A Trip to Siena

Wednesday, 2/12/03
Yesterday was an interesting day. I slept in, took a cold shower because the hot was out, then went to class at 11. Marco lectured on Rome because we are going there next week. After lunch we had a meeting about the arts classes, finally. I am in mixed media, which includes watercolor, thank goodness, after I spent €50 on the supplies. I took a little nap then, as usual. I missed the group of architecture students going up the hill, but I caught up with Kate and Morgan who were also running late. We went to Santa Chiara, moved out desks to go to our new studio (we moved from the town library to a new place), and moved tons of towels, sheets, and furniture from one room to the second floor of Santa Chiara. That building sure is beautiful but the dust is terrible. I had to wash my mouth out over and over again afterward and I could still taste it!

Our new studio has a great view, though I don't know if we are going to be in it more than a week since we are supposedly moving into Santa Chiara the week after our Rome trip. But maybe the studio is in the south wing, which will still not be open. After dinner all I did was work on my crappy drawings. I am really getting anti-inspiration as far as studio goes. I'm scared about next year because I haven't had a decent studio in a year. I am glad we used balsa wood in my beginning 105 class because I really haven't built any models since then.

So today! We went to Siena. First we went to a basilica, then to the gigantic fan shaped square there. That is what Siena is known for. The Palazzo Pubblico (Town Hall) is on the square and it was really neat inside, with a museum of completely painted walls and vaulted ceilings. Next we went to the Duomo which was also completely painted. It actually had ribbed vaulted ceilings (I think they were groin vaults, but I'm uncertain).

Next we went to the single standing facade next to the Cathedral (apparently the church to go with it was never built, or something) [Actually, they ran out of money while building the facade. What was to be the transept of the church became the nave of the existing church, cutting its size down to about a third of what it would have been]. Through a museum, then we climbed up two teeny tiny spiral stone staircases (the steps were about 2 ft wide, very scary to climb) up to the top of the facade. We had views of the entire city, but it was bitterly cold with the wind up there. And the ledges weren't quite high enough to make me feel comfortable with the height. It was really cool, though.

We were on our own after that. Kate and I went to a pizza place on the square, then browsed around shops (the ones that were open during siesta) all afternoon. The most interesting were the bookstores, the first real bookstores I've been in in Italy. I was debating whether or not to get a Jane Austen novel in Italian, but decided it wouldn't be worth it because one of the reasons I love her so much is because of her use of the English language. We found a book about all the films filmed in Tuscany, which included La Vita E Bella, A Room With a View, Gladiator, and many others. Then Kate found a travel guide to Texas. It was such a joke! It recommended learning Spanish before coming to Texas and listed a bunch of "Texas phrases."

The rest of the afternoon we looked through magazine stands for a magazine on The Two Towers. Kate saw it in Milan last weekend and regretted not getting it. We never found it.