Museo Criminale

As you can imagine, I’ve hit all the big museums in Florence. Several times, in fact – the Uffizi, the Accademia (where the original David is), Palazzo Vecchio and Pitti, the Bargello, the Medici Chapel… there’s an absurd amount of art in the city, and I haven’t even mentioned the churches. But there’s one museum that is rarely mentioned in the guidebooks. It’s located on one of the major streets that spin off the Duomo like spokes from a mammoth, beautiful, engineering marvel of a wheel. It’s called “il Museo Criminale” (the Criminal Museum/Museum of Crime), though to be honest, this is a misleading name. It’s really a Serial Killer Museum. And yes, I’ve been here too.

I’m trying to remember when I went, actually. The trips blend together a little, but I know it was either Oct/Nov 2007 or February 2008. Funny that I can remember the whole rest of the day and yet nothing sticks out to confirm the month. A friend of mine was visiting from elsewhere in Italy, and I decided it would be a fun activity for us. Er, sort of. Maybe fun is the wrong word.

We ducked in off the street, into an unassuming entrance (except for the small, creepy banner advertising the serial killer exhibit over the door – but it’s very easy to miss). We paid the fee, which included a complimentary (and required, I got the sense) audio guide – mine in English, his in Italian. I’ve never actually used an audio guide in a museum, ever, but I assume this one worked like them all; every “display” had a number, and the track directed you from one to the next, where the disembodied voice educated you in the language of your choice. Although instead of explanations of Renaissance painting techniques, it was killing techniques; instead of descriptions of subjects, it was victims. Long paragraphs on the lives of these excruciatingly disturbed individuals, including their childhoods, killing sprees, and trials (if there were any). Oh, and the background was filled with sounds of torture: clanging, screaming, groaning, ripping.

What constituted these displays, you ask? Each gentleman was represented by a life-size wax sculpture, featured in his own environment (with knickknacks that were significant in his story), and lit up against the black walls in the dark room. Ted Bundy looked dapper and decidedly nonthreatening leaning against his car (how do you think he tricked all those girls into going anywhere with him?), and Ed Gein (that momma’s boy who provided the inspiration for both Norman Bates of Psycho and Buffalo Bill of Silence of the Lambs) sat hard at work sewing his woman-outfit. Jack the Ripper had the fewest details, because of course no one knows much about him, just a cloaked figure standing over the body of a prostitute in a London alley, wielding a bloody knife. (Oh, and there were many more, I’m just giving you a few examples. There were also very interesting and educational explanations of crime scene science and a death penalty room where you could see capital-punishment tools up close.)

It was terrifying. The information was horrifying, of course, albeit shamefully fascinating at the same time. But for me it was particularly scary, in addition to being nauseating. You may not know this about me, but I am severely freaked out by fake-humans, including wax figures (but also mannequins, etc). I feel like they’re going to grab me. The experience of being near them, especially when my back is turned, is like waiting for the bad guy to jump out in the movie – every second filled with progressively more fear and suspense. Except I’m in the movie. With the sound isolation from the torture track in my ears (I wouldn’t even be able to hear them lunging at me, no warning whatsoever) adding to my jumpiness, my blood pressure was pretty high.

On top of everything, my friend’s audio guide kept getting screwed up and he would have to go back to the entrance for help, leaving me alone with the killers (did I mention we were the only ones there?). Each time, I tried to position myself in a place where none of them could reach me, were they to make any sudden movements, and stood clutching my arms and not breathing. I suppose I should have felt safest by the John Wayne Gacy Jr exhibit, as I wasn’t exactly his taste (he preferred boys, of course – though this was little consolation with Bundy at my back), but his was the most creepy of them all. He was in a prime corner spot, with the most elaborate display. It was a replica of his living room, with furniture and family photos. He was standing waist deep in the floor, with his full clown outfit on (did I mention I’m also really freaked out by clowns? – I mean, what normal person isn’t?), and the room was set up as a cross-section, so you could see his feet below in the dirt under the house, along with the skeletons of his victims.

I’m writing about this because someone sent me this link for Sufjan Stevens’ song “John Wayne Gacy Jr”, from his “Illinois” album, and it made me think of that day. The song is beautiful, and chilling, and lovely, and creepy. Here’s the video:

Final Dispatch – Part 2

So I’ve been home now a while, it’ll be two weeks on Tuesday. I’ve been busy as a bee, but I feel like I should finish the dispatch series, the last one seemed incomplete but it’s hard to get myself back into my mindset at the time, especially since Florence already seems so far away. When I’m there, it seems so normal and right – even though my emotional and personal life there is never calm, it still seems right. I slip right into it like a comfy glove, but when I’m here, sitting in sunny, currently cool and windy California, to think of my street, and neighborhood, it all feels like a faraway dream. Less real than a dream, actually.

My last day in Florence, I woke up moderately early, dragged my protesting body out of bed, and packed. I met a couple of friends for un caffè around noon…hugs and kisses all around, then I walked across the river to the center. I hit some of my favorites: Pugi for one last meal da portare via (to go), un ultimo gelato – cioccolato and green tea – from Perché No and, keeping with my tradition, I stopped into Caffè Perseo in Piazza della Signoria for un caffè corretto (yes that is a full shot of grappa – no explanation needed for why I patronize this particular bar):

Then for una cioccolata calda to try to warm up and a stop at the paneficio (bakery) to buy some last brutti ma buoni. I cried rather effusively while I washed and dried the last of the dishes, spoke with my exceedingly nice landlord when he stopped by, and managed to get myself outside, awaiting my taxi just about 15 minutes later than I meant to leave (which, for someone who usually runs 45 minutes late, was quite impressive).

I left from the same gate at the airport as I did in June, flying this time to Frankfurt instead of Munich. I felt calm and sad yet peaceful, in such a stark contrast to the last time. I flew to Germany, spending the night in the most swanky airport hotel room I have ever seen. It was modern and gorgeous – and they inexplicably upgraded me from my single room to a junior executive suite! When I entered there was soft music playing and the tv had a personalized welcome message to me – I danced. I would’ve taken photos, but the soft lighting wouldn’t have done it justice, you kind of had to be there. The modernity was such a switch from the old-world Florence – there were fancy lamps, chic egg footstools, and the tv spun 360 degrees to be viewed from the living room or the bed. The shower fell from above like a soft jungle rain into hidden drains on the real stone floor, plus there was even an espresso machine! Oh, it was like heaven.

I somehow got out of the Frankfurt airport, which gets more ghetto everytime I fly through. They’re always doing construction, it seems, and you’re always getting diverted through concrete hallways without signs, which makes for lots of confusion (or maybe it’s just me). As you know, I eventually made it home in one piece.

Now I’ve bored myself, and probably you too, so go ahead and look at some pretty photos that are still laying around without a home.

San Gimignano again, because it’s so pretty:

Some food shots…

Chianti and grappa, made from the same grapes:

That to-die-for brunch I mentioned:

And, to say “ciao” to Firenze, a couple of night shots from the piazzale:

Allora….ciao.

Final Dispatch

Sono arrivata in California. I am back in SoCal, the trip was without problems, thankfully, and pretty easy, as far as international travel goes nowadays. I’m a bit jetlagged, but not cripplingly so, and thus all is well in Kate-land. Of course, I’m homesick, but also not cripplingly so, much better than the last time, which I think is due to my feet being better planted in both cities. My life there was more incomplete the last few times I’ve come to this home, whereas now it’s more balanced, even, and secure.

On Sunday night, at about 2:30am or so, I took out my trash and recycling so I wouldn’t have to the next day while packing. The street was mighty quiet and still, chilly and clear, my front door seemed to make a terrible racket when it slammed itself shut. Walking back up my stairs two at a time, I realized how I didn’t feel as sad as I had earlier, and thought how I shouldn’t, because I’m not sad when I leave LA. I took a few photos out my window, of the street in either direction:

When I had walked home from a few final drinks with friends, across the bridge for the last time in the dark, my favorite constellation, Orion, was just above my neighborhood. This was the view downriver:

It’s hard to describe how deeply I love the city, the stones and the land and the buildings of it, in a very instinctively, physical and emotional way. On top of that, I have all the interpersonal interactions and my friends. So of course I was sad, and I cried lots, often at rather inconvenient times while I was out in public, but it’s not so bad.

Some photos from my last trip up to my favorite church on Sunday afternoon….

Looking down towards San Niccolò before trekking up the steps:

Almost there…

The view from outside:

Down in the crypt, where my emotional stamina broke down and I cried like a baby:

Looking back up at the inside of the church from the crypt:

I have stuff to do now, so the second part of the final dispatch will have to come later. Un bacio, a presto!

Dispatch 7

Don’t worry, I come home tomorrow, so the “Dispatch” titles will stop. I’m getting sick of them too.

Woke up early, senza hiccups thank god (of course I actually got rid of them last night but it took a long time)…I have slept little but I can’t seem to stay in bed. It is a really spectacularly beautiful, cloudless day, which is nice after yesterday’s rain, so I need to tidy my apartment and take some photos of it. Lots to do today, between seeing people, going back to some favorite places, and errands….first things first, though, which will be a shower and then brunch at Rifrullo, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned on a blog here somewhere because it is amazing. That’s kind of all I can concentrate on right now.

Speaking of awesome meals, though, on Friday I went for the all-fish lunch at Trattoria Mario by the Mercato Centrale in San Lorenzo. (It’s a district.) This meal is always so incredibly delicious….oh I just don’t know how to describe it. So yummy it’s heaven.

I started with the riso con polipo (octopus), sorry it’s blurry:

Then came the little whole fried fishies, my favorite part:

Here’s a shot of the table soon after that, with fries and a bowl of assorted calamari/tiny polipini:

My plate, with skeletons and calamari/polipini (I don’t know if that’s the correct diminutive but they are tiny) and some garbanzos:

The view towards the door from the back table at Mario’s, which is lunch-only and no-reservation, and thus always very very busy:

‘Twas delightful.

Dispatch 6

I have a really, really horrible case of the hiccups. I just walked in the door and all of a sudden they were there to greet me, as if to scold me for being out so late. It’s almost 5am here, though my computer was just kind enough to remind me that technically here (at least in Europe?) we’ve switched an hour earlier.

I have never, ever had hiccups like this. Nothing I am trying is stopping them, and I’ve been home almost half an hour now. Christ, this is terrible. If anything, they seem to be getting worse.

I had a lovely day, gorgeous morning and afternoon, then an early evening nap before a shower and out to socialize again. I ended up with the same group all evening, beautiful new friends. We went several different places, including a bakery that opens at 2am that I didn’t know about, which was perfect timing since I hadn’t eaten since 3:30pm, before ending up at someone’s apartment for a while. Then it was sweet to walk home, through the ‘hood all quiet now. A few people cleaning up in Zoe (a bar where we were earlier tonight) is all, otherwise just me and the new chill. Finally adjusted to the time difference, and now I’m going.

I’m going to try to get rid of these terrible hiccups. Then I must rest, because it’s busy day tomorrow. Culminating in pizza, of course.

Dispatch 5

Today I’m laying low, sticking to the neighborhood before my first-ever show on the Europe continent tonight. When I think of it like that I feel like it’s a lot of pressure, but I think everything will be fine. What I’m concerned about is my voice being hoarse from so much talking (and talking over so much noise – Firenze is a loud town).

I slept late and pulled myself out of bed finally to grab some supplies before everything closed for lunch. First to the paneficio (bakery) for a couple of rolls; then for the really good mozzarella; then to the little fruit/vegetable shop for a lemon (for tea) and three tomatoes; then to the tabacchi for francobolli (stamps); lastly to the alimentari for water and some chocolate. I am just so in love with my neighborhood on days like this, when I go in places and they know me, greet me separately and as a local, when I run into friends on my tiny errand run, and there are no language mishaps. It’s days like this, after days and evenings like yesterday’s, that I want to throw my hands up in the air and say, ok, ok, I give up, where do I sign, tell me what I have to do to come live here and I will.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening with a family friend who is studying here for a year – it was just so lovely to pass the time with her, introducing her to some of my favorite spots and telling stories. We walked all over the city for foccaccia, cioccolata calda, brutti ma buoni, gelato… Then I went late for una pizza da asporto (to go), which pretty much makes me happier than anything else does here. I never feel quite so grateful as when I’m walking home from my beloved local little pizzeria. I’ve been going there for a year now, the first time the end of last October when I was just here for a few days and I got really sick. (I completely lost my voice and the boy there was so kind and lovely, reading the note I was forced to write out.) There is something just so blissful about walking up my steps with a hot hot fresh pizza ai quattro formaggi in my hands, and hopping into bed to eat it.

Because pictures are fun, and because Florence is pretty…. the moon out my window the other morning:

…and laundry in San Gimignano:

Dispatch 4

Sunday I played Tuscan Tourist. A friend of mine was kind enough to drive me around Chianti for the day for sightseeing, as my last two trips here the only time I left Firenze was to go to Fiesole and Arcetri, both which are so close they almost don’t count. As soon as we got out of the city – it was very odd – it felt as though I was in Italy. Not that Florence doesn’t feel like Italy, but more like….I was on an Italian vacation. Maybe it’s because Florence to me is home, not a vacation place, but I suddenly had this sense of excitement like before a school holiday or something, travelling to a foreign country. The Chianti countryside is so impeccably iconic, and it was this perfect sunny day – it’s all so stereotypically Italian that you can kind of hardly believe your eyes, it’s so “Under the Tuscan Sun”. That is, in the country. In the towns and cities, it’s the same tourists as anywhere, with weird souvenir shops (where you kind of go, who buys this stuff? while some middle-aged foreigners next to you, in fact, do) and overpriced bad food.
First we went to San Gimingano, with it’s famous towers, where I was convinced I had never been….until I saw the gelateria in the center. Figures that would be the only thing I remembered (I was seven). Walked around (it doesn’t take long, little tiny city), had some breakfast (my first “bombolone” which turns out is just Tuscan for “donut”), bought a few postcards, took some photos:

Orange trees next to the palazzo:

A couple of the towers:

I really want this little pointing man on a tshirt:

Then we went to Montereggiani which was adorably picturesque:

…and had a sweet dog watching the tourists walk by:

Then to lunch, where I tried, for the first time, pecorino (cheese) and honey. Together. Holy mother of god, it was incredible. Life. Changing. Also, I really love a country in which bread, wine, cheese, and honey is a perfectly acceptable lunch.

Then more driving, and a pit stop for coffee, and….more driving around the countryside, and then a little tiny tiny hilltop town perched above Greve that I can’t remember the name of which was even more impossibly adorable, picturesque, perfect, and dreamlike:

I want to live in this house:

Then it was down the hill to Greve for sightseeing, wine and grappa tasting, wine cellar touring, until it began to get dark and finally back…..home:

Dispatch 3

Sì, sì, lo so, non ho scritto ieri come ho promesso. I didn’t write yesterday as I promised, forgive me.

I’m writing today from Caffè Rivoire, in the Piazza della Signoria. It’s a cioccolateria molto famosa – supposedly the best cioccolata calda (hot chocolate) in the city. I’m partial to Vestri, personally (with peperoncino – slightly spicy), but here is a close second, it’s really yummy (especially con panna – whipped cream), and the view and atmosfera cannot be beat. I’m outside, paying through the nose for the location and table, so I plan to sit for a while and enjoy it. This is definitely the most comfortable Carabinieri-watching location I’ve found thus far…the weather is partly cloudy, warm enough and humid but not hot, truly a perfect day to be out just like this. Here are two photos:

(In that second one you can see the original location of Michelangelo’s “David” – he’s under repair right now, the scaffolded one to the left.)

I am fast becoming aware of a grandissimo conflict within myself. I love it here; it is a real home, where I have my neighborhood and lovely friends and routines. I have carved out such a lovely life, and I enjoy it so much – forget San Francisco, I leave my heart in Firenze. When the Italians ask you if you’re ok, or kind of to check in, they say, “Sei contenta?” In English, “Are you content?” sounds rather heavy, more of a life-pulse check, but it’s just standard speak here. As many language differences with English, the Italian is in fact the more proper use of the word, whereas I feel in English we tend to cheat the language a little bit, always using the same phrases for lots of things, leaving many verbs and adjectives underused. But when I say, “Sono contentissima quando sono a Firenze,” I mean it in both ways. I am contenta, sì, but I am also profoundly content. My heart is at peace, my soul happy, my mindset grateful. I positively ache when I consider leaving a week from Monday. I ache. I want to live here – full time; work here, be here, have a flat that is truly mine and not have every friend asking when I’m leaving. However, there is not music to be done here. To live here, even for a while, would involve putting my music on hold, even though I could travel around Europe for it. If songwriting were not such a sure compulsion for my career, were not something I have always know is my calling, and if I could consider doing anything else (even music in another form), I would without hesitation become a full-time expat here. That is, to the extent that I can imagine living anywhere full-time. It leaves me conflicted, as I am completamente innamorata. It certainly reinvigorates my writing to be here, it did so completely in May/June, so I can make like an old-school writer, and take creative trips. But life, as we know, inspires art, and as independently inspiring as the city is, it is the living that gifts the usable stuff.

I’m now out of battery, and have due etti of that incredible mozzarella with me that I probably should bring home to the fridge. Til later.

Dispatch 2

Nothing dries up wit and inspiration faster than a writing-on-command arrangement. I do not wish for these dispatches to slip into diary-mode, a list of activities and faces. Normally when I write (a blog post), I have something specific to say, or some eventual point to make – even if I don’t know what it is when I begin I still have the sense of it inside. Not that it makes it any more interesting to people who may read them, but at least it helps the writing stand on its own. So this will take a few days to sort out.

Yesterday morning I trekked up the hill(s) to my favorite church, San Miniato, which I’ve written about before. Ah, so gorgeous, so reassuring, so settling. Though perhaps the most UNsettling thing about being here is how normal it seems, which freaks me out a bit because it lulls me into a sense of complacency, of permanence. I live here, I mean, in a day to day way, but I also only have a week and a half left.

Speaking of home. While here, I live in a neighborhood called San Niccolò, click here to read a little about it (that’s a slightly odd and incomplete description, but still fun), also here is a video about my personal hangout, the base of all my operations and the place where I’ve met almost all my friends – there’s a tiny bit about the neighborhood at the beginning. So anyway, San Niccolò is a gorgeous, tiny little ‘hood, with people who’ve lived here for years and years, and so many restaurants and bars. It’s gorgeous. Last Sunday they had a big lunch in the street that went on for hours, all the restaurants had tables out, there was a band that played during the whole meal….it was fantastic to watch. Here are some photos that I took out my window:

And tables stretching down the street:

It was a truly gorgeous, postcard-perfect day (as evidenced by this photo):

I went to this big bookstore which is multi-level and kind of like the Italian version of Barnes & Noble, except you can get a prosecco in the cafè. So that’s what I did, and I translated an Italian astrology book (if that doesn’t spell fun I don’t know what does) for a few hours, before just lovingly soaking up the sun and the city. Oh, I did do some Carabinieri watching too, I forgot. More on them later.

Dispatch

It is 6:48 in the morning and I am eating the most incredible mozzarella I have ever tasted.  Good lord, it is amazing.

Despite finally breaking my weird-jetlag curse of early bedtimes last night (I stayed up til midnight, way to go Cinderella!), I still woke up at 6:25 (so it appears for a few days the foreign [as in, to me] magic of early productive mornings may still be mine), and since I didn’t have dinner last night (just dessert) I figured I may as well have a good old insalata caprese.  Plus I’m kind of disappointed in myself for buying peaches the other day instead of more berries for my yogurt.  While I’m here my mother and I have an arrangement that I send one email every day to alleviate maternal worries, and I’m thinking that might be a good plan for blogging, too – though in this case less an “I’m alive!” sentiment than a commitment to actually write because despite my best intentions, I just do not have the wherewithal to write a proper blog post lately.  I’ve tried since I arrived, but each time I get sidetracked.

Yesterday I managed to see almost everyone I know, all in one day, which was gorgeous.  I had mostly been sticking to myself thus far, because I needed some time to decompress.  It occurred to me yesterday morning that perhaps I didn’t only need to disconnect from my emotional life in California, but also to divorce myself, my mental associations, my life here from certain aspects of the last time I was here – a forced divorce for the most part, but a necessary one.  A reclaiming of sorts.

I haven’t yet seen my oldest friend here, but I did run into the person I’ve known second-longest, a now-married man who I worship and will forever love and lust after for his sunniness, heavy-Florentine accent, and ability to wear tight red pants.  I bow down to this man’s fashion sense.  I want desperately to come back in my next life as something belonging to him, a woman or perhaps a dog.  My adoration is amusing to me (as it sort of comes out of nowhere and is completely out of my control) and I think it must be obvious – I sort of vibrate when he’s around, and lose my linguistic abilities, but he handles me gently and sweetly, and has never tried to take advantage of it, which makes me love him all the more.  He calls me “Bellina,” or “Little Bella”.  I feel quite girlish when he’s around, and not many men bring that out, let alone could recognize it and then want to treat me with care.  Ok, I promise that’s the end of my love letter.  Although did I mention he sometimes wears tight red pants?  If you watched him walk away in them you would understand.

I met friends for lunch, which had me out from 1-7:30pm. My dearest girlfriend from May is living in Bologna now, but she was in town for the day and so we had a long, laughter-filled lunch with mutual amici and then waited for her train together.  I walked home, through tourists in centro, past San Lorenzo, the Duomo, through la Piazza della Signoria and by the Uffizi, eventually crossing the Ponte alle Grazie to my side of the river under a full moon.  Then I bought milk, the aforementioned awesome mozzarella, and some brutti ma buoni (oh more on those later), brushed my hair, and went out again for aperitivo and catching up with two other friends, before a late gelato with a third.  All in all, una bellissima giornata.  A day that made me think about double-edged swords, and owning mine.

Ok, I’m off to shower and try to make it to the market before my lunch date. A presto.