Getting halfway across the world is hard.
05/21/2010
A band of IU East composers set off for Europe at the beginning of this week. First stop: Alba, Italy. We left from Dayton, Ohio and had a five-hour layover in D.C. From there, we boarded Air France, which took us to Paris overnight. Then, we boarded a small plane to Torino, Italy. Most of us had forgotten that we would be flying over the Alps, a truly breathtaking sight. Flying over Italy, I was taken by the placement of townships, little pockets of red-roofed buildings scattered across a vineyard-laden land. As we found in Alba, towns in Italy are more focused on communal living. Unlike American communities, where we segregate residential and commercial districts more sharply, Italian communities mesh everything together, creating a whimsical, homelike atmosphere.
From Torino, we had the (mis)fortune of taking two vehicles onto Italian highways to our final destination, running on 24 hours without sleep, and a lot of espresso (café.) Fast drivers + foreign roads + jetlag = no fun + white knuckles. When we finally arrived, we had to force ourselves to heed our professor's advice not to flop on the bed, otherwise adjusting is all the harder. Once we showered and got on some different clothes, we were ready to grab a nice Italian dinner. Good ambiance, great wine, excellent food--even for that, the trip was worth it. Excitingly, we have plenty more to look forward to, here in Alba, and then in Vienna, Austria and Bratislava, Slovakia. Now, I'm off to finish my piano piece. Wish us best!
dinner, first night
