dropping some things, picking other things up

I've put myself in the situation here of having to back track a little. Its been about two weeks, I think, since my last post and a lot has happened (I'm also adding lots of pictures to my facebook!). The big events have been a trip to Spoleto with Maggie, Christine and Michelle; an even bigger trip to Venice with Maggie, Christine, Michelle, Amanda, Darrian and Rachel; a night at the opera and general roman living.
While most of my pictures come from my trips outside of Rome, most of my experiences thus far have really been flavored by my life in Rome so I'd like to start by talking a little about that and then I'll tell you about the trips. My Italian is coming along slowly. I know about 100 words and most of them either have to do with food or public transportation. Most of my interaction with Italian speakers is at the grocery store or on the bus or while buying a bus ticket. Amanda and I went to buy monthly bus passes yesterday and I asked the man at the tabacchi (a store that sells bus tickets, magazines, cigarettes, lotto tickets etc.) something like "Vorrei un bigetto di autobus per un mez, perfavore," which roughly translates to "I would like a ticket for the bus for a month, please" though I think a few of those words may have been just Spanish words that I threw in there. He looked confused but then said "I understand" and I got my ticket. Success!
The day before we were out of matches for our stove (its gas and you have to light it by hand) and so I stopped at the tabbachi on the way home from class. I didn't know the word for matches so I drew a picture. When I got to the store and the cashier asked me what I would like, the answer came out in Spanish and English so I just showed him my picture of a flaming match. He said, "I like your picture" and showed me two different boxes to choose from. I am trying hard to use my Italian but you see I have been successful thus far also because of efforts by others to also speak English.
Now about our trips. Two weeks ago I organized a trip to Spoleto in Umbria. It is a medieval town which has in the last 40 or so years become a big center for the arts including theatre, music, opera and modern art. My favorite parts of the trip were seeing the outsides of the theatres (they were closed during the day), visiting the modern art museum (where I learned about a native Spoletian (?) sculptor named Leoncillo Leonardi, who worked in ceramics as one of his mediums!) and walking across the giant bridge made out of an old roman aqueduct. The bridge was epically proportioned and I savored the stone and scale and views as I have a tendency to do. The pictures from the trip of the bridge are especially cool.
Last weekend we went to Venice and it is another town that agrees with me. It is so peacefully quiet there without the cars and trucks. Rome is almost its opposite, though homey in its own way. The water smells lovely and the "bus" is a water bus which we took up and down the grand canal. Michelle, Christine, Rachel and I split off into a little group during the days and went to the Palazzo Ducale, St. Mark's square, the Peggy Guggenheim modern art museum, a yummy cafe, the Accademia, the Gran Teatro La Fenice and the Ca'Pesaro modern art museum. I just bathed in art for two days. I sketched and wandered in the museums with my friends. Rachel and I went for a self tour of La Fenice, which is a beautiful old opera house and they were doing a sound check while we were inside. I kept watching all the technichians, star struck by anyone in blacks. It was a treat. We even managed to do Venice on a budget with our flat rate public transportation tickets, camping hostel outside the city and off the beaten track choices for coffee, dinner and gelato. Dinner the first night was a recommendation from one of my travel books. We all got seafood and spagetti dishes for 12 euro or less and white wine. Wine and coffee in Italy are cheaper than soda. I am becoming spoiled. I had cuttlefish in black ink sauce, a venetian specialty. With the sauce being black, I wasn't sure what too expect but it was very good with a mild seafood taste. After dinner we went to a gelateria called Alaska which was so good we went back again the next day. They had so many flavors including, grape, ginger, watermelon, hazelnut, chocolate, green tea, kiwi, cream and the list goes on. Far better and far less expensive than the gelato in St. Mark's square.
Michelle, Christine, Rachel and I also went to a great cafe on Saturday morning. The cappucini and panini (pluralized words in italian have an i at the end) were really good. The panini had olive bread! I also admired the mirror in the restroom which was made out of white and blue glass. I asked the bartnder in my broken italian where it came from and he said it had been there for the 20 years he had owned the place. He started talking to us about visiting Venice and where we were studying. Over all we just had a very pleasant and fairly unrushed trip considering all the things we did in just two days. I could go there and think about art and drink cappuncino for weeks more!
Back in Rome I also went to the opera for class at the Parco della Opera, sala Santa Cecilia (the patron saint of music). We saw Il viaggio a Reims, written by Rossini for the corronation of Charles X and lost until the late 1970s. I read up about the show before we went which was good because there were no subtitles. It was a concert version but partially staged and with some fantastic performers. I'm really glad I've been able to go do and see the things that were my reasoning for chosing Rome for study abroad. At the same time I miss you all and the littlest things remind me of my friends and family from home. Thanks for sticking with me for this whole post, pictures are being uploaded next!