Italia. I heart it.

During the school year of 1993-94, I simultaneously finished my bachelor's degree via a correspondence English course while I lived in Italy, working as a nanny.

Since my departure in 1994, I have been plotting ways to get back to Italy, either as a tourist or hopefully someday to live for an extended period.

I lived in the region of Veneto, (highlighted in green) in the city of Padova. In English it is often referred to as Padua.......which.......I don't get, really. Why change it? Was Padova too hard to say?

Any way, the town had a couple claims to fame:

La Cappella degli Scrovegni. Giotto painted the inside for Mr. Scrovegni. I like history, but am not super into art history. He painted it. It was a long time ago. And a big deal, apparently.

And really blue. That was a big deal to use the Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan via caravan. Showed you were Mr. Big Bucks to be able to afford all that blue-ness from so far away.

La Basilica di Sant'Antonio. Inside there are a bunch of offerings and gifts of thanks for the miracles asked of and granted by St. Anthony. There is a whole wall, or at least there was in 1994, of letters, cards, pictures, tokens, etc. for him. It is pretty interesting. My favorite part was the Nativity Scene at Christmas.

They weren't messing around with the Nativity Scene. They had lighting that surprised me in its dedication to all things lighting. There was sunrise-daylight-sunset-night-nightsky set to timers---we must have stood there and watched a couple 'days' worth of changes, stars that flickered and simulated thunderstorms with sound effects and lightning flashes.

I was so taken with all the lighting (Remember Raccoon Baby Syndrome from a couple days ago), so distracted, I don't really remember the rest.

I know that there was a whole village, a water well with figurines drawing water......but for the life of me, I can't remember if they were moving or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they had and I just don't remember.

The photo above is the Palazzo di Raggione: Palace of Reason. Sort of like the old Hall of Justice (it's not used anymore)---which always made me think of the Super Friends and the Legion of Doom.

I just liked the shape of it and the fruit and vegetable market in the Piazza below (Piazza delle Erbe). I loved going there and practicing my Italian. Or just walking through. We didn't really buy a whole lot from this market. Mostly, we would buy from the Vegetable Guy who would come by every couple days in his mini-mini pickup truck (Think glorified golf cart.....with an enclosed cab. It was blue.), and his scales with metal weights:

The carrots or garlic or tomatoes go in one basin of the scale and then he would place and exchange various brass weights until the scale was balanced. Then, he would write down the weight and move on to the next bit of produce. He was really fast, wore glasses and a blue shop coat. I liked watching him do his job.

Lastly for today, the University of Padova, started in the 1200s. Galileo Galilei gave lectures here.
Obviously, as a teacher of social studies---history being one of those studies----I think this is really cool. I could sit in front of the building and squwinch my mind's eye so that I wasn't in 1994, but in 1294 or whenever Galilei taught there and play a little movie of what it might have looked like and what people wore and all that kind of mumbo jumbo.

Yes, I am that much of a Social Studied Nerd that I think that is a fun way to spend 5 minutes or maybe 65 minutes. I'm just saying.....I like to daydream and play the What If game. It tends to drive some people crazy when I spend too much time in this world in my brain.

I just think it is cool that Padovians simply walk around and don't even care that they have old buildings and history and it's no big whoop. The first night ever in Italy, the guy I worked for took me and my nanny friend to get dinner after picking us up at the airport. Walking to the pizzeria, I asked how old the building was we were walking by. He said, sort of off handed, "Oh, I don't know...4, maybe 500 years? It's not very old."

Holy crap, are you kidding?!?!?! This building, that is not very old, is older than the written history of my country. When I teach American History, and we are in the colonial period..heck, even Pilgrim Era, wait...Jamestown as the first surviving settlement.....that's only early 1600s. My students' eyes glaze over; for all they care, I could be taking about the time of Babylon.

I can't imagine trying to teach Italian history. Although, teaching about Ancient Rome while in Italy would be really freakin' cool.