On Monday, I went to Assisi, the home of St. Francis of Assisi, the guy who renounced his wealth and talked to animals. My friend and I took Rick Steves‘ suggested walking tour of Assisi, which took us to some back roads and some gorgeous views of Umbria (I’ll post the pics when I get back home and put them all on my computer).
In addition to the St. Francis Basilica, there are several other churches of note, including the Santa Chiara church, dedicated to St. Clare, who started an order of nuns who are called the Poor Clares. They also own an olive grove next to the church, ostensibly to provide them with a living. I want to find the olive oil that those nuns are producing: wouldn’t that be super extra virgin olive oil?
We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the church, but the frescoes (mostly by Giotto) were amazing and incredibly moving. I walked up and down hills all day, so I was incredibly exhausted by the time I got to bed, and I managed to sleep the night through, despite the hordes of drunkards outside my window that make noise until 2 in the morning every night (I am living in a huge apartment with a gorgeous view of the Piazza del Mercato, which is incredibly centrally located, and has several bars right there in the piazza. I can’t really complain about anything except the noise, which is excessive, but I guess that’s the price I pay).
Yesterday, we had our first concert, called Umbria Segreta, or “secret Umbria.” It was about a half hour bus ride away, in an isolated church attached to a deconsecrated monestary-turned-hotel high atop a hill. The view was gorgeous, and the church (not deconsecrated, so still no pictures were allowed) had some gorgeous frescoes as well (definitely pre-Giotto, though).
Spending the 4th of July outside of the United States is a very interesting experience. I remember the last time I did so was in 1982, when I was with my dad on a cruise ship, and we were in Leningrad on the 4th of July. Granted, yesterday’s experience could not be nearly as freaky as an 8-yr-old spending the 4th of July in the USSR (before we docked, I had a vision of the Russians angrily waving nuclear warheads at us on the docks…the only scary thing that really happened was that one of the guys in my dad’s band got strip-searched by the KGB on the way back to the ship because he exchanged his money on the black market).
But I think I kind of took for granted how special the 4th of July is to me until yesterday. Yes, all the hoopla is a bit much, and sometimes it really seems more of a reason for stores to have sales than to celebrate our history. But yesterday was just another day for the Italians. Apparently in previous years, the festival had set up a big fireworks display in the field for the Americans in town, but they did nothing of the sort yesterday, and all I felt was alone and out of place and slightly homesick.
But today is a happier day…and I think when I get back to the U.S., I am going to celebrate my own Independence Day, even if it will be a couple weeks late.
View from the stage door of the Teatro Nuovo (where we rehearsed every day)
I have now been in Spoleto a week and am fairly comfortable wandering around the twists and turns of its steep and narrow streets without getting lost. Once again, I am on a little bit of a time crunch, but I wanted to give some of my impressions of this lovely Italian town.
The Spoletini (that’s what you call the natives) are incredibly friendly and warm. They don’t mind it a bit when you butcher their language while talking to them; they are just happy you are trying to speak Italian, unlike the other brutti Americani who think that if they speak English slowly and loudly, the Italians will understand them. I managed to purchase an international prepaid SIM card for my cell phone all by myself and entirely in Italian. The shopkeeper didn’t speak a lick of English, and I had forgotten to put my Italian-English dictionary in my bag, so we communicated with lots of hand gestures (the polite kind) and writing numbers down on paper.
Some of the shopkeepers, especially once they get to know you, will gently correct your grammar if you get it wrong, which I really appreciate, because I am in a constant state of absorption and learning while I am here. The other night, I was trying to get the check, and instead of saying, “il conto, per favore” (the bill, please), I thought I’d change it up by saying, “posso pagare?” (may I pay?). Unfortunately, I had had several glasses of wine, and I ended up saying, “posso piagare?” (may I whip?). Luckily for me, the waitress brought the bill. I hope she wasn’t scared of me.
Well, my time is up, and I must go to rehearsal now. I am hoping to write much more while I am here, because there is just so much that I am experiencing, and I just don’t want to forget a single thing!
So here I am in an internet cafe, trying very hard not to waste too much money…actually the internet cafe prices are pretty reasonable, but still I would rather be frugal while I’m only working with a small per diem. So…on with the stories.
My travel to Spoleto took 24 hours. At 9:45 AM, I met up with a couple friends in NJ and the three of us were driven to our meeting point in Center City, Philadelphia, where we were scheduled to take a bus to JFK at 11 AM. Although we were supposed to load the bus at 10:45, the bus didn’t arrive until about 11:15. We all piled on the bus, ready to go, until we realized that we were waiting for 2 people who were stuck in traffic trying to get to us. By the time they arrived, it was 12:30!
(Warning: the next couple of paragraphs are really only understandable if you know your way around New York)
Luckily, our flight from JFK wasn’t scheduled until 5, so we still had plenty of time. But the bus driver clearly didn’t know how to get to JFK from Philadelphia, because instead of taking the Verrazano Bridge from the NJ Turnpike for a pretty much straight shot across Staten Island and the lower part of Brooklyn to JFK, he decided to go through Manhattan. But he didn’t even go through the lower part of Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel; he decided to take the Lincoln Tunnel right through Midtown.
Since it was Sunday, one would think there wouldn’t be TOO much traffic in the city, but it was the day of the Gay Pride Parade, and we had to wait in traffic for it to pass! A lot of people who don’t normally have a chance to see New York thought it was fun, but I was not amused. Then, once he crossed Manhattan into Brooklyn, I thought he would get on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to JFK, but instead he went into the middle of Brooklyn (and through more traffic) to get on the Van Wyck Expressway. By the time we got to JFK, it was 3:30 PM, and we only had an hour and a half before our flight was supposed to leave.
Once at the airport, the woman at the counter had a problem with my reservation because the people at the travel agency made my reservation under my maiden name instead of my married name. Actually, what they did was to hyphenate my name, which is not the way it is on my passport. I had a minor coronary when they told me I didn’t have a ticket on the flight…and it took three people to straighten it all out! After everything was settled, the woman at the counter told me that I should change my passport to reflect the hyphenated name. I told her that the hyphenated name was not my legal name, and she told me I was wrong. I’m not sure why the woman at the airline would think she knows what my legal name is better than me, but I guess they must breed a certain special arrogance at Air France.
The view from the tarmac. That plane is passing us in line!
I arrived at the gate about 20 minutes before boarding time, with enough for me to grab an overpriced sandwich at the terminal so I didn’t starve to death. I shouldn’t have worried, though, because 5:00 came and went without a call for boarding. The crew was a half hour late getting to the gate, and then we had to wait another half hour before getting on the plane. Once on the plane, we waited for another hour in line on the tarmac to take off.
Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in Paris. We also missed the next connecting flight, too, because of the time it takes to transfer and get through customs. After going through customs in Paris, we had to go back through security, even though we our connecting flight was in the same terminal, and the people at Charles de Gaulle also had a problem with the name on my passport not matching the name on my ticket. Although they figured out the problem a lot quicker than the folks in America, they did make fun of my poor French.
We also had to wait in the plane in Paris, this time for some connecting flights to arrive. Once we got in the air, we were yet another 2 hours behind schedule.
We arrived in Rome at about 12:30 PM Italy time, which for us jetlagged travelers was about 6:30 AM East Coast time. We had to wait, however, for the bus to Spoleto to arrive and be loaded with our bags, so they told us to get some lunch and come back at 2:00. We ended up leaving the Rome Airport by 2:30, ready for an hour and a half bus ride to Spoleto.
Unfortunately, our bus driver was Ukranian, and he got completely lost! He circled around Rome a couple times before finally finding the right highway to get on. Our “guide” was no help at all and sat at the front of the bus with a deer-in-headlights look on her face.
Our bus had some seats with tables, so I sat in a seat facing the back, which was a bad idea. The ride that was originally supposed to last an hour and a half lasted almost 3 hours, and for the last hour I was terribly car sick. That was also the part where we started climbing the hills and going around and around in narrow, curvy roads. Ugh. While the rest of the singers were exclaiming about the beautiful scenery, it was all I could do to stay upright.
Our first rehearsal was supposed to be the day we arrived, Monday, at 6 PM. But since we arrived in Spoleto at 5:30 PM (11:30 AM in Philly, 24 hours after we were supposed to leave), they pushed the rehearsal time to 7:45 to give us time to find our apartments and change. But the folks at the festival totally screwed up everyone’s housing, so some people didn’t have a place to stay that first day! Luckily, I ended up getting moved to a different apartment, but my new apartment was much closer to the center of town and a larger place, so I couldn’t really complain.
I had some frustrating experiences with the Italian pay phones trying to call Ray. It was so frustrating, actually that I ended up getting an international cell phone, but that’s a story for another day, I think, since I am almost out of time here at the internet cafe.
View of the Piazzo del Mercato from my room.
Suffice to say that although those 24 hours were particularly hellish, the next morning was so beautiful, especially after a good night’s sleep, that I was finally able to appreciate how lucky I was to be in such a gorgeous Italian town.
The countdown is on. I had a dream the other night that I was in Italy but hadn’t packed anything, so I got into a packing frenzy and now have a suitcase out in my office, along with half my wardrobe thrown inside it. I think I need to pare down a bit…the idea is to travel lightly because I have to carry all this stuff myself from Rome to Umbria (okay, that’s not entirely true, since it’ll be in a bus most of that time, and apparently there will be porters taking our bags once we arrive. However, I have also been warned that I should travel with the porters just to make sure my bags get to the right place).
I’m so bad at this. I’m all about overpacking so that I’m über prepared. The idea of carrying all the stuff I’m going to need for 3 and a half weeks frightens me. You mean I can’t uproot my life and teleport everything over there? Man, just when you thought technology was working in your favor…
I’m also trying to get a jump start on all the music I have to learn. I received my music in the mail last Tuesday, and I’ve been busily marking my parts, but I still have yet to hear everything completely, so I’m trying to find recordings of all this stuff, some of which is a little obscure. Not that I don’t have confidence in my music-learning abilities–after all, I am a sight-reading fiend–but knowing what the piece sounds like just sharpens my edge that much more, and since it’s a long couple of flights from JFK to Charles de Gaulle and then on to Rome, I figure it would be nice to have something productive to listen to. Call me crazy. (Okay, I know you already do).
For those of you who only keep up with my life via this blog, so sorry I have kept you in suspense about the red tape I’ve been wading through. Turns out I got my visa from the Italian consulate two days after I had turned it in (while some folks in NY had to wait 2 weeks), so hooray for efficiency in Philadelphia (who knew I would ever type those words?).
I definitely felt vindicated when I heard about the delay in changing the passport rules because the passport agencies were backed up. I heard all these stories on the radio about people who missed their own destination weddings (thank goodness we stayed in the country!) because of the backup and a myriad of other, much worse stories than mine. It is a little weird that there are only 15 passport agencies in the entire country that you can go in person to fix a problem with your passport, most of which are on either coast. What about all those poor people in the middle of the country? The only non-port city agencies are Aurora, Colorado and Chicago (although technically Chicago is a port city, too, just not on an ocean). I guess you’re just out of luck if you live in Kansas or Wyoming and you need to talk to a real person about expediting your passport. Once again, I’m very thankful Philadelphia is so close (even if their agency doesn’t honor the appointment system).
Most of my shopping is done. I have good walking shoes, sensible clothing, and the last thing I have to get is a nice concert dress (I have lots of concert attire, but nothing really super formal). I’ve just got one more week of work, and then I’m out of here! (until I come back, of course)
So I finally got my passport in the mail, and the next stop on my bureaucratic adventure was to the Italian consulate.
I have to say, for a country that used to be communist, I expected a whole lot more red tape and hassle than I had to go through to get my visa. Granted, when I showed up to the consulate (15 minutes before the office opened, and I was 3rd in line), I had all my paperwork in order, but they seemed to have a much more organized processing system than the U.S. passport folks.
Now I have to wait for my application to get processed (”It’ll get done when it gets done,” the lady at the window said), which hopefully won’t take more than a week or so. Still, I’m on pins and needles until I get my visa in my grubby little hands. In the meantime, though, I’ve managed to do some shopping for comfortable walking shoes and lightweight clothes. Apparently, it gets pretty hot in Umbria in the summer!
When Ray and I got married, the folks at the Hawaii Dept. of Health told us it would take 120 days to process our marriage certificate. Ray didn’t have a problem with that because he didn’t really need the certificate for anything. However, I soon realized that if I was going to change my name with any kind of alacrity, I’d need that certificate sooner than later, so I coughed up the $10 expedition fee.
When I got the certificate, I changed all the usual things; I called up my credit cards to change them, I waited at the social security office for hours on end, and surprisingly, the DMV took the least amount of time and effort.
The only thing I had left to change was my passport, and since I figured I wasn’t leaving the country any time soon, I decided to mail my passport in, along with documentation of my name change, to the State Department for regular processing (10 weeks).
Of course, a week after I had mailed it all in, I got an offer to go to Italy. Go figure. So now that my passport is in the bowels of the State Department, it’s up to me to dive into its putrid maw and fish it out.
I went on the passport website, which says in no uncertain terms that they are very busy, so don’t bother calling the number they’ve provided, because you won’t get through. The best way to get in touch with them if you have a question, they say, is by email…but don’t be surprised if they don’t respond to your email for two days.
So first I emailed them, and, true to their word, they responded 2 days later, telling me that my best bet is to go in person to a passport agency. But oh, by the way, you can’t just walk in, you have to have an appointment, and they won’t give you an appointment unless you’re traveling within 2 weeks.
Oh yeah, and in order for you to get that appointment, you need to call that number that we’ve been warning you not to call because you won’t get through.
So I called the dreaded phone number, which is answered by a message full of dire warnings not to even bother hoping to speak with anyone, because everyone at the passport office is so overloaded, they can’t be bothered with your problems. After their 5-minute dissertation, they present you with the following options:
Check on the status of your passport (which then refers you to the website, which in turn refers you back to the phone number of doom).
Schedule an appointment; choosing this option takes you to an automated scheduling system. One would think that this would be the easiest option, since it doesn’t involve human interaction at all. However, this system clearly doesn’t have enough phone lines piping into it, since out of the almost 30 times I called, I only got through once. The other 29 times, I got a message saying that the scheduling system was overloaded with calls, and that I should please try again later. Then the automated system hung up on me.
Contact customer service with a question. You mean, like, “How come your automated scheduling system doesn’t have the time of day to talk to me? Is anyone really working there? Why don’t you invest in more phone lines?” As one might expect, I could never get through to a real person. After choosing this option, another message plays, reminding me of how busy they are over there, and to expect long wait times. I hunker down for a long wait time on hold, and the damn system hangs up on me. Again.
I went to gethuman.com, my favorite resource for situations like this, so I could find a way to talk to a real person. I followed the directions, pressed the requisite numbers, and got the exact same customer service message I would have gotten if I had gone the regular route. And it hung up on me again.
Finally, at 11:47 PM, I finally got through to the automated scheduling system. I scheduled my appointment, listened to more warnings that they would not be able to see me unless I was leaving or needed a visa within 2 weeks, and got my confirmation number.
Just to make sure, I visited the web page devoted to the Philadelphia passport agency (there are only 8 of these across the country; thank goodness I didn’t have to travel 1,000 miles to go to one of these places). The web page said to make sure you arrive 15 minutes early for your appointment, and if you are more than 15 minutes late, you would have to go through the whole rigmarole again to get another appointment.
So I arrived not 15 minutes early, but 30 minutes early for my 9:30 appointment this morning. As I got to the building, I noticed that there was a long line of people queuing outside. I was informed that this was the line for passports.
“But I have an appointment,” I protested. Oh no, the security guard told me, they don’t work with the appointment system in Philadelphia. It’s first come, first served, and people usually start lining up at 8:30 in the morning.
So I got in line and just tried to stay thankful that it was a beautiful day to be standing outside. It certainly could have been worse.
Once inside and past the metal detector (which by the way, picked up my wedding ring set…not even airport metal detectors are that sensitive), I was directed to a line where they determined whether or not you needed a passport within 2 weeks. I passed the test (I told them I needed enough time for the Italian work visa to process), and I was given a number.
An hour and a half after I had arrived at the State Building, I left, my mission accomplished. No, I don’t have my passport in hand–not yet, anyway–but it will be express mailed to me, and I should have it in plenty of time.
Of course, once I get my passport, I still have to apply for a visa from the Italian Consulate. I’m sure that will be a barrel of fun.
Okay, so I found out when I got to work yesterday that my boss freaked out on me last week because one of the other women who works at the office decided that she’s going to become a flight attendant and just gave 2 weeks’ notice, and she did it right before I told my boss I was going to Italy for three weeks. So my boss is really happy for me, but she freaked out because she was just shocked. Now I don’t feel nearly as bad as I did on Friday.
Then yesterday I got the rolling kitchen cart I’ve been waiting for, and today my baker’s rack arrived, and things are FINALLY starting to get more organized in our house since our roommates left. There’s something comforting about having things in their proper place, and not on the floor.
So all is well, and I’m off to go assemble my baker’s rack.
(I think that last sentence sounds mildly dirty, but I don’t care.)
I’m feeling kind of icky right now, so I guess I’m going to use this blog as a personal catharsis machine, just like the rest of the world does with their blogs.
So here’s the deal. I recently got an offer from a conductor I worked with last winter to sing at a music festival in Italy this summer. It’s last minute, and it doesn’t pay that well, but they pay for transportation and housing, plus we get a little stipend for food (enough to live modestly). It’s not solo work, but it’s challenging musically, which is what I’ve been really hoping for recently, since I seem to be stuck doing a lot of the same-old choral stuff (which is great…I’m not complaining, but I’m also not challenged enough, I think).
I’m absolutely signed up for the job, so there’s no dilemma as to whether or not to go. I mean, come on, someone is going to pay for me to go to Italy? And sing? This is a chance of a lifetime, and I’m totally psyched to go. I’ve already got my Learn-Italian-Really-Fast CD playing in my car so I can brush up on the two semesters of Italian that I took 14 years ago.
I know I shouldn’t feel bad, I should feel happy and excited, but I all feel right now is bleagh (that’s a technical term, by the way. It is that icky, vomitous feeling you get when you say the word “bleagh.”). It’s weird.
Now for the psychoanalysis: why am I feeling bleagh? Well, for one thing, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to prepare for this trip. We leave at the end of June for three and a half weeks, and Ray can’t go with me because he’s got to earn the bread and pay the mortgage and make leather stuff so we can go on vacation together another year. That’s probably the hardest thing, since we’re still in our honeymoon phase, I think…our roommates just moved out and we’ve been redecorating and being all lovey-dovey, and I’ll definitely miss him terribly.
But the second reason I feel bleagh is that I just told my transcription boss I’m going to be gone for three and a half weeks, and she was pretty upset. I know she’s probably not upset enough to fire me (and even if she did, that might not be a bad thing in the long run), but the thing that makes me feel bad is that I made her feel bad. How lame is that?
I also took on a whole lot of volunteer stuff with AGMA, and I may not be able to live up to my responsibilities because of this trip, and I feel pretty bad about that too. Not as bad as missing the job, though, since the AGMA stuff is volunteer, but I still feel pretty bad.
My head knows that I should not feel guilty about getting paid to go to Italy and sing. This is, after all, what my real career is about. Ray is totally on board with it and very supportive. Even the folks at AGMA are supportive, because they understand that one must take these jobs to further one’s singing career. So why do I feel guilty about leaving my piddly little day job who can get a temp to replace me? I really don’t know. I think maybe I just need to push through the guilt and remind myself that I’M GOING TO ITALY!
Yesterday, we had our first concert, called Umbria Segreta, or “secret Umbria.” It was about a half hour bus ride away, in an isolated church attached to a deconsecrated monestary-turned-hotel high atop a hill. The view was gorgeous, and the church (not deconsecrated, so still no pictures were allowed) had some gorgeous frescoes as well (definitely pre-Giotto, though).
