most of my phrases in both French and Italian.  Come to find out, our Italian tenor is actually from southern Italy, so he uses a different dialect and isn't very useful for practicing speaking because he doesn't understand anything I, or anyone else who speaks Italian here, says.  Alas....


So, one solution I've found for people getting e-mails about my blog postings is to subscribe via Google Reader.  If you have a Gmail account, log in and look at the top of the screen and you'll see "Reader" and click on that.  If you've never used Google reader it should walk you through pretty easily.  But all you have to do is click on "Add a Subscription" and then just copy and paste my blog address (googlyelmo.blogspot.com) into that blank, click add, and you're done!  That should take care of it.  I think you may still have to check Google Reader, or have Buzz turned on.  Let me know if it works for anyone!

Let's try this again!

Okay, so I'm going to try posting again.  I mean, if you see this I was successful, and if I fail, then no one has to know about it!  It's just been discouraging to sit down and try and type a lot again after losing an hours worth of work on another spectacular post.  Here I am now though!  I'm recovering because yesterday I apparently got some sort of 24 hour bug.  I had a fever and chills and just aching.  I actually went ahead and went to a recording for France Musique last night and to our Musique Sacree concert, but after the first half I decided I couldn't stick around.  So I came home, took some meds, and went straight to sleep.  Rough night, but I feel much better today.  Just a headache now!  :)

So, in my last post I was talking about all that we have going on this week.  Saturday was supposed to be a day off, but they decided to have a rehearsal for Cosi, and thus we had to work in the middle of the day.  It's interesting how most of our rehearsal are scheduled from like 11 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m.  So, right when you may decide to have lunch through when everything for lunch is closed.  Very odd.  Anyway, on Sunday we had a morning rehearsal for a concert that night that featured all the young artists here.  Fun concert.  The people were very nice afterwards and talked to us a lot.

Then Monday we had another Rigoletto performance.  Tuesday was Cosi pre-final dress and the sacred music concert at night.  Today is the final dress for Cosi, tomorrow is another Rigoletto performance, the Friday Cosi opens for real.  Very stressful.  Also, France Musique is here.  They're recording some performances and such and broadcasting them around the world.  It's pretty cool.

Oh!  What I worked so hard to go into detail about in the last post!  Our second performance of Rigoletto.  So, the very first bit of staging that we do in the show is to come out in a party scene and blindfold a couple girls then put them up on a table with food and plates and stuff on it and have them walk across it.  Blindfolded.  From day one I thought this was a terrible idea.  The table is secure, but very bouncy, plus they are stepping on plates and sometimes fruit and stuff, so we have to hold on to them and then take them off the other end.  Well, during the second performance we ran out onto stage and there was a bowl of fruit on the table.  A glass bowl of fruit.  The bowl was also huge.  There had to be 20-30 pieces of fruit in there. So we began walking the girls across the table.  For the first girl I think we moved the bowl out of the way and then put it back in place.  But then when I was walking my girl across the table there was apparently no one there to move the bowl.  She stepped on the edge of it and sent it crashing down in front of me.  It was actually really cool to see happen because it sort of dematerialized in front of me.  Fruit went everywhere, apparently some of the glass ended up in the orchestra pit.  We all just started kicking the glass under the table and then realized that we had to move the table, so a couple guys got brooms and dustpans and began sweeping it up. The rest of the night was a little scary, but we got through it successfully.

So, I think that's all for now.  Hopefully I'll be posting more.  Thanks to Jonesboro Rotary and Rotary District 6150 for following my blog now!  I've been getting some good info about my club in Florence and am really excited!

Don't use Scribefire

I've been trying to use Scribefire lately, a plugin for your browser to create and edit your blog posts.  It was troublesome because you couldn't use it upload pictures, but I was still trying.  This morning I wrote probably close to a thousand words (just guessing), but I did spend over an hour writing a post, and then it said that it couldn't find my blog, I put in my blog info, and it erased everything I'd been typing.  No more Scribefire for me. Will try again later when I have more time.