Last Day of Summer

It suddenly felt like fall today, with that first big drop in temperature (maybe 20-30* over the last two days) that turns your hands numb and makes you grab a shawl. Maybe I won't get to go swimming down the shore after all. It's fitting, I guess, since orientation starts tomorrow, and thus, so does the first day of school. I really have no idea what to expect for that, since literally all they told us was to go a certain building at 10 am tomorrow, and no further information for the entire week. How very Italian. I'm sure I will have stories about that soon enough.

Gardenia and Giorgio, the former of whom has apparently had much experience as a tourguide of Ferrara in younger days, took me on a short driving tour of some of the city, out around part of the old wall (which was once particularly notable for its excellent artillery and defensive ability against the terror of... Venice) and then back into the Renaissance part of the town. I've noticed how most of the streets on this, the south side of Giovecca, are serpentine, and skinnier, with much more cobbling than the streets on the other side, which are fundamentally grid-like and much wider. Turns out that's because the north side was an intentional expansion created in the Renaissance, and designed as one of the first "modern" cities in the world, ie: with grids of wide streets and much more modern architectural techniques. The south side of Giovecca was medieval, and haphazardly developed, and there are a number of streets forbidden to cars on that side. That explains some of the differences in the neighborhoods I've found on both sides. They also pointed out a number of old palaces, which now host museums and various exhibitions. I will have to check those out at some point.

They also had (ie wouldn't take no for an answer) me try riding Aurora's bike a little, as apparently they got it for around 90 euro, which is far, far less than renting one would be for 5 months. I just about gave myself a heartattack. There are of course no helmets in Italy for bicycles (maybe because even what look like 4 year olds are already off training wheels, if there even are any to begin with...) plus of course, the cars. So I went to the nearest side street, and probably looked very silly, trying to figure out the different balance of the bike, and how to not fall over with my skirt repeatedly getting stuck in the wheel. Not so cool. Given that I've practiced biking for a grand total of 2-2.5 hours in at least 6 years (and that was in the week before coming here), I guess, making it back and forth a few times wasn't so bad. But buying a bike would mean going out of town by car, and biking back in on the highway, which kind of terrifies me. For someone with little biking experience, the shape of the bikes here is hard to handle, with weight in all these weird places and the proportions all strange. That could have partly been from the seat being too low, but still. I'm officially intimidated. I don't mind walking everywhere, but it would certainly take less time on a bike, so I'll have to decide one way or the other. For the girls out there, how do you ride a bike with a skirt on, without showing too much or getting it stuck in the wheels? That would be useful knowledge.

Today being Sunday and this being Italy, most shops weren't open for the Sabbath (hence no food shopping yet) and the churches had their doors wide open. So I kind of went to church - as in I was walking to meet Leah for dinner and was half an hour early (miracle, eh?), and so stopped in to see the cathedral for a bit. Most of the decoration inside was painted to look like carving, and I wasn't terribly impressed, at least with the part I saw (although the carvings on the outside are really neat). The very cool thing, though, was the acoustics. I listened to the priests for a while, trying to make things out, which was made difficult with the thickness of their accents. There were some prayers said by everyone (maybe something like the Lord's Prayer and the Nicean Crede, I think?), murmured and done in some parts in a call and answer fashion. Of course I was probably the only one in the hundreds there who didn't know the words, being neither Catholic nor Italian. The echoes and the growing, rolling hum of the Italian prayers reverberating in all the niches and aisles was truly aweing though. Fantastic, and kind of ethereal sound. Having attended the church of the "frozen chosen" growing up, I was surprised and kind of moved by the clear devotion I could see on so many of the parishioners' faces. Even if I don't agree or identify with many aspects of Catholicism, I'm thinking of going to church while here, especially since it's such a major component of Italian culture. It was amusing trying to explain Episcopalianism to Gardenia the other day, I must say, given her lack of knowledge about most of the non-Catholic sects and deep knowledge of the history of Catholicism. I've also noticed that the churches here don't even bother to proclaim what kind of church they are (Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran etc.) on the outside of them unlike State-side, since just about everyone is either Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist in Italy, from what I've heard, so one can just assume a church here is Catholic. Cheers to a chance for yet another learning experience.