As would be expected, Italy and America are vastly different. Both have their wonderful qualities, and both have their little quirks which, when one is living there, seem to make them unbearable. 

Here are some examples. 

In Italy is it considered uncouth and horrifying if you take off your down jacket before May…even if it is 80 degrees or higher, which it often is. In America,  its the less amount of clothing the better, the earlier the better. (Sometimes this is fine, sometimes it’s just as horrifying as seeing people sweating to death in their swaddling clothes.)

In America, if you need to buy something at the store between the hours of 1 and 5, you will not be stopped. If you attempt this in Italy you will be sorely disappointed, as  the locked and closed shops will not return to life until 5 at the earliest. 

When going to a party in America, it’s normal to find an abundance of chips, dip, soda, and a variety of unhealthy, processed “food.” When going to a party in Italy, expect to find, wine, wine, wine, more wine, cheese, tomatoes, olives and wine.

If you want to go somewhere in America, you first have to drive there. Unless you live in a city, there are very few things that are within reasonable walking distance. If you want to get somewhere in Italy, you walk. All. The. Time. 

Pasta in Italy is good. In America, it’s not. 

Italians are the most judgmental people in existence. Americans (for the most part) at least have the grace to talk about you BEHIND your back. 

In Italy, traffic laws are negotiable. In America…they’re still negotiable just less so. 

In America, if you need a chiropractor, there’s one on literally ever street. In Italy…what’s a chiropractor? 

In Italy the ruffians write graffiti in bad English. In America the ruffians also write graffiti in bad English….

In America if you need your favorite dress dried in half an hour, you throw it in the drier. In Italy, you wear a different dress. 

In Italy, if you decide you want to go to a monastery, you go next door. In America, if you decide you want to go to a monastery, you go to Italy. 

In Italy, Nutella is a main food group that should not be one. (They put it in and on EVERYTHING…croissants, crepes, cake, gelato, sandwiches, pizza…) In America, ketchup is the main food group that should not be one. 

In Italy, good espresso and fresh vegetables are ridiculously cheap and everything else is exorbitantly high-priced. In America, espresso and fresh vegetables are impossible to find for anything less than your entire retirement savings, while everything else is cheap (relatively). 

In America, people are fat. In Italy, they are not. 

In any Italian town, there are at least 20-30 different cafes to choose from. In America, you have Starbucks and Dunkin. 

Now on to a different subject: journaling! Yes, journaling. I hear males cringing all around the world. I have created, quite possibly, the best journal in the entire world. I am quite puffed up about my journal; it is a great source of pride in my life at this point. I typically am abnormally artsy, but this particular journal has brought out an artsy side that, until now, has only emerged at rare moments. 

Typically, my journals have been mostly filled with writing…what you’d EXPECT from a journal. I never really thought to combine a sketchbook with a journal, which is more or less what I have done with my current one. I purchased a book from one of the fancy stores here in Orvieto. Its large, blank, cream colored pages beckoned me with such convincing entreaties that I really had no choice! Immediately, I began working my artsy magic upon it, transforming each wonderful leaf into a masterpiece. Okay, perhaps I’m a little delusional, but I admittedly can’t help but rifle through my own journal, admiring the sheer artsyness of it all. It’s like the Narcissus of Journals. I can’t help but admire my own work…I may just one day waste away while lost in it’s freakishly artistic depths. 

Painted one afternoon while watching my friends cook. 

But seriously, adding the art element has revolutionized the way I journal. Instead of just capturing my life via words, I am now capturing it with the combination of art and words, which in my opinion, is far more valuable to me as a more visual person. I take it with me everywhere…into the Louvre, the Musee D’Orsay, on our pilgrimages, to dinner, anywhere I go, it goes too in case there’s something I decide to sketch or jot down. When I have my little portable watercolors with me, I can create little snapshots of my life. It’s better than a camera because I can only capture the essence of things, it’s not just a literal recreation of what I see. 

Drawn in the Musee D’Orsay, since we were not allowed to take photos. 

It’s also practical. I don’t have to carry both a journal and a sketchbook anymore. I’ve also created pages of recipes I invent, or want to try, so it will be useful even after it’s full. 

Journaling has become a new and vital art form for me. I’ve always journaled, ever since I can remember, but never like this. 

In the move Leap Year, Decklan asks Anna “If your house were on fire, and you had 60 seconds to grab one thing, what would it be?” My answer, oh fine fine Decklan with your fine fine Irish accent, would be my journal. 

Our tempera painting class is being taught by a Swiss-French woman called Marie. Marie is maybe 50 but she seems like she’s 30. She wears her hair pulled back, parted straight down the center, in a tightly wound bun that sits on the back of her neck, with a paintbrush shoved through it. Her glasses are incredibly thick, and make her eyes seem four times their actual size. She only wears baggy over-sized clothing. She speaks some English, but not much, so she improvises by using noises to imitate the word she is trying to find. (Example: breathing in and out extremely heavily, until we all thought she was going to pass out, because she didn’t know the word for “lungs”.) She constantly has us in hysterics. Her screaming cat impression is particularly good, and she walks everywhere. Her longest walk was nine months, going from Geneva to Jerusalem, through Turkey, Syria, Italy and countless other places to get there, with no money, living off the hospitality of people she met on the way. On the way back she found a convent and stayed there as a nun for 14 years, until God told her to leave. Only Marie would STOP being a nun. (Perhaps the song “How do you solve a problem like Marie -a?” applies here.) 

Anyway, in our painting class she is having us do small “pilgrimages” to various places. The first one we just walked down the hill of Orvieto. Yesterday, we walked all day to a rock a few miles from Orvieto. However, it’s not just walking down a road. That would not do for Marie. So instead we walked through random fields she had found, through people’s gardens and farms, through prickers and stinging nettles, through fields of flowers, across little rivers without bridges, and up the sides of hills. 

The sun was strong, so in typical Marie fashion, she wore her blue scarf around her head in a sort of weird turban. 

We stopped every so often to draw and watercolor for 30 minute intervals, so the walking never became monotonous…especially with the incredible vistas around every turn in the road. 

We walked down through a vineyard, across a small river, and met the most indignant horse. It was a small pony, and it snorted and huffed as soon as it saw us, eventually turning his back to us as if offended. It was like a melodramatic teenage girl pony. We laughed so hard at it. 

The hill on which we painted, at the bottom of which was the indignant horse. 

View of Orvieto from the top of the rock. 

We traversed miles of landscape, through people’s yards, got stung by stinging nettles, and eventually made our way up onto the rock. At the base of the rock was a tiny little town that consisted of a few houses and was so beautiful and quaint. 

View of the rock from below. 

While on the rock, we had a picnic, and sketched for an hour or so. Marie was paranoid that we were all going to get sunburned, so she kept going around poking our skin trying to see if we were too red. She also made us all put pieces of clothing over our heads, at which we protested vigorously, but eventually complied. 

On the way back, we did not stop at all, but we never really got tired or too hot. Walking back up the first hill on which we stopped, a horseman came riding past us, and then off into the distance over the hill like a lone ranger. It was like something from a movie. 

Before we went on this excursion, I was really hesitant to go, and for some reason really nervous. But it ended up being one of the most adventurous and beautiful walks I have ever been on in my life. I still marvel at the fact that this is what we do for class…traverse the stunning Italian countryside with an ex nun who wears turbans, a paintbrush in her hair, and walks thousands of miles in her spare time. Life doesn’t get much better than this. 

However, no chapter in the Life of Kate would be complete without some horrifyingly painful and debilitating injury. I suppose breaking my knee in 2 places, breaking my nose, toes and fingers, and tearing ligaments in my ankles did not appease the fates, so they gave me something new and exciting to enjoy in Italy. I somehow tore a muscle in my back, and have not been able to move, breathe or sleep the past three days. I have no idea HOW I injured myself…it just began hurting like the seventh or eighth level of Hell one day. Today, I went to an Italian doctor, and I must say I wish I were in America at this point. I hate socialism and its effects on the medical field. Fortunately, despite the system, I was able to get some heavy duty painkillers, that will hopefully work better than the Advil Liqui-Gels I’ve been popping like raisins every few hours. Prof Doll and everyone else has been so wonderful to put up with me, and I don’t know if I would have the patience if I were they. 

They say that I won’t be functioning properly for at least two weeks, so I’ll be forced to remain quiet and subdued, which I think will secretly make the authorities happy, since they will know I won’t be making any more accidental after-curfew escapades. 

The insanity that is my life continues…

I looked down at my grey dress today and realized there was a huge green splash across the front. Oddly, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I figured it would coordinate well with my other clothes and that maybe i can even add some other colors to it to make it a little more artistic.

I have decided to begin doing my own art while I’m here, even though all my homework is art. I’m just so artsy that even all the art I’ve been doing isn’t enough for me. The problem is, is that I now don’t really want to work on the things I’m supposed to be doing.

My dilemma now is trying to decide what to do with these huge paintings. One option is to peddle them in the street. Another option would be to give them to some nuns.

I realized today that I am becoming accustomed to Italy as a car sped past me with mere inches to spare and I felt literally no fear. I will never, however, become accustomed to the inability to be barefoot without incurring the evil eye of all old Italian grandmothers.

Other than that inconvenience, being here is like one big vacation. We sort of do art for a few hours every morning, taking frequent coffee breaks, or going out on the steps to sit in the sun, or walking down the road twenty feet to the bakery and buying some croissants. Our teacher, Filippe, doesn’t really care what we do, and he oftentimes is the one sneaking out to the bakery.

Big events in our week include the market, which happens every Thursday and Saturday morning, going down the Funicular to Orvieto Scalo to the grocery store, church, laying in the park, going to get drinks at Montanucci’s and our daily meals at La Locanda. In short, there are no big events.

Our apartment is next to a convent, where a bunch of cute old nuns live and walk around in their garden. Our apartment is also above an aerobic dance studio where they play the top 50 pop hits, like Katy Perry, Gaga, Etc. Today, I was walking to our apartment, passing by the door of the dance studio and the convent. The nuns were walking out of their door for an evening walk and Katy Perry was blasting next door. It made quite an image…little old nuns and Katy Perry singing about bikinis. The two worlds just opposed so drastically that it was quite comical.

This post will end now.

And sometimes I wonder if it’s all a fairytale, or a cruel joke, or some sort of obstacle course. When I’m constantly falling down hills, crashing into walls, and smashing my hip on a table corner, I’m convinced this entire world is just one huge obstacle course, and there are some families outside the universe watching me on their television, and laughing hysterically. Other times, like on Sunday, I’m entirely certain that the moment I am then living is not actually happening in any place other than my head. But then again, my small, and unimaginitive brain could not concoct such lovely images as the ones it perceived and has been perceiving here in Italy. 

On this past Sunday, Palm Sunday and April 1st, I decided to be a heathen and skip church. I didn’t feel too terrible since I cannot understand the services anyway. So I traipsed back to my favorite place in the olive groves by the monastery. This particular day was one of the nicest we’ve had here so far, and the morning sun illuminated the fields and trees more brilliantly than I have yet observed.

I spent an inordinate amount of time there that day. I left the apartment at 10;30, and did not return until 4:30 in the afternoon. I simply lay among the flowers, wrote in my journal, thought about everything and nothing all at once, played my pennywhistle extensively, smoked my pipe, took a nap, and explored the area around the monastery. 

I think that day is how Heaven will be. Except without all the stupid pricker plants. 

Every time I venture out into nature, I decide more and more firmly that I am not a city person. Don’t get me wrong…cities can be nice in their own way, and most certainly have their little advantages that wildernesses can’t offer. I’ve never once found a nice coffee shop in the middle of a forest, or been able to buy nice items of apparel in a babbling brook, no matter how many times I try. However, cities drain me. I can go into them once in a while to find those few things that nature cannot offer me, and then leave again in a hurry.  

Today I wandered the fields of Umbria after spending the morning sitting at an outdoor table in the sunshine decorating millions of cans…cutting paper and string to tie to the tops.  It was one the most gorgeous setting I could have imagined. It was the Italy I had imagined I was going to see, but up until today, have not. Not that what I’ve seen so far has been terribly ugly…far from it. 

After lunch, I wandered off into the fields behind the house. I couldn’t help myself. As soon as I saw them, I knew I must go exploring, even a little bit. It’s like some irresistible magnetic force. Or like when you go to a party and there’s a dessert there that you just can’t help sneaking a taste of before you’re supposed to. It’s like a pool on a really hot summer day…you can’t not go in. 

The grass was very high…past my knees, which made it impossible to judge the ground below it. Often I would take a step and come crashing down much lower than I expected, nearly killing myself half a dozen times. I found a shady slope and plunked down to do some pennywhistling. I didn’t want to go too far since we were supposed to leave soon. But, after a while of gazing out over the landscape, my will crumbled and I marched out even further, down to the meager river that lay in the lowest part of the valley. 

Once I reached the river, I played more tunes on my little whistle, and just enjoyed the sunshine and the landscape. I soon realized, after looking back up the hill towards the house, that there was a small figure standing on the wall which seemed to be searching for me. So I ran back. I could have wandered those fields forever. 

Cities have their perks, but all of them combined do not present such temptation and exhilaration as a sprawling green field. 

Ever since I arrived in Orvieto and I looked out over the sprawling landscape, there was one spot I wanted to visit more than any other, and that was the monastery. You can see it from the top of the tower at the bottom of our road, and I have just longed to walk there and meander through the olive groves that surround it. Today I did. I had to walk down the mountain of Orvieto, which is a few hundred feet. The road is narrow and winding, but covered with wildflowers and fields on either side.

I followed this path, which became more and more rural as I went on. Upon reaching the end my arms were full of wildflowers gathered on the way. The road down from Orvieto reached a main road, which I then followed until I turned to walk up towards the monastery. The road up to the monastery was quite steep, but so beautiful I barely noticed my legs hurting. It was nice being alone on this journey, because I was able to stop whenever I wanted and not have to wait or hurry for anyone else.

Anyway, I reached the top and was immediately level with the towering monastery (now a bed and breakfast), and was greeted by a welcoming and very green olive grove. I had no desire to go anyplace else at the moment, so I charged into the grove and plunked down in a nice little nook at the base of a tree, and played some jolly tuned on my pennywhistle. At one point, some tourists walked by on the road, barely visible from my bower, and stopped to listen. They looked very confused and kept swinging their heads around trying to find me. It was probably one of the most lovely experiences I have yet had here in Italy; laying in the soft grass looking up at the billowing clouds through the branches of the olive trees, completely alone and completely at peace. I have found that I am most at peace when I am alone in nature. Nature doesn’t judge you…doesn’t make fun of you if you say something dumb, or if you wear your shirt backwards, or if you fall down a hill. It just is there, and is beautiful.

I began writing a letter but then it started to rain, so I packed up and continued exploring. I found a nearby forest of flowering trees on a hill, which I immediately entered and explored. I felt sort of like Elizabeth Bennett, and a line from the 6 hr movie kept running through my head: “there are woods and glades enough to satisfy even your enthusiasm for them, Lizzy.”

After I had spent a significant amount of time appreciating the glade, I happened upon another field with daffodils, which I picked of course, and a condemned house. I considered going into it, but after seeing loose stones in the ceiling I decided against it. I then saw more flowers down a hill, so I went to get them, but fell down the hill. I still got the flowers. I eventually walked back down the hill from the monastery and began the climb back up to Orvieto. I took a long time walking back up because I kept getting sidetracked by all the flowers. Once, I found a patch of daisies and sat by the road making a daisy chain for my hair. A few minutes after I finished that, I found a few dogs to play with. Then I found a patch of poppies, and picked those. I returned to the apartment with bouquets of wildflowers. More Jane Austen movie quotes were running through my head as I picked them, but from Sense and Sensibility. Willoughby about the flowers he brought to Maryanne: “I obtained these from an obliging field” and then Maryanne about the flowers “These are not from the hothouse!”.

I have found a new life occupation: drawing on the street. Not literally ON the street…drawing on paper which is on the street. For the past week, we have been sent out into the streets of Orvieto to draw a certain location of our choosing. These drawings must be large…the minimum is around 3x4 feet…and they must be done using conté, an oil-based charcoal-type medium. Mine happens to be more around 6x4 feet…just because I never stick with the minimum. It’s too boring. 

So I found my location…a pleasant spot just across the Piazza del Duomo, under a pleasant arch, and next to a pleasant sewer grate. It was definitely the sewer grate that sealed the deal for me. Anyway, after finding my locale, I began the drawing process. It was not a happy time. The paper, being quite large and quite papery, and the wind being quite strong and quite windy, did not make for a pleasant combination. On more than one occasion, the vile wind had the audacity to lift the paper off the ground and into my conté-smudged face, causing it to become even more smudged.  Just imagine this for a minute: I, sitting on the grimy cobblestones, trying to do a simple drawing, when the paper rears to life, ascends and lunges at my face, clawing and gnashing it’s papery teeth, and me, struggling vainly against the writhing mass, unable to speak for the paper and conté in my mouth. 

But this is just the beginning of my woe. Later, after my drawing began to formulate and actually look like the scene I was trying to depict, people began to stop and watch me. I realized very quickly that the place I had chosen to situate myself was right next to the most popular tour-bus stop. So as soon as the throngs of camera-happy tourists jostled their way out of the bus, I was the first thing they saw and subsequently their cameras’ first victim. This would not be so terrible if taking bad photos was the only thing they did. Most felt it necessary to come and speak with me, or about me. If they spoke with me, I usually could not understand them, so I would smile and nod, and say the occasional “si” or “mi dispiace, no parle italiano moto bene” or I would just ignore them.

There were a few I decided to interact with. My favorite was Diego. Walking the streets of Orvieto on the weekend, we passed by an eccentric street performer who would either be playing the recorder quite brilliantly, or juggling flaming rods. As I sat in my side street minding my own business, I look up and he had sidled up the street next to me with his large pack and a HUGE bottle of wine. He had crazily skinny knees, exaggerated by his tight ragged jeans, a black leather studded jacket over an old hoodie which was pulled low over his face, stubble, earrings, boots, and fingerless gloves. He seemed as though he could have escaped from a traveling circus or stepped out of a movie.  We began talking, and I found that he spoke English quite well, even considering he was semi-drunk. I discovered amidst his rambling speech that he was Spanish, that his name was Diego, and that he just traveled from town to town performing and making tips. He offered me some wine from the enormous plastic wine bottle (plastic so it wouldn’t break, he made sure to tell me), but I refused. There was really no need to reply to most of the things he said…he just talked and talked aimlessly and seemingly to himself half the time. After about thirty minutes,  he packed up and went off to go play more recorder. Later on, walking along the main street with some friends, I saw him and we waved at eachother like old chums. 

After five days of being photographed, stared at, talked-about, pestered, and questioned, I finally finished. A woman from Oklahoma offered to buy it, and I got more than one person asking for my website. Now I know that if I want business, all I have to do is go draw an enourmous picture on a street near a bus stop in Italy.