What the hell is Notorious doing in Italy, anyway?

For the moment: As little as possible.

Let me back up.

A little less than a year ago, I realized that I could no longer successfully slalom around all the secondary material on my new topic (not on Italy, per se, but topically something that Italian scholars have written a lot about). But the other Romance languages I had weren't cutting it. Or rather, they gave me enough of a basis that, every 18 months or so, I would reenact the following process:

(a) See reference to a book or article in Italian in someone's bibliography and be able to read it well enough to say, "My god, but this is precisely the book/article/essay I need to read! To the Interlibrary Loan gnomes, forthwith!"

(b) Summon interlibrary loan gnomes and send them off on a mission to procure said book/article/essay.

(c) 3-6 business days later, receive notice that my item has arrived; hie my ass to the library to pick it up.

(d) open; skim a random page; say to self "Yup. Still can't read Italian."

(e) Return item.

But, as I noted above, there has come to be just too much on my topic. If I don't learn Italian, I'll have to find a new project. So, the decision was made that I would push on the credit card a bit and sign up for some language lessons in Italy. 3.5 hours of lessons in the mornings; attempt to talk to random individuals in the afternoon.

And then, the owner of my yoga studio announced a 10-day yoga retreat in the south of Italy, beginning just after the semester ended. And it seemed like fate. So I pushed on the credit card a bit more and, well, here I am. Ten days to recover from a difficult semester and prepare for my language study. Meditation and yoga practice in the morning, people cooking delicious food for us (and offering a 3-hour cooking class at one point in the week!), excursions to neighboring towns, amazing people (it's a family-run center), a friendly dog, a pool in the Puglian sun... and this: