Urbino 22 July 2011

Writing this helps me remember what day it is... The days are passing by so filled with such different activities that I do not usually know if it is Monday or Friday or Tuesday. Time hardly exists at the moment...if there is such a thing as a moment when there is no time.

This morning I sort of slept in a bit later than usual but finally got up to have breakfast in the 'mensa' at college. Kim and I walked to school and came to the violin lessons. I was just in time to play some Leclair with Davide and then caught a theorbo player who agreed to do my Marini sonata with me. After the lesson, Johan (not sure how to spell the Swedish version of this) and I went in search of a place where we could have a quick look at this piece and see if I needed to get the bass part figured. There are music lessons going on in every room in the whole school and we tried to play in the corridor but got sent away because it was disturbing a singer. We went out onto the cobbled streets and went into a side door leading to another interesting corridor. We tried to ask the men there if we could play there...eventually one man took us through the bathrooms to an office-like room where we practiced. 

Almost all the rooms in Urbino seem to be very big and full of echoes. Its quite easy to get lazy about making a good violin sounds because it is so easy to sounds quite nice in this kind of acoustic. But it has such a nice resonance...

I should have described the town of Urbino in a little more detail. It is a very small medieval city situated on top of a hill in eastern Italy, about an hour from the coast. There is a wall around the city and the streets are paved with stone and there are four room high stone house/apartments on each side of the streets. Very beautiful! There are several palaces and churches and other nice big buildings and stone carvings and fountains. But the most stunning thing is the view of the countryside from the city. Because it is on top of a hill, when standing on the edge of the city walls you can view green valleys and hills, everything green and refreshing. The college where we are staying is outside of the city walls but we have a very nice walk to get there. 

Tonight at about 9:45 we started dancing in one of the town squares. It is Italian 'danza popolare' or folk dancing. Everyone joins in as the lady is calling the dances. People who live here, students from America who stay at the colleges, music students and teachers and other people who are visiting for the Musica Antica festival. It is a very social and fun little session. Afterwards of course we had some more gelato.

Ah and the food... simply DELIZIOSO! Breakfast is not such an important thing in Italy, except for the coffee. But the pizzas, the pastas, and the Buffalo mozzarella with tomato, and the prosciutto and rocket are so good. For lunch today I had my favourite (at the moment) salad made with tomato, olives, egg, carrot, cucumber, lettuce and tuna with lots of amazing Italian oil on top. Each meal is something to look forward to...

This post is way to long...I must stop and go to bed so I can wake up tomorrow.

Buona notte!