July 8th: Clean clothes! (But my shoes are giving me blisters!!!)
Today I felt like myself again for the first time in 4 days. I woke up fresh and early and excited about picking out an outfit and looking nice. Unfortunately I couldn’t get my hair straightener to work with my power adapter, but it’s so freaking hot out that my hair would be up anyway. I’ll try again tomorrow, I suppose. After breakfast I practiced for a brief 45 minutes, and then my housemates and I made our way to town for an orchestra meeting to talk about upcoming concerts and chamber. It was pretty pointless and hot. And my feet were killing me!!! Turns out, my new super-cute shoes from Sarasota strongly disagree with my heels….and I bought them specifically for walking around Italy! After the pointless meeting, Jenn and I wanted to go shopping at this really cheap shop, but realized quickly that it was after 1, which means the shop would be closed. Italy, like Spain, takes a break everyday at midday from 1-4. They call it the “repausa”, or “siesta” in Spain. Basically, all of the shops close down (even banks!), except for a few gelato places, and you can’t practice because it’s quiet time. I like to refer to it as Italy’s “nap time.” It’s kind of frustrating in a way because you have to just sit around or get chores done because nothing else can be done. So we went to a gelato place (I didn’t get any…I’m trying to conserve calories and money!) and killed some time on the Internet. Jenn and I then went to an Italian class held by the festival, and learned some basic words and phrases. It was good! My favorite word was “bachone”, or “big kisses.” We’ll go again tomorrow. After the class we went back to the apartment and helped prepare dinner, as in Jenn cooked and I fell asleep on my bed. After dinner I practiced for another brief 45 minutes, and then we had to go to rehearsal. We worked on the piano concerto from 7-11, and then spent only 30 minutes on Bolero for the concert tomorrow. The piano concerto is really beautiful, especially the second movement, which sounds a lot like the song “all by myself” at times. Unfortunately, the pianist isn’t all that great, but we’ll get by. But her little yippy dog that sits next to her piano during rehearsal is really cute. Especially when he starts barking in rehearsal. The rehearsal was outside tonight where the concert will be, which is in the beautiful old square with a giant old castle-type thing behind us. We worked out way home with a gelato stop (I fought the urge, again!) and got back to the apartment around 12:30. We had a nice snack of meats and really good cheese and chocolate and here I am. Bachone!