Only a few days more (jun. 19th..)

-This last weekend was fun, interesting, but fun. I went to the beach again, to Pesaro, with some friends. Bonnie’s dad came for the last week of our program so he stayed with us the whole day at the beach. It was rainy, but the effect over the bright blue ocean water was beautiful…at least I thought so, Josh complained about the lack of sun, haha. But I enjoyed my self, we swam out to the rocks that encircled the little cove we swam in and explored their crevices to find crabs and live mussels…it was a little sharp though..got some cuts! Nothing new there, haha. Later the sun came out and Bonnies dad got a massage..on the beach, haha. Well, it caught on, and Molly and Kassie decided they wanted one too. Only problem with that was that they had TOPS on….which apparently is not allowed for a beach message…yeah, you get the picture, they were both regretting it the second the masseuse told them, no forced, their tops down, HAHAHAHA, well it was hilarious for the rest of us…poor Molly and Kassie. Later we had dinner at a nice restaurant that was on the beach. We got a deal; two courses (prima e seconda) and wine and coffee came with it, plus a cold-antipasta bar to start. I got mussels con talligette, and the seconda dish was fried cutlet of pork with patata-fritto (fried potatoes). Pretty good. After dinner the waiter brought us shots of espresso and after-dinner wines; lemoncello and a licorice liquor. The licorice was gross, and the lemmoncello is so SUGARY, yuck…its like drinking syrup. Anyway, then we (all 6 of us) squeezed into Bonnie’s dad’s rent car and tried to drive back to Urbania, yes, TRIED. He decided to not take the way we came back…kinda a disaster (men and directions...they are all the same!!! hahaha). Long story short, we made it back…at 11:30 at night though.
The next day me and some friends went to a Osteria (small restaurant) called Cuco…BEST FOOD EVER! We had 10 courses of delicious, seasonal and traditional Italian home-cooking. Donnatella and her husband run it and they happen to be family with the people who own/live in our complex that we stay in here in Urbania. She, Donnatella, is SUCH a character. She puts fresh flowers on every dish from her own garden, and she becomes like a mother to everyone who sits at her table. The restaurant is tiny, and quaint, and there is no menu, they serve you whatever they are making that day…and you can NOT go wrong with their food.
Couses:
1. A salad with balsamic and oil with thinly sliced radish, truffle, parmesan, and greens. This came with a fresh bread plate: almond bread, fried focaccia, bread rolled with basil and prociutto…you get the picture. Yum.
2. The her homemade nectar wine (roses are steeped in it I think…to die for!) with a plater of prociutto cuts and different chesses with a balsamic reduction drizzl on top.
3. Next, baked pasta cups with a filling of fava beans, spinach, and some kind of cheese
4. Baked-spicy eggplant rounds with a meat patty thing, and a soaked bread salad with pepperocino…weird but good.
5. A torte of baked zucchini, basil, and ricotta
6. (now for the pastas) prima: homemade mezzoluna with a ricotta and vedurre filling with fresh pomodoro sauce.
7. Fresh talliatelle with zucchini and peppers in a hearty broth
8. Now desserts: Homemade gelato with sour cheery reduction
9. Rose petal gelato/panna-cotta (real rose petals, so good!)
10. A sorbet of honey and lemon with a fig reduction I think
-o yeah, and at the end they served homemade after-dinner wine…..one of the best eating experiences of my life!

So, you’ll have to wait for the rest of the last weeks stories. Im off for Milan tomorrow morning and then London and Paris with my bestie Greta!!! And I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to blog. But this has been such an incredible experience, God is so good!
Love you all!
Maren

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of OPERA SINGERS!

Yesterday was one of the best days so far. A few days ago I heard that some of my friends in the program were going to go hiking into the hills outside of Urbania to watch the sunset…I was all for it! So yesterday after class I took a nap (or tried I should say, I was too excited about the hike), then packed a backpack full of hiking essentials (a camera, water, and cookies…duh), and made my way to the boys house that’s on the outskirts of the town where we would start our hike. Casa Fiori is the name of the boys house (Bill, Alex, and Jacob stay there, we are all spread out over the city, living wise, I live about 15 minutes from them), and its pretty big, that’s where we’ve had our dance parties! Anyway, as soon as I got there, around 6:20pm, the two boys who had done the hike before (Josh and Jacob) led our group out onto the path that would lead us into the hills (about 10 of us went). Now, I was informed that the hike was about 2 hours long, but I was NOT prepared for the intensity of it! I was wheezing the whole way haha! But boy was it worth it. About an hour into the hike we reached the top of the first big hill…I thought we were done...NOPE. we practically had to climb another MOUNTAIN. Yikes. I luckily didn’t get too scared of the height we were at (I get a little freaked out over heights), but Jacob just dragged me up anyway (literally) haha. I regained my strength and energy after recording myself singing a little bit of “The Hills Are Alive” from my mom’s favorite movie, the Sound Of Music, I did that just for her, but we had to pause for a while cause my good friend Molly started having a major asthma attack, AH! We finally got to the top of this massive hill and the view was out of this world. God is truly an artist. I mean Im talkin’ Lord of the Rings breathtaking here folks (which I definitely listened to the soundtrack the whole way up, haha). Anyway, we sat down on the top and watched the sun dip low over the valleys and mountains which we could see clearly from miles and MILES around us. I might have felt like i couldn’t make it 20 minutes ago, but at that moment I felt like I could do it all over again. We snacked on prosciutto and bananas and wine (a weird combo, thanks to Jacob). Then played, yes played, on the hill for a good hour. There was a human pyramid built, a game of leap-frog, lots of carrying each other around, LOTS of laughter, videos of the boys doing YMCA and a video of the girls doing Dancing Queen, and lots and lots of pictures. We headed down so we could be in time for dinner back at the Casa Fiori, Carly and Bill were cooking us a feast, couldn’t be late for THAT! On the way down I hung out with a new friend, Josh, and we shared my ipod and listened to some fabulous epic-movie-soundtrack music to go with our view. I think the best part was getting to know everyone better, I LOVE the group of people in the program, we all get along so well, have so much in common, and they are all so talented! We finally got back, and after a piano-jam-session with Josh and April (haha) we enjoyed our feast. It was perfect, all of us sitting around enjoying delicious food and laughing hard. Afterwards, we took blankets out back to lay out and look at the stars and play games under the sparkling canopy the midnight sky provided…sigh. Yes, it was DEF one of the best days yet.

Tomorrow is our first concert, its in a castle!! More about that later!
I love you all, and miss you!
Maren

Andata! to Pesaro and FLORENCE!

So this weekend I got to go to some pretty cool places. I’ll start with the first excursion of the weekend: Pesaro. On Saturday (Sabato) me and a few other girls decided to spend the afternoon at the beach nearby in Pesaro. So after much confusion over bus schedules, we hopped on a bus to Urbino, then changed busses there to go on to Pesaro. We made friends on the bus with some nice Sicilians, the girl (Christina) spoke English quite well. Once there we took a cab to the beach. We had to rent an umbrella, but no big deal. Then we headed for the water. It was light blue, clear, and teeming with..JELLYFISH! They were everywhere, and hard to see; they were completely clear, some only 3 inches wide, some 6 inches, and they had 4 purple veins running along their backs. I fortunately turned out to be some sort of jellyfish-whisperer and could spot them easily and help us get around them. At one point Molly and Emma were completely surrounded by a school of like 100 jellyfish and I had to lead them out as they hysterically screamed, haha. Apparently it was some sort of phenomenon with all the jellyfish, it never has happened like that before so our Italian teacher said when we told her what happened. After 3 hours we went home. Then we spent the evening watching the World Cup, USA v. England, in the piazza. A pretty good day. (=
But YESTERDAY took the cake thus far for excursions. I went to………FLORENCE!!!!!!!!!!!! Wooo!!!! I was so happy! The school organized a trip to Arezzo (where the guy who made up solfedge came from, Guido of Arezzo), and if we wanted, we could take the train from there to Firenze (Florence). We got up at 6am, took the bus, got on the train at 9:57, and arrived in Firenze at 10:30ish.
Once we arrived in Firenze we walked straight for the famous Duomo. Had lunch, one of the best caprese pizzas I have ever had, and others got gelato (the gelato lady there told me she needed a nice American friend…I agreed). We took a lot of pictures of the Duomo and the Baptismal chapel that sits in the front, bought some gifts for our families, and headed towards famous Ponte Vecchio, since the Duomo wasn’t open till later. On the way we stopped at the Palazzo di Medici (the Medici Palace, the Medici’s were the family that governed/ruled Florence back in the day..) and took a lot of pictures with the famous Poseidon fountain, and the exact replica of The David. We decided to go inside the palace and see the whole thing. It was spectacular, so much history there! The main “conference/ball” room was immaculate. The ceiling was covered in gold and the walls all around the football size room were painted floor to ceiling with beautiful frescos. Lining the walls were the originals of some very famous statues. They seemed to have the complete collection of the Hercules statues. The rest of the Palace was just as breathtaking. After, we tried to make our way to Ponte Vecchio but were intrigued by the line of performing-human-statues that lined the road to the Arno river. The actors we so still…and loving the tourists. They were painted all white and when you approached them, they would come to life to take a picture with you. Well…unfourtunatle a statue of Cupid got a hold of me and he literally would NOT LET GO! I, amidst his many winks and smooch noises, pried myself off laughing hysterically, only to be grabbed by a neighboring statue who got down on his knees and clamped his hand down on mine, I was stuck, haha! It was all in good fun though (don’t worry dad), they just wanted our money haha. We then finally made it to the famous bridge, Ponte Vecchio, that lies over the Arno river. Of course, as opera singers, we HAD to sing “O mio babbino caro” on the bridge (there is a line about throwing yourself off the Ponte Vecchio into the Arno river), don’t worry…I have it filmed. After many pictures and perusing the famous jewelry stores we headed back to the Duomo. It was incredible, the things that must have taken place there just made you catch your breath as you entered. Wow. I lit a candle while there, I just had to. Then we decided to go next door and climb the tower so we could get the view of the entire city. It was FOUR HUNDERED AND THIRTEEN STEPS! Okay okay, some of you might be rolling your eyes like that’s no big deal, but it not only was steep, it was narrow and people coming down nearly knocked you down the steps…and I’d been walking ALL day…and I’m just a wimp I guess. Anyway, the view was SO worth it. You could see everything, good thing it was a clear day. After we got back down (nearly falling in an exhausted heap right there) we made our way back to the station and looked in shops. We got back to Urbania safe and sound, our bodies slightly the worse for wear, but alive. A GREAT day.
Tonight (after rehearsals) we’ll watch the World Cup, Italy v. Paraguay, in the square! Fun!
Love you all!
Maren
Ps..staff infection is nearly gone! The pain at least is pretty much gone, praise God! Thank you for all your prayers.

A day in the life of…

Time is flying by. And in light of so many maladies, you’ll be happy to know that I am still having an incredible time. I try not to think about my problems so I can enjoy the good times here. Speaking of good times…The other day some friends and I thought it would be a great idea to swim in the river surrounding Urbania (in fact…its more like a moat..). Yeah..BAD idea. First we get down there and its gorgeous. The pebbled shore line that comes off the rolling hill that you descend to get to the river, the trees and bridges arching overhead providing a whimsical shade, caves along the high walls of the city that go up 30 feet above you on both sides, fig trees branching out over the water, some rapids…very, very pretty…very, very deceiving. So me and like 5 other friends are in this water up to our knees at first, we cross over little rapids to get to small islands that are spread down the river…we get to deeper areas and my friend Jacob decides to go all in. The rest of us (thankfully) hold off on the complete submersion, until, of course, we see the waterfall. Now, it wasn’t exactly a waterfall per say...more like a cave that you swam into that had water pouring out from the obscured top..that COULD be a waterfall. Anyway, we decided to swim out to it. We played around in it, I even climbed up onto the rock the water was pouring on. It was around this time that we noticed the odd texture on the bottom of the river there and the foul smell coming from the “waterfall”. Then Josh said aloud what the rest of us were starting to conclude, “……I think we are swimming in sewage.” EWWWWWW!!!!!! Well, I’m not certain what kind of sewage it was but thank GOODNESS I didn’t put my head under that water..YUCK! Haha, I thought you all would enjoy that story.

On a different note, I wanted to share my findings on the people of Italy and Italy itself:
-restrooms are either immaculately clean (aka a person stands outside your door waiting to clean after you) or the most disgusting places you will EVER see/smell.
-no air conditioning.
-men find it completely acceptable to gawk and hit on you, staring is not an issue here.
-no one’s in much of a hurry
-EVERYONE in the town takes a 4 hour siesta (nap) every day from 12:30-around 4:30ish. So nothing is open again until after 4:30 in the afternoon.
-EVERYTHING closes at 7:30 (need something late at night?.no luck)
-there’s an honor system here (in Urbania at least..). When you order your coffee and sandwhich you can just go sit down, you can pay whenever, paying right away doesn’t happen very often.
-the transportation here is SIMPLE, and very efficient. Always on time, and cheap.
-Friendly? Depends. But with those who are willing, you make new friends fast here.
-dinner: its usually served in courses, and the salad is usually last…weird.
-the only thing available for breakfast is bread. BREAD BREAD BREAD!!!! I want me some eggs and bacon!! Not that im truly complaining however…I get a delicious pastry and the best cappuccino I’ve ever had every morning…(=
-the old men sit on the piazza (square) benches all day long and argue. The women walk their dogs, walk their babies around in strollers, and the old women sit on the opposite side of the piazza.. gossiping (=
-the old men act so young. They still gawk at girls and say “Ciao bella”. They have a very playful spirit…and its not creepy cause they are so adorable.
-there are a LOT of holidays here.
-wine is cheaper than water.
-unmarried men live at home with their parents until they are married.
-they are very conscious of water usage and electricity
-showers are small and handheld usually
-religion is very important

....Questo?

That's my new favorite word...questo. It means "This", and it is very helpful when you want something, all you gotta do at a cafe is point at what you want and say "Questo!"...easy. Yeah, the language is coming slowly to me..i had to write a short paragraph for Italian class and i used some spanish in there apparently.....??? Haha, well..im trying. (= The classes are good, LONG, but good. The teachers are only allowed to speak Italian to us, NO english. However, Elena, my teacher, sometimes will explain in English certain vocabulary or grammar because we are all beginners in my class and have the great potential to misunderstand ALL of her miming of objects...i'll be a pro at charades when i get home, haha. Classes start at 8:50am and go till 12:20pm. Then on tuesday and thursday afternoons we have conversation classes, and that teacher absolutely will not let us communicate with her in English...its a very frustrating class for me. The coachings for music have been great so far. I've coached with Benton Hess (our main director), Laura Poe (from Julliard), and will coach with Bob Cowert tomorrow (coach at the Met for 28 years...YES!), and hopefully will squeeze in a coaching with Hugh on saturday (he's another main director for the program). They all have shown me my lack of skill in Italian diction...haha i really regret now saving that course at school for my senior year..oops. But im making really fast progress. The other day i coached my Romeo and Juliet scene with Laura Poe and she praised my recit. section, saying that it was "200% better!", YAY ME! Haha, i was happy to finally get it right. I coached with the famous baritone Hokan Hagegard (sp.?) who is here for the week giving lessons. I did "Una Voce Poco Fa" in the soprano key for him (which, for those who dont know it, is EXTREMELY difficult and scary to attempt). I was still sick when i sang it so it wasnt perfect, but he was very helpful in characterization, and praised my work that i've done so far on it, he was very sweet and kind.
SO, my birthday...
It was great! I got up at 7am and went on a trip to a town called Assisi with some other friends in the program. We toured the beautiful city. Its famous for St. Francis, who is the patron saint of Animals i think.. Any way, i saw three churches (gorgeous) and had a ridiculous experience at the main cathedral (Duomo) of St. Francis......i got KICKED OUT!! Yes, you heard me. I forgot that some churches are VERY strict about dress code, and apparently i wasnt dressed modestly enough for them. I was SO embarrassed haha! Fortunately they kicked me out AFTER i had seen everything already. (= Then me and some buds tried to climb to the top of the city to the fortress and got miserably lost...which seems to be the bane of my existence (i can hear Joe making fun of me right now...it wasnt my fault!!). We went on a false trail. My friend Jake decided we didnt need to ask for directions (what a man, huh? haha) and we ended up trekking this goat path up the side of the mountain.....needless to say, i have many scratches. We found out later that we were on the wrong path (duh!) and the original path we were on was the right one...we just had to stay on it for another 3 miles...yeah, we werent about to attempt another 3 miles..so we gave up and headed back down. It was still fun though. Got great scenic pictures! After we got down Molly and i shopped around, got let into a medieval wine cellar by this really sweet Italian shop owner, and i bought alot of chocolate and a cannoli! It was a great day, but we were exhausted when we got back. So my birthday evening was not as lively as perhaps a 21st bday should be, but i thought it was perfect. We went to a nice restaurant, and a man named Bruno decide to dote on me and gave us four courses (4 dif. pastas, 3 dif. meet dishes, and a salad, and bday cake!) for 10% off, and included a free bottle of Merlot for the whole table! I only spent 15 euro! It was delicious. However, there will be, im sure, a livelier evening in store for me eventually, we were just SO tired that night!
Update on sickness:
Its worse...much worse. It wasnt a bite, it was a cyst....ew. THAT is healing though...now i have staff apparently. Ugh!!! I'm trying to keep it together though. I wana enjoy myself. I went to the doctor twice, they gave me antibiotics and creme for it. Luckily on both nights i went to the doctor 2 boys from my program came to my rescue (Jim and Josh) and kept me calm, i was so VERY thankful for them both on those evenings! So, now I keep it bandaged. It was really painful last night but better now (poor Josh had to deal with me crying haha). All i can say is; BE THANKFUL FOR AMERICAN DOCTORS!!! It might be free over here, but they do NOT seem to be very caring about there patients.....
Anyway, have to run, i got rehearsal. But i love you/miss you all, and keep me in your prayers!!!
Love,
Maren

Urbino, continued..

Sorry i haven't posted something in a few days, im super busy and the internet cafe is a 20 minute walk from my apartment.
ANYway...
Well i left ya'll hanging last time, so here's the rest of the story for that eventful day:
After all the strife over my voice and bite (which is a little better now) i hopped on the bus with the other members of my program and we had an excursion to the neighboring village of Urbino. On our way there we stopped at an ancient church, i think our guide said it was from the 13th century, i think, it was from the Roman Empire era.....i dont know, but it was pretty cool. All the stone was original and the paintings on the walls were faded but you could still make out the crucifixion of Jesus that was painted so long ago. Oh and as a side note..i met my first rude Italian..this guy who was working the cafe there behind the church made me buy something first before i could use the restrooms..UGH! I had to pee SO bad and it was pouring rain, i eventually gave up on giving him the "pleading big-blue-eyes" act that usually works (it didnt), so i had to buy some water, i was not happy.
Next we drove through a famous gorge. Our guide said that millions of years ago the mountain was split open by a earthquake, and ever since then the river that runs through it is bright green year round. It was pretty spectacular looking, the foliage was a deep green but the river was like neon green...so cool!
Finally we got to Urbino. It was breathtaking, to say the least. I mean its this medieval town up on a mountain side, with the most amazing view of Italy's finest hillsides. It was still raining and i was still not speaking (to heal my voice faster) but the day was not marred. We toured the Ducal Palace. It was very interesting, its smack dab in the middle of the town and it sticks out like a sore thumb; a gorgeous structure of white marble and stone...yeah, he was an ambitious guy. For instance, within his palace walls the famous painting that was the first "perspective" painting and was created there by one of his artists he was patron to. We weren't allowed to take pictures but i snuck a few. The palace was basically a museum of famous artwork, and there were an abundant amount of paintings of The Madonna and her Son, and of course Jesus on the cross....like..hundreds of them. After the palace, we had lunch, then explored the city. We found a look-out spot and took the most beautiful pictures of the view Urbino offered. Then we got back on the bus and took off for Urbania again.
The next 2 days (Thursday and Friday) consisted of rehearsals and making new friends. Last night though, a famous Italian opera singer (Katia something..) came to Urbania for a concert. Well...she's 70 so....yeah, she had quite a wobble...but she sure was having fun! And the Urbanians loved her.
As for today, i have Italian language homework (im still pretty bad at it) and some people in our program are singing in a aria-recital tonight, i sing in one next week.
Tomorrow's my 21st BIRTHDAY!! Im very excited to be having it in Italy, but wish my family and friends could be here to celebrate it with me. )= You're here in spirit.
Well, more about that later. For now, "Ciao!" and "arriverderci"!!
Love,
Maren

Amici (=

Well things have taken an..interesting turn. I've gotten sick. As of this moment i have been on complete vocal rest ALL DAY! Do you understand how difficult it is for me to be SILENT???!!! Anyway, i've still managed to have a good time. Monday we had rehearsals and i could sing that day (not too sick yet) and felt good about my scenes. I worked on the Romeo and Juliet duet with the Julliard coach, Laura Poe, and felt great about it, its going to be beautiful. The next day i got sicker and had to stumble through my scenes, but the day finished with a great diner, our first in our apartment! We had to light the stove with a match..that was entertaining. We had fried eggplant, turkey-scaloppine, and pasta with pomodoro sauce. Yum.
TODAY though was quite an eventful day. Let me break it down for you: (WARNING, THOSE WITH UNEASY STOMACHS...DONT READ!)
Got up, no voice, bad allergies. And...this bug bite i got under my arm has been infected for the past 3 days, is swollen, hot, and painful...got worse this morning. SO, i trekked over to the hospital to get them to look at it, but guess what...it was a national holiday and the doctor was NOT IN! So, i went to the school to talk to my directors about it. I had to cancel my coaching with the great Bob Cowart, dang. Benton and Brian were very concerned. But my new friend (amica, in Italiano) Coutney-Camille took me under her wing, and put all her homeopathic knowledge of the voice and other maladies to the test. She took me to her apartment, gave me the break down of what to do to help my voice (shots of lemon, honey and brandy to heal the chords) then put a VERY hot compress on my bite and squezzed the HECK outta it!!!!! I almost passed out from the pain..annnnd...Lets just say....it was ozzy. Its better now but i still need to see a doctor.
Well after all of that we had a trip to Urbino for sight seeing..but more about that later, i gotta go, its late.
TO BE CONTINUED!
love,
Maren