Divorce Italian Style........

 We had a free morning which we spent packing.  This has been nagging at us as we are returning with a lot more stuff than we brought.  Paolo would have been proud of me and my bubble wrap.  I am so glad I brought it.  Now we think we have a handle on things.  We wrote our thank-you notes to Simona, tallied our cash and sent the last postcards.

After a very light lunch we went to class at 2:30.  Post grammar, everyone gathered in the larger classroom to watch a movie.  It was Fellini's Divorcio a la Italiano, starring Marcello Mastroianni.

Of course, we watched in Italian with English subtitles.  I had never seen it before and thought it was very amusing and charming.  Filmed in 1961 before divorce was legal, it must have been controversial in its day although is was very tame by today's standards.

Marcello conspires to rid himself of his needy mustachioed wife of twelve years because he has fallen in love with his seventeen year old cousin..lots of antics made for a fun movie which I highly recommend.

After drinks in the hotel bar with the group we walked to the school to rendezvous with students from the musical studies program.  A jazz band from North Carolina studying at our school is giving a concert in Fiesole tonight.  We board small buses for the trip to the Convento di San Francesco.  The bad news is that we were mis-informed about the bus taking us up the hill to the convent.




Rigmor and I have made this trek before and it is very steep.  None of our group are wearing shoes appropriate for such a climb but we go slowly and persevere.  Mr. FitBit is very impressed.



Florence is coming alive with light at our feet.  Everyone gathers in the open air cloister of the convent in the twilight.  I'm not sure what I was expecting but there are many chairs set up on the bandstand.

We are six in a group of college age kids sitting in a semi circle of plastic chairs. Directors from the school flutter around us offering water, afraid that we might perhaps croak in the middle of their event from our exertions.  We refuse the water for obvious reasons......I mean we are stranded in a convent with no signage indicating facilities.



The concert was great.  All the kids were so talented and the vocalists shone. Tomorrow they are off to Milan, the first stop on a music ambassador tour through Europe.  While jazz is not my favorite genre I was so glad I went.  It was really nice to see the students so enthusiastic over their studies and future.

We took our time returning to the bus and were soon back home preparing for last day of school.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Climbing, kissing and sailing..... We are ringing our way around Ireland and Kevin fills some of the travel time with facts and lore. He began with a bit about leprechauns.  The first tribal hunters in Ireland were very short and dark and the engineers of the wing fort, a thick round encampment with tunnels of up to twenty or thirty feet radiating out like underground spokes.  Marry this fact with a bit of myth and Disney dust and you get little people  popping up out of the ground to make mischief. Onward to St. Patrick...a slave in 432 AD and a keeper of pigs, dreamt of the priesthood, left Ireland and became ordained.  This is in the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages. He returned to Ireland and converted a chieftain, explaining the concept of the Holy Trinity by picking up a three leaf clover and describing Father, Son and Holy Ghost, hence the shamrock. There were many similarities between the pagan and Christian calendar regarding observances with Christmas
Read more
Image
Our first game drive... Our wake up call was for 4:45.  Guess who was still asleep at this hour for the first time during the trip?  No coffee is available at this time, which I will come to discover is a blessing. While this is the end of the summer, it is quite cool this morning as we pile into three mega-jeeps for our transit to the David Livingston Game Preserve.  Once underway in this open air vehicle, I am glad for my jacket.  I don't think I would want to do this in cool weather. It is only a short drive to the area and as we make our turn onto the rutted road of packed Kalahari sand we understand what our able driver Cedric meant when he said that we would be having the "African massage" as we are slammed around over the bumps and ruts. These bumps are not to control speed but erosion.  Some are quite high with a substantial puddle on the down side.  All this rain of late certainly controls the dust.  We ask to be in the lead vehicle for just this rea
Read more
Image
Magnificent Table Mountain... We are off today to make our way to the top of Table Mountain.  She is the backdrop of our hotel and a lovely sight this morning with not a cloud in the sky and no wind. Paul has had a cold for three days and now I have it.  At first, I began coughing after they sprayed that noxious bug bomb on the airplane, using the same size on our 52 seater that they use on the big planes.  It was very strong and lingered a long while. If you have asthma I seriously suggest bringing a mask. But this morning it is apparent that I have his chest cold. With no appetite, we had only a scone for breakfast. I personally am very wobbly today.  I am wearing my infinity scarf pulled up over my mouth and nose to protect my colleagues on the bus.  My cough is certainly enough to make people scatter. Heading off past the new stadium built for the world cup, we enter downtown traffic, passing what they not so affectionately call Trump Tower and the home of the Nati
Read more