i rock, i sweat, i dance

this past weekend ADA paid for the undergraduates to take a trip to Naples, chaperoned by Claudia who is the movement teacher for the actors and Gianni who is the tarantella teacher for the dancers. naples is a really interesting city. before leaving, we were warned about the pickpockets, the violence, and the fact that Naples is home to the Italian mafia. professors told sketchy stories about their trips to Naples, fights that broke out in front of caffes, gangs of men that lurked in ally ways at night, etc. before we even reached naples, i was prepared to be on my toes the entire time.

naples was no doubt a dirty city. not just the streets, but the people too. i know this is sounding judgmental, but compared to tuscany (fairly reserved), the people of naples seemed absoluteyl nuts. i definitely would not have felt comfortable in naples if i weren't in a group of 20+ people plus several adult chaperons. however, there are a lot of really beautiful things in naples. since its on the coast, we were able to be by the water for the first time in italy. and naples is situated right below mount vesuvius (the active volcano), which scott says may be the reason why everyone in naples feels at liberty to drive as fast as they want and act recklessly (because at any given moment, the volcano could kill them all).


naples is also home to the worlds first pizza. i had 3 pizzas in naples, all cheese or marinara, and they were easily the best pizzas ive ever had. not so sure i can go back to eating american pizza after that.

so what else did we do in naples. we stayed in at La Carafa di Madalonni, a former aristocratic home. we had the whole place to ourselves. emily, alex, lizbie, and i stayed in a room called the princess suite, it was GORGEOUS. i felt like we were staying in a room on exhibit at some museum. we had a balcony that overlooked the streets of naples. i tried to get a decent angle of the room...

saturday morning we took a 10 minute walk to our classroom for the morning, a gigantic ballroom across from the archeological museum of naples. we took 2 hours of movement class and then 2 hours of tarantella, which went surprisingly fast. afterwards, we grabbed a pizza and then wandered through the archeological museum, which held restored art and objects discovered at the site of pompeii.

saturday night was eva's 21st birthday, so we went out to a bar and turned part of the space int our own dance floor. OH, i forgot that earlier that night we got gelato from the oldest gelateria in naples!

sunday we headed to POMPEII! easily the best part of the weekend. the weather was great, really sunny and warm, and we spent about 3 hours walking around pompeii. it was basically a ruined city that was uncovered and partially restored, and now it is a site that is open to the public to walk through and explore. it was crazy to walk through all of the rooms of ruined buildings and imagine what the city was like before the volcano destroyed everything.


OH YEAH. if any of you are familiar with OK Go's music video A Million Ways, me and 3 friends performed that dance (fully dressed as the band members) for the schools cabaret last week. i wish i had a video to post... i'll get my hands on it and figure out how to post it either or on facebook sometime soon.

three day weekend coming up. a bunch of us are going to le cinque terre for a weekend of hiking, relaxing, wine, and other beautiful things. weather.com predicts rain for part of the weekend, hopefully it clears up for a while so we can enjoy the outdoors.

on a final note, emily evans (conn), emily craver (skidmore), and i are collaborating to create a dance film and live performance to take place in a couple of weeks. the film will be done in arezzo and both parts will be set to music by Beirut. more to come.