Paris

It's absolutely as beautiful as everyone says it is. Especially in the springtime, with early summer weather, no rain, not a cloud in the sky and being on spring break. It was absolutely idyllic. I stepped out of the Paris subway, and lo and behold, I felt like I was in a wonderland of beauty. The buildings, the sanity of the way things worked, the people carrying bread under their arms. I was definitely now in Northern Europe.

Eleni and I agreed to meet in Paris right at the end of her month stay. Somehow, I managed to land in the 4th as did she and we were staying only a few blocks away from each other in the Marais. Here's the view from her tiny, but amazing top floor corner apartment.

Eleni looking out from one of her two decks.

This was pretty much the theme of my visit to Paris. Find a beautiful place to sit down, catch some sun, some naptime. Here I am in Luxembourg Gardens right after having run into Anderson Cooper. Yeah, that one.

Just walking the Left Bank, I was taken back by this dome, known as Invalides. Turned out that it has a great museum of military history and a exhibition on the role of France in WWII which was fascinating. But, the highlight is Napoleon's tomb. I came back to see the exhibition and tomb on the night Invalides is open until 9PM and had the place all to myself. It was me and the little general sharing a moment.

Paris is one amazingly well planned park. It's like a big green space with beautiful buildings lining the parks. Eiffel Tower, enough said. Didn't go up however.

But I did "kiss" it....

I've heard about the Pompidou center, always wondering why it was such a big deal. Having now seen it in juxtaposition with everything else in Paris, I get why it's so "out of whack". I went up for a view from the top partially to pay homage to Richard Rodgers with whom I had lunch last summer.

Out of town, at the end of subway line is where Paris built the Grande Defense. This area is where major businesses are located. I love this building.

More sitting and enjoying the sun and people watching.

The Arc de Triomphe and the Grande Defense are at ends points of a long boulevard and "dialogue with each other", although it turns out the Grande Defense is slightly angled due to construction issues. Again, didn't go into the Arc, but was FASCINATED by how drivers negotiated driving in and out of the circle. With 12 boulevards coming off the circle, it was amazing.

It's a female leading a bunch of males.....

More cafe time along the Champs Elysees

Here's the famed Notre Dame, but I prefer the rear of these gothic churches....

Cafe time with Yalie, who is finishing up a masters in French, doing her thesis on French rap....

Cafe time on Rue Cler

An awesome picture of Yalie and I just hanging out on a bench in a park in Paris. As you can gather, the weather was great and I spent lots of time just hanging out in cafes and parks, getting tan. Very Parisian!

I have an answer to the question, "Who's your favorite sculptor?"

Without a doubt it is the Italian neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822) who grew up and spent a number of years in the hills outside of Venice, specifically in the town of Possagno. After last week's school trip to Florence, we had a two and a half day weekend where I took the train to the town of Treviso, rented a car and spent a day in the hills around Asolo, one of those towns being Possagno, and the Canova museum and Gipsoteca (a building to house sculpture). This post, for those of you uninterested in sculpture can probably be skipped.

The museum is located here in the house in which Canova lived had had a studio. 

This gipsoteca was built to house many of the plaster casts that were used to actually make the marble statues. Although the marbles are in art collections around the world (for some reason many at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg) it's cool to see his body of work all in one place.

This is the piece of his that I saw first back in Art History class, Pauline Bonaparte, which is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

It's amazing the amount of detail (I remember being impressed by the folds in the couch) is included and how real marble can be made to look like the real thing.

Here's a self-portrait bust of Canova. The black dots are actually nails that are put into the plaster casts used to measure distance and curvature to transfer the cast to the real marble. Interesting fact, the Canova's right hand is preserved and kept at the Accademia in Venice!

One of the pieces I was shocked to see was George Washington. It seemed odd that an American subject would be created by this Italian sculptor. However, looking at the dates, they were contemporaries so it makes sense.

Here's a close up of the tablet Washington is holding, it says "popolo degli Stati Uniti" or "people of the United States"

This is the "crying lion" dedicated to Pope Clement XIII.

There is a "roaring lion" as well. Both are located in St. Peters in the Vatican.

Canova was commissioned for a great number of religious pieces, but I don't find them as interesting as his sculptures of "heros" of the mythical world. Here's the COLOSSAL (you can see the edge of the top of the wall) Hercules and Lichas.

The boxer Damoxenos......

....facing the boxer Creugas.

Probably one of my favorites, "Theseus defeating the Minotaur"

"Triumphant Perseus"

"Ajax"

Another one of Canova's most famous "The Three Graces"

"The Three Graces" comes from the fun, dance and love series of sculptures.

"The Sleeping Nymph"

"The Venus Italica", Canova's Italian interpretation Aphrodite.

"Venus putting a garland on Adonis"

"Cupid and Psyche" I like this one and the last one because it's the female showing affection towards the male.

"Baby and Harp", a table centerpiece and one of the few actual marbles in Possagno

I like this one because it shows Canova at work sculpting non-ideal figures.

"Sleeping Endymione". I love the story behind it. Selene (Moon) loved the Greek God Endymione and every night while he was sleeping, steal a kiss from him. Zeus granted Endymione eternal youth and eternal sleep so Selene would find him every night. His dog sits faithfully waiting for his master to wake up.

Just a note on Canova and neo-classicism. Canova returned to the idealism/realism and classicism after the Baroque/Rococo periods where being "floofy" as I call it was the rage. The Greeks and this neo-classicism is certainly more my style.

My day didn't turn out as expected.....

March 17th, 2011. St. Patrick's Day to most of the world, but here in Italy, a big day as it was the 150th anniversary of the unification of the country of Italy. All schools, even American schools on Italian soil, and workers got the day off. I took the train down to Rome to try and find some festivities. Got into town and it was pouring rain and nothing was happening at the Vittorio Emmanuele II monument. So, it's around 145PM and I'm wandering the streets of Rome when I get a call from my friend Alessandro. In typical fashion he says I need to meet up with him and so he gives me directions to a town called Fiano Romano, which turns out to be where he grew up. A walk up the Corso, the Flaminio commuter train to Saxa Rubra and a 45 minute bus ride later, I'm standing along the main drag of Fiano Romano.

Never one to actually have a plan, Alessandro picks me up (he had driven down from Viterbo) and we then go to his uncle's house. There I meet his uncle, aunt and his parents. It's so Italian, I'm loving it. I participate in conversation to the point that I can and learn that Alessandro is a terrible businessman. I mean, hello, who gives another guy 4,000 Euro in cash to buy a piece of land BEFORE actually signing any papers? Now he has had to hire a lawyer to get the guy to actually come to the notary!

After coffee, we make our next stop, Alessandro's brother's house. They two look totally alike and after another coffee and playing with the nephew, we stop by a big outlet mall on the way back to Viterbo. I manage to snag a great jacket for some 85 Euro marked down from 338 Euro. It's awesome. Pictures to come.

On the way home, Alessandro is making plans for dinner. I think we're just going over to his house to eat. But we get there, he says hi to his wife and then we're off and about again. Twenty minutes later we get picked up by this blonde woman and we're off to a singles party. SERIOUSLY. About 30 people at the party and for the next three hours there is continuous Karaoke, mostly in Italian and I'm up there singing and dancing with these single Italian women. Craziness. Not what I was expecting when I got up in the morning.

Italy -- Year 3

I haven't posted much these past six weeks because I have been wrapped up in the job search for next year. The following is a summary of what transpired and the decision making process!

My ultimate goal is to move back to Seattle, hopefully to teach at my alma mater Lakeside. I've been in contact with the Upper School Director there for a number of years and we've been dancing around my teaching there. However, we've never been available at the right time. They've had an opening, I wasn't ready to move or vice versa. This year, however, there was a possibility of an opening and so the move back to Seattle was a constant possibility. However, in the end, there turned out to not be an opening.

In the meantime, if Seattle wasn't a possibility, I would love to live in China. SYA has a campus in Beijing and the Math teacher there has been there for about a decade. He was willing to move to another SYA campus in Asia (either Japan or Vietnam) and thereby opening up the position for me. However, due to lack of enrollment, neither of those campuses will open next year, so he will stay in Beijing for another year. However, SYA in their infinite generosity and kindness, offered me the teaching job at their campus in Rennes, France for a year before heading to Beijing.

During these machinations with Lakeside and SYA, I had also applied to the International Schools System and been accepted as a candidate. My handicap in this world is that I neither have a teaching certificate, nor do I have any International Baccalaureate experience or training. The International Schools hiring happens mostly at 3 recruiting conferences, of which I attended the smallest and last one in Chicago around Valentine's Day.

The saying is you don't need many dates, you just need ONE good date and I had one in Chicago. The number of school attending the fair was pretty small, and many of them had few job openings available, however, the American Overseas School of Rome was present and they had not one, but two, high school math teacher openings. I met with the head, and turns out that my having neither a certificate or IB experience was not an issue. We agreed on my visiting and interviewing with the school on the 4th of March. I had a job offer a few days later.

Before I even went to Chicago, through contacts, I had a job offer in Aruba, which I turned down. While in Chicago, I met with and had an offer from a school in Puerto Rico, which I turned down as well.

Therefore, the decision came down to AOSR in Rome or SYA in France. Tough call as there were only upsides to both. I literally had to make a list of pros on both sides of a piece of paper.

The decision came down to these issues:

France: 1) New Language (pro and con), 2) Pre-planned school trips (pro), 3) Housing provided (pro), 4) Exact same curriculum as here in Italy so a simple transfer of teaching materials (pro and con), 5) More Money and no taxes (pro)

Italy: 1) Familiarity with language and chance to improve Italian (pro), 2) Major Metropolitan Area (pro), 3) Larger Faculty because school has 630 students (pro), 4) School is International, not just American prep kids (pro), 5) Possible opportunity to work on IB certification (pro), 6) Large English Speaking community (pro and con), 7) Only an hour and a half by train to Viterbo (pro)

The decision, which sort of came to me when I was swimming laps in the pool one day, came down to this fact. If I moved to France, I know EXACTLY what my life would look like. It would be the easy choice. Moving to Rome offered the best of two worlds, having some facility with language, but what my life would look like next Fall would be completely a mystery. Where would I live, what would my social life look like? The school is different from what I've ever taught. I will have students from around the world. When I taught a sample lesson, there were Americans, Italians, Russians, Indians, you name it. It's an INTERNATIONAL school.

I chose the move to Rome based on the fact that I need NOT be comfortable. I need to learn and change and how to live here in Europe without the safety net of SYA's taking care of everything for me. Only when taking chances, have I learned and grown. Ironically, the school is on the Via Cassia, which is the old Roman road that goes through Viterbo up to Tuscany. I will be physically moving just down the road, but my life will change dramatically, which is good.

Rugby....in Italy

When you think of Rugby, Italy is NOT one of the first countries you think of. But lo and behold, it is one of the six participants in the Six Nations Championship, which is essentially the European Championships. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales have competed in 110 championships. France joined 80 years ago. Italy? 10 years ago and this year is participating in its 11th competition. My friend Frank and I went down to a game in Rome, and although we really don't understand the game, it was fun to watch the hitting and trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

The scrum...

The lineout...

And the crazy hats. The game was against Galles (Wales in Italian) and at least half of the stadium of 32,000 were Welsh. Italy lost 16-24.

That score isn't bad considering Italy lost to England 13-59 two weeks ago. The atmosphere after the game was festive as Frank and I believed that if the Welsh had lost, the fans would have been pissed and angry, whereas for the Italians, they are just happy to be in the tournament and expect losing. The overall record of the Italians in the 11 times they have participated in the Six Nations? 7 Wins, 1 Draw and 50 losses.

Armin Zoeggler is a TOTAL STUD

Because it was here, in Italy, why not? Therefore, I hopped on a flight to Torino, rented a car and drove into the Italian Alps. This luge track, the only one in Italy, was constructed for the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics.

Free entrance! Free parking! And the star of the show? Armin Zoeggler, 5 time Olympic Medalist (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze) and 5 time World Champion and an Italian!

The track is built on a mountain just outside of the town of Cesana Torinese, right on the French/Italian border. The mountains in the background of this picture are probably on the French side.

I arrived and at 10AM and was in time for the 2nd and final heat of the Women's competition. I spent some time here at this straightaway, but soon decided that standing along a banked curve was much more interesting.

The lugers gain so much speed that I could never really get the timing right, so I have lots of pictures like this, where the luger has already gone by.





So, I went with video instead!

During the women's final, I did manage to get this photo up near the middle of the course. I'm minding my own business when all of a sudden, standing next to me is.....

Armin "Il Cannibale" Zoeggler!! He pulls up within a few feet of me and is climbing around the railing, checking the ice. He was in the groove, so I didn't bother him, but I did snap this photo.

There were only 13 women in the competition, which was dominated by the German team as they placed 4 of their lugers in the top 6.

After a lunch break, we returned in the afternoon for the men's competition.

It was getting dark and the clouds were rolling in. If you find the spot where the road curves to the right and disappears, right at that corner was where I spent the men's competition because I could see each luger in four different curves.

Armin had a large and loud fan club. There were lots of cow bells ringing





Here is a clip of two time world champion and 21 year old German Felix Loch. He placed 1st after the first heat.

In the second heat, the two 25 lugers from the first heat go down in reverse order. At this point, when I took the picture, the leaderboard had a bunch of North Americans. It wouldn't last.

Loch came down last, but finished second behind Zoeggler. When the results went up, the place went wild. Myself included. It was Zoeggler's sixth world title. The scoreboard doesn't show it, but the 6th, 7th and 8th place finishers were a German and two Austrians. The sport is dominated by countries that are located in the central Alps.

Zoeggler during the interview. In 13 competitions at the Cesana track, Zoeggler is undefeated!

The mens podium! Zoeggler on top, where we usually find him.