Updatepalooza 2009: March
July 8, 2009
So I must officially look pregnant now. I know this because two things have happened in the last week that tell me that other people look at me and see my belly. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s been drawing attention for some time now, but I think before people were trying to figure out if I was pregnant or bloated. Now it must be clear.
Today on the bus a woman got up to give me her seat. This is a first for me. This first comes right on the heels of another first that occurred just this past weekend when a hostess at a restaurant cleverly asked, “is this reservation for 2… or 3?” Har har. Whatever, she was still cute. The point is that she talked to me about the baby without first asking me if I was pregnant or without me bringing it up first. There it is. The mystery is gone.
I can’t complain, though. I got the best seat on the bus.
Update: Oh, I totes look preggers. It happened again! On my way home from work today! An old lady got out of her seat to give it to me. Crazy.
That wasn’t the only noteworthy thing to happen with the bus today. When the bus flew past me 11 minutes early (or 11 minutes late, I don’t know which) I ran after it. It stopped at a red light on the corner just behind my school so I ran up and knocked on the door. I wasn’t letting it go. The bus driver was noticeably annoyed and gestured his disapproval toward me in a very Italian fashion. So I made a face at him and gestured back in a similarly Italian fashion. I’ve seen this trick used by Italians, but had never employed it myself. What I found is that it works. The driver opened the door and there I was. Huh. Who knew?
Another notable moment occurred on Via Malta, where there are 2 stops. At the second stop every single standing passenger exited and no new riders got on. When the excitement settled I noticed, much to own private amusement, that there were men seated on one side of the bus and women on the other. It was like a bus version of a Jr. High dance. Huh. The bus can offer hours of amusement.
Updatepalooza continues…
March
March started for me with a call to my new baby doctor, Dottoressa Desii. Things were looking a little different for me, now that I knew that there was a bun in the oven. But I couldn’t start obsessing just yet. I had work to do.
On the 1st of March I had my first non-school related, non-friend or family related tour to give. It was for a group of Canadians travelling to Florence. I gave them a 2 ½ hour tour that covered Roman Florence right up to the end of the 16th century. I was really nervous, but ended up having a great time. They were a wonderful group and made me feel comfortable right away. The only bad thing was that it was cold and drizzly for almost the entire time. Oh, well. I got paid, yo.
My next work obstacle was midterms the 3rd and 4th of March. This being my first experience with midterms as a teacher and not a student, I didn’t know what to expect and I certainly didn’t know how hard it would be. Turns out it’s not so easy for teachers to mark points off tests. You know, you get so attached to the students and you want so badly for them to do well. When you see them coming so close, but still missing the point it’s horrible. It was so much harder than I ever imagined. Definitely the worst part about being a teacher.
My first glimpse of the baby…
I also had my first visit with Dottoressa Desii that week, on Thursday the 5th. I had heard some strange things about Italian doctors and I soon realized why. For starters, there’s the whole language thing. Fortunately for me, my Italian doctor speaks English, more or less. And here in Italy the patient is responsible for keeping track of the medical records. That means that anytime I get anything from the doctor I have to put it in an envelope and save it, and then bring it to every subsequent visit. Of course, my records aren’t your typical records. They’re hand-written on random scraps of paper. I can’t wait to dump all that on the American doctor at my first visit back home…
The highlight of my first visit was my ultrasound. Yes, my 5-week ultrasound. That ultrasound super-confirmed what had already been confirmed: There was a tad pole living somewhere in my belly (or something like that—I haven’t got this whole anatomy thing figured out yet). I was surprised to get to see the baby so soon. I wasn’t nearly as emotional as I always thought I’d be. It was kind of like, “okay, sure, that’s a little kid and it has a heartbeat and is shaped like a microphone. Ok.” I felt bad because I told Chris that he didn’t need to be there, so he missed it, but there would be other times.
Oh, and please note that in the upper left-hand corner of the photo it says Seagull Medica. I think that means my doctor is a sea bird who eats trash.
Time to get out of Dodge: Spring Break in very, very cold weather.
Prague
On Friday, the 6th Chris and I headed off to Milan to catch a flight to Prague. I was so excited to be getting out of Florence and away from work, but I was super sick. Not pregnancy sick (I mean, I was crazy tired, but not sick to my stomach at all). No, I was sick sick. That week I ran a very high fever one night and into the next day. I don’t know how high it was, but I was so disoriented I couldn’t open the bedroom door, I was blacking out, I couldn’t roll over to reach my water… and on it went. I was really scared. I knew that a high fever was dangerous during pregnancy and I didn’t know if I could take anything or not. I hadn’t even been to the doctor yet. By the time Chris got home from work that day, bring with him a thermometer, my temperature was down to 101. By then I thought that I was totally better. I have no idea what it must have been earlier. High.
So anyway, I was sick.
We got to Prague and it was cold. Really cold. We stayed in a one-bedroom apartment not far from the attractions and were pleasantly surprised by how nice and big it was. For only 40 euros a night we had a huge apartment—entryway, bedroom, giant living room, big bath, full kitchen. It was really nice.
We spent our time checking out the Old Town—very nice—and all its offerings, like the TGI Fridays and the Bagel place. Ok. So we didn’t eat ethnic Czech food, but we did eat well.
Unfortunately for me, most of the trip was spent blowing my nose, shivering, wanting to sleep, and feeling gross. I was really impressed by one of the churches we went into, though. It had some of the most beautiful stained glass I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember the name of the church, it may have been the one in the castle thing we went to (I was not all there), but the windows were done in an art nouveau style. They were amazing. Pictures, as usual, don’t do them justice.
Munich
From cold, cold Prague we took the train to Munich. It gave Chris a chance to see the snow-covered countryside and me a chance to sleep. I felt like such a drag, but I just didn’t have a lot of juice. Once in Munich (I think the train ride was about 5 hours long) we checked into our surprisingly nice hotel and made our way to the city center.
While in the center I found a familiar friend: the cinghiale. A cinghiale is a wild boar. This statue is a copy of one that sits in the mercato nuovo in Florence. It’s always crowded by tourists so I also resisted the urge to rub its nose and get my photo taken. For some reason, in Munich it seemed okay.
Our first stop took us to the resting place of “Mad” King Ludwig II, which was interesting, but not mind blowing. In fact, most of the churches we went into were kind of “ehh.” I guess when you’ve been living in Italy it’s tough to compete in the church department.
That night we ate at the Hofbrauhaus where, tempted by such savory dishes as “Crackling Pork Knuckle,” we ate like Bavarian royalty. Chris greedily drank a delicious-looking beer in front of me. This was my first chance to get all liquored up in Munich and—boom!—pregnant, can’t.
Dinner was great—and filling—and we left with full bellies, fond memories, and some very, very heavy souvenir beer mugs. Oh, and a real appreciation for the super-foxy tuba player in the polka band. That girl’s got it figured out, I think!
The next day in Munich was spent with more sightseeing, more food, and a little bit of shopping. I’d been on the hunt for a “Dapper Dan” hat for my dad since he left his on a train while visiting me in December. Well, it was in Munich where I found it, tucked away in a little hat shop on the main strip, just waiting to be taken to its new home. A call to my mom back home got his measurements and soon we were out the door with my dad’s new hat.
The afternoon was snowy and cold, but pleasant. We walked all over the city until ending up at a little basement restaurant just outside of the city center. The food was excellent, it was nice and warm, the ambiance was cozy, and so was the new hat, which I couldn’t resist trying for myself. I had soup. It was tasty happiness.
We found another cozy place for dinner that, like dinner the night before and lunch just a few hours before, proved to be a delicious carb-fest. We didn’t push it too much that day because we knew we had an early start to the day ahead of us. So off to bed we were, dreaming of castles and snow.
Neuschwanstein
The next morning we caught an early train off to see Schloss Neuschwanstein. I’d been there before, and right after arrival I caught a sight of the castle that seemed very, very familiar. My dad had taken a picture from that spot looking toward the castle when we were here in 1989. That picture sat on one of the end tables in the living room for years. I quickly snapped my own version. Amazing. It’s like we’d never left.
So my picture looks a little different from my dad’s, mainly because last time I was here the weather conditions were considerably different. This time around it was cold. Really cold. Really, really cold. And snowy. And wet. And it wasn’t just me—I know you all think I’m always cold so I’m not a real judge of cold weather, but it wasn’t just me! Chris was cold too. So were the trees. Seriously. Yikes.
But it was amazingly beautiful. The snow covered the whole area with deafened stillness. It was so quiet and peaceful. Had my teeth not been chattering there wouldn’t have been a sound.
We decided to tour both Hohenschwangau Castle (Mom & Dad’s crib) and Neuschwanstein (Ludwig’s digs) so we ended up waiting around for quite awhile. We filled our time shivering and walking around (had we stopped moving we would have frozen to the pavement, only to thaw out months later).
We finally got into our tour through the Hohenschwangau Castle and were delighted by our tour guide. This is the sort of thing that really doesn’t translate too well on paper. I think we’d have to act it out for you. I’ll try. Ok, so he was young, probably about my age or a little younger, he was extremely skinny and lanky, and pretty much looked like the Aryan nation poster child with his blond hair and very blue eyes. He spoke with a very high, I’d say flitting, voice and as he spoke he moved as if in a trance, pointing languidly from one highlight to the next as if his fingers were too heavy to lift without considerable effort. His gaze would follow his gesture, slowly, about a second behind and he never, ever made eye contact with any of us. Honestly, it was pretty much hilarious.
Ok. So imagine what I just told you applied to this statement—remember! Slow, slow, high, shaky voice:
“Aahz you cahn see… [long pause]… theez eez the… dining room. [Pause] Theez wahz the spech-ial place foor dee family heerz.”
Alright. Now I’m sure that didn’t make as much sense to you as it did to me. Just trust me. It was funny. And slow. But we really took a liking to him. He was endearing in his weirdness.
After Hohenschwangau we were off to Neuschwanstein for our second tour of the day. We had a little time so we opted to climb (the mountain) to get there instead of forking over the cash for the carriage ride. Besides, the last time I was here I took a horse ride and saw a horse poo right in front of me. It was traumatizing. Ok. It wasn’t actually, but we walked anyway.
The climb up was fairly steep, very cold of course, and exhausting. I was starting to get over my sickness by that point, but was still a pregnant chick in her first trimester so it might as well have been the toughest climb of my life. But, like I said before, it was beautiful. Though it snowed pretty hard on an off as we climbed to the top finally we had made it, despite the odds.
The tour was a little less entertaining than the first and Chris and I both thought that all in all it was pretty pricey for what it was so, my official opinion? Skip the tours and just enjoy the beauty. Oh, and go in the summertime. We weren’t able to head over to Mary’s bridge to get the famous view of the castle due to the weather, which was disappointing, but not too bad. By the time we were done with our second tour I was ready to return to Munich, take a nap, and warm up. So off we were to Munich for our last night.
Back to work and time for another field trip: Urbino
On the 15th Chris and I took the train from Munich to Florence, during which, for the most part, I slept. What I managed to stay away for looked beautiful, but you’ll have to ask him for details.
Once back at home it was back to the grind. Back to the class lectures, the mid-terms, the site visits… back to business as usual. But this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill average week. Ciambella and I were facing our next big challenge: the overnight field trip to Urbino. You may remember that I went to Urbino with the Masterpieces class back in November and I loved it, but this time was different. This time I was lecturing.
The trip was on the 21-22 of March and we had a huge turnout. About 4 students weren’t able to come because of a conflicting trip to Sicily and other than that we had only one no-show. That’s almost unheard of when it comes to field trip attendance. Ciambella and I knew it was because we rock and they love us. We were also able to get one grad, Laura, Laura’s husband Dave, Chris (obviously), Sylvia (who works in the Media Lab—I love her) and her husband Salvo, Clark, Steph, Lara, Lydia, Sarah March and a couple guests for the students on the trip. It came to 53 people, not counting me, Ciambella, and the Captain.
So there I was on the Piero Pilgrimage, but with a very different role. It was a little intense, but nice. Our first stop was Arezza where we went to the Church of San Francesco to see Piero’s fresco cycle in the high chapel showing the Legend of the True Cross. This was the easy part for me. No lecturing—the Captain was in charge here. All I had to do is hang out and then take a coffee break. The calm before the storm.
Our next stop along the way was to Monterchi. Monterchi is a small town with really only one thing to claim: the beautiful Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca. Oh, stresser. This was my lecture. I had requested it for a very specific reason. Parto in Italian means “childbirth” and this image is a very special one in Renaissance art since it is an image of a very pregnant Virgin Mary. When I first saw it in November I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was and I joked that I had to get knocked up so that when I returned I could lecture on it. Well, mission accomplished.
Not only was this special because of what it meant to me personally, but it was also special because I used it as an opportunity to tell the students that I was expecting. The day before I had stopped on my way home and picked up some flowers so that I, in a long line of pregnant women before me, could leave my own little offering to the Madonna along with my prayer for a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Ok, ok so maybe Marty Luther turned over in his grave a little when I brought an offering to an image of the Virgin Mary, but it was special and my job as a teacher was fulfilled. I feel confident that the students will always remember that particular painting.
It was a really wonderful moment for me. For the first time since I’d been pregnant, I got a little choked up when telling them the news. I saved that bombshell for the tail end of the lecture (I had to make sure they were listening to the rest just in case it turned up on the final). It was great seeing them realize, slowly, but surely, what it was I was about to say. And when they realized it they all clapped and cheered… and looked straight at Chris. I’ll always remember the moment I told my first class ever that I was going to have my first baby ever. So wonderful.
After that big moment we all piled back into the bus for our next city and our next Piero: San Sepulcro and Piero’s Madonna della Misercordia and his Resurrection. This was another biggie for me. I was presenting the Resurrection, which is considered by some to be his greatest work. Not me, of course, I’m a little partial to the Madonna. Anyway, the lecture went fine.
Ciambella and I had a little surprise for the class: a special extra trip to see the amazing Deposition by a Florentine artist name Rosso Fiorentino. We snuck away to see it in November when we were here and we couldn’t wait to share such a strange and wonderful painting with our class. Unfortunately for our big plans, the church where the altarpiece is found was closed with no hope of opening during our time there. Humph.
After San Sepulcro my day of lecturing was over. We all headed back to the bus and on to our final destination for the day: Urbino. Just because my lecturing was out of the way does not mean that I was in clear. Oh, no! I was on one of the windiest roads in the world with no motion sickness medication (there aren’t any medicines that I know of that are approved for pregnant women). It was awful. As some of you already know, I get pretty bad motion sickness, it seems to be getting worse with age actually, which is nice for getting me a front row seat in cars, but not so nice when it comes to buses in Italy. I cringe at the thought of it.
Somehow, against all odds, I made it without any Exorcist-inspired fireworks to our hotel in beautiful, stunning, unbelievable that it even exists Urbino. We had about an hour to kill before we all met up again for our last stop of the day: dinner. Hurrah!
Dinner in Urbino is a big deal. It’s pretty much the selling point of the trip when it comes to the students. You see, first of all it’s included with the trip so the students don’t pay for it (their parents do). That helps. Then there’s the fact that it is virtually unending amounts of food. When you first sit down there are huge wheels of cheese and baskets of bread set out on the table. I’m not talking bridal shower cheese cube cheese, I’m talking real, delicious pecorino, parmesan, truffle parmesan… good, quality cheese. It’s hard to control yourself.
And that’s where people go wrong.
There’s an art to eating this dinner. It starts with restraint, which is almost impossible to muster given the bounty. You have to be selective about the cheese and not eat fourteen plates of it like Ciambella and I did last year. Oh, no. There’s more on its way.
Next comes the veggies. Yummy, perfectly cooked grilled veggies, glistening in olive oil. Not cheap-o veggies either. Good ones. Red peppers, whole sweet onions, artichokes (Oh! The artichokes!)… they’re all amazing. But be careful…
Next comes the primi. In Italy you have primi piatti and secondi piatti. Secondi are main dishes, like roasted meats, chicken, pork, stuff like that. Primi are smaller portions. They’re usually pastas, soups, or risotto (rice) dishes. Normally when I go out to eat I just get a primi. They almost always more than what is actually necessary.
So at this place, it’s really the primi that I love so much. They’re amazing (though I have to admit that they were better last year). All different kinds of pasta with all different kinds of sauces. I’m a little partial to the lasagna. It comes out all bubbly and hot and melty. Yum! But it’s all unbelievably good.
And it’s not over yet.
Then comes the secondi. Specifically, a huge meat plate. Well, that’s misleading. There are many, many huge meat plates stacked high with beef, pork chops, sausage, lamb, you name it! And it’s all good. By this time, usually only the really dedicated ones are still eating and no one is eating comfortably. The one who is still packing away an impressive amount of food by this point is appointed the winner of the Urbino/Piero Pilgrimage bi-annual food eating contest. The winner was formally announced on the bus ride back to the hotel.
The food eating contest doesn’t take into account the last part of the meal. Desert somehow manages to find it’s way into the bellies (and hearts) of everyone in the room. It’s time well spent.
After all that gorging you might think that the students are too exhausted to cause any problems, but that’s not really the case. Quite the contrary. They’re all hyped up on the beverages served (“There are two. One’s red and the other’s white. It’s recommended that you don’t mix the two.”). They even got a stern talking to on the bus ride home by Soon-to-be-Mamma Tangeman about behaving responsibly in the hotel. I didn’t have too much to worry about though. They were a good group.
I certainly wasn’t going to cause any problems. I was beat and my new best friend was the pillow.
On day two of the Urbino trip I felt like I was going to die. I was so tired that every step seemed like the biggest, toughest step of my life. Fortunately I had a fairly light lecture day. I only had three small works to talk about while we were over at the Palazzo Ducale. Once that was over I was totally in the clear for the rest of the trip. Whew!
Before leaving Urbino we broke for lunch. A small group of us joined the Captain for an Urbino specialty: a crescia sfoglia. They’re like flatbread folded over, filled with ingredients like grilled veggies (freshly grilled) and meat, and then pressed and heated until they are buttery, crispy, and golden. And they’re huge. And—you guessed it—delicious. Since our lunch group was big, Lara and Ciambella stayed back at the restaurant to order the food while the rest of us went off to our picnic spot up on the hill overlooking the city.
The weather was still slightly chilly, but the sun was shining brightly and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We all lounged around in the sunshine. I was so glad that Chris got to see it. I knew he would love it there. He took pictures, I took a nap. I was officially as fried as my crescia.
Our trip wasn’t over with Urbino. We had one more stop way out east in the city of Rimini where we went to see a church designed by the famous Renaissance architect, Leon Battista Alberti. Ciambella had a lecture inside on our last Piero of the trip, but my responsibilities were over so I spent most of the time gazing off into space and thinking about ponies and lollipops.
It was a long trip, but it was a great trip. I was happy to get back to reality and work. After a long nap, of course.
8 weeks
On the 24th of March I had another visit with Dottoressa Desii, the sea bird doctor. Everything was good with the alien inside me and there were no surprises. Chris was able to see the baby on this visit, which was definitely a bonus. You can’t see much in the ultrasound, but I assure that’s a baby. I know because I’ve seen her since. At this visit she was little more than a blob. Less like the microphone I saw at 5 weeks, but not quite the baby-shaped thing I would see later.
What a wonderful way to end the month.