Today I traveled from Genova to Cortona in about 5.5 hours. On the trains I mostly stared off into space, which is wasteful, relaxing, and very much needed all at the same time. Sandy and I caught both our trains no problem, but once I got to SMN, I had NO idea where I needed to go. I finally got onto a regional train headed to Rome, which turned out to be correct despite all my worrying. We talked to a great British (haha.) man who told us how he was eating himself across Italy.
Emogene was waiting for me at the station. She's so fantastic! We took a bus up the hill to Cortona from Camucia, and then began our hike up this amazingly ridiculous hill, which was a lot less ridiculous later without a duffel, I discovered. We stopped in at the hostel, which we were informed, was about to close for a few weeks, and we needed to come talk to the manager. I ended up staying in this renovated monastery all alone for four nights. I was in a dorm that had about 16 empty beds, and it was probably the creepiest thing in the world.

Emogene made me a delicious lunch, and I made awkward small talk with some of the kids on her program. Emogene then gave me a lovely tour of her facilities.


October 16th

I ate peppers for the first time, and I I didn’t hate them! What a surprise! Then Emogene and I headed back up the hill and I watched a bronze pouring, which I had never seen before. It was quite the experience! It’s amazing to see how much you really do need to know to be an artist. It’s not easy. I would really love to learn, but in which lifetime? I also want to take cooking classes and so many other things…. I’ll find time eventually, right?

As much as I like being alone and exploring without any agenda, I really am looking forward to getting back and having a full, rewarding schedule.

I had a dream last night that Michelangelo’s David had a trench around it because people walked around it so much.

My morning got pretty interesting after my Santa Maria Nuova trip. I walked up to town and mosied a little, and finally saw this great gated doorway that was amazingly lit. I opened up my purse to pull out my camera, and…..

I took everything OUT of my purse and it still wasn’t there, and THEN I began to freak out about my missing camera. I figured that since there aren’t any gypsies in Cortona, and the last place I had been playing with it was at the church, it must have gotten left behind. So I RAN to the church, telling myself all the whole that I couldn’t cry yet because there was a chance that it would still be sitting there waiting for me.

When I arrived, it wasn't there. This is when I allowded myself to feel the weight of not having any of the pictures from my whole break, as well as losing a $2000 piece of equiptment. I started bawling and wandering around the church area, but not one was around. Finally, two middle aged men who earlier had asked me if the church was open were climbing up an olive grove hill, and I went over towards them and crying asked the “Avete visto una macchina fotografica?” to which one replied by holding out my camera in its case. He explained to me that they saw it on the wall, but weren’t sure if it was mine because I had been sitting somewhere different when they saw me, and by the time that they found it, I was gone, and they didn’t want someone else to steal it, so they took it in hopes that they would find me.

I am so effing lucky. I thanked them over and over and over again, and bought myself a well-deserved coke, went back to my hostel, and read fairytales. My mom called and we had a really nice conversation. She told me about how Andras’s tuxudo was lost by Luftansa and Ed finally told him after a week that he couldn’t play concerts in jeans anymore.

We got cable!!! What???