Thursday, June 07, 2007

FLORENCE, ROME, VERY LARGE HAM
STUDENTS SHOP, SEE SIGHTS & SAUSAGE

HAPPY STUDENTS MADE IT BACK TO CAGLI from their weekend trip to Florence and Rome full of enthusiasm and shopping bags, ready to plunge headfirst into their interviews, videos and photography for their various projects.

"Well- I don't have a project yet," student Melissa Traynor confided to me while munching on a piece of bread Wednesday night. "But it's okay." And as for the weekend? "Rome... hmmm. It rained. Lots of running around. I got bruises! But Florence was great, especially Bruno's tour."

Student Katrina Hickman had a complaint: "In Florence, drunk Americans kept me up at 2am singing 'Build Me Up Buttercup'! But I slept nevertheless." How were the cities themselves? "Great! I loved the doors-- some of them were even bigger than this building! And I loved the shopping!"

Asked how her project, on a local WWII veteran, was coming along, she beamed. "As of today, wonderful! Fabulous!"

Not everyone was tempted by the glories of art and culture in Florence and Rome. Student Alex Cirillo spent the weekend in the area, photographing a cycling tournament for her story. "We took a bus and got a little confused," she told me in an intimate corner of Ristorante La Lanterna. "No-one spoke English. But we met a guy whose brother drove us around, and we got these amazing shots-- crazy s-curves."

Cirillo explained that the highlight of her day of photojournalism was when she found herself under a tent on Republic Day with a group of Italian cyclists, sharing pasta and wine. It was, in her words, "like a once in a lifetime kinda thing".

But another once in a lifetime event was yet to happen. When the tournament was completed, Cirillo was shocked and astounded to see the prizes. Third place, two bottles of wine. Second place? A sausage! And first place? A big ham.

"You could even see the ball-joint in the ham bone," Cirillo, a vegetarian, sighed. "I would have gone for third place."