Sunday, 3/2/03
What a day, what an eventful day, what a stressful day! I got up at 7am to catch the 8:38 train to Arezzo. It's been raining all day, but it's not cold so it's kind of nice. I went down to breakfast at 8, but here at Santa Chiara breakfast is at 8:30 on Sundays. Luckily Jesus (Hey-Zeus) had already set out the cereal (cereal!) and milk (milk!) so I got some, my first of either since I've been in Italy.
While I was waiting for the train an Italian man introduced himself to me. His name was Guiseppe, and he's been to Massachusetts and New York. When we got on the train I sat by an older couple and their daughter, who were American tourists on their way from Cortona, to Firenze, to Pisa. But something happened. The train didn't go anywhere. People started hanging out the windows trying to figure out what was going on, and suddenly there were two ambulances and a slew of police cars. We thought someone had gotten hit by the train at first, then we heard there was a fight (there were a few Italians who spoke a little English and filled us in best they could). People were getting off the train, getting on again, not knowing what to do. The conductors didn't even come by to let anyone know what was happening.
Finally, we saw the police bring out an Italian woman, a larger woman with dyed red hair, in hand cuffs off the train. It came out--she had taken a policeman's gun and shot two policemen. How the situation started, I haven't a clue. Next we saw the body bags coming from the train to the ambulances. The American man automatically jumped to the conclusion that she must be a terrorist. I think that is B.S. Needless to say, that train wasn't going anywhere. We had to wait for the next Firenze-bound, which was over a hour later.
Anna cheered me up after church with fun questions like what my favorite animal was, and we talked about food. Paola, a sister in the branch, asked me over to her house next Sunday which I am excited about, but also nervous, because she understands English but doesn't speak it as well.
Monday, 3/3/03
When I got home there was no way I was going to go to the Carnivale in Val di Chiana with everyone else. I went to sleep. It turned out however, that it was canceled anyway, because of the rain. So much for the puppet factory, and so much for the actual carnival.
After dinner Peter showed tow 15 min videos by the super studio group from the '60s and '70s, which were weird and a little over my head. He lectured after that, but I wasn't about to stay when I had work to do. I went to Morgan's room and sketched her camcorder plug. She asked me what my goals and dreams were, and I told her about wanting to be a writer. She said, "I think you will be a better writer for majoring in architecture." I nearly jumped for joy. She is the first person I've told that to, whose first reaction wasn't "Why are you majoring in architecture?" I was happy she understood the general concept of how design can apply to anything and that more than anything, this degree stimulates my creativity in a way not found in, say, an English degree.
I forgot to mention that I talked to Britt after dinner about what happened this morning. She heard about it on the radio and apparently just one policeman died. The woman probably had drugs or something guilty on her, so when the man asked for her identification she pulled a gun and shot him. And we think it happened while the train was in progress before Castiglion so it wasn't a local person.
That doesn't change the tragedy of the occurrence, though. When I went to Morgan's room I told them (Morgan, Kate, Omar, and Marie) what happened. Kate and Omar said that at Cafe Ignorante this morning they saw it on the news, that everyone in the cafe stopped what they were doing and watched it. They, of course, didn't know what was going on because it was in Italian. Peter was there and they asked him to translate, but he was on his cell phone so he just said, "Oh, somebody got shot. It's nowhere near here."
So, back in Morgan's room the conversation took a twist. Morgan and Dixie decided to draw her boobies. They were making fun of what flat chests they have. Then Kate came in and drew hers, with a very exaggerated hourglass figure. They came up with the idea for everyone to add to it, but laughed at what the cleaning ladies would think if they saw elementary pornography on their wardrobe doors (we've seen many more explicit things in the art museums). Idalia joined us and drew a ridiculous picture of herself. I figured I might as well do it too, so I drew a one line profile of my body, including my stomach pudge, and labeled it "Mountainous Horizon". Kate was "Mt. Vesuvius" and Dixie was "Mosquito Bites". When I came upstairs I told Cady and Karin that if they went to Dixie, Morgan, and Kate's room, to be prepared to draw their boobies. They decided that now was a good time, so we all went back down. Cady labeled hers "Swamp Thing".
What an activity for a Sunday night!
Showing posts with label Karin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karin. Show all posts
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Perugia, moving to Santa Chiara, and Mister Rogers
Friday, 2/28/03
We leave Assisi in about thirty minutes. It's been a good trip and I would love this city without restraint if it weren't for the Basilica charging to talk, and having to search the town for hours to find an internet place. We're going to Perugia today, then back to Castiglion to move into SANTA CHIARA!
Reflections on the Hotel Park
Cons: small rooms, too much smoke, flooded shower drain, running out of toilet paper
Pros: warm showers, real towels, warm blankets, secret passageway to the roof, warm room, comfy bed
More Cons: not so tasty food, more smoke, Gianni's makeup, rotten fruit, repetitive food, manager
More Pros: cats riding the elevators, awesome roommates, Gianni's theme song, catwalk between balconies, refrigerator window, telephone and television
More Cons: locking ourselves out of the room, light going out, walking up the hill to class.
Exactly Midnight---
I'm in a rather mellow mood tonight. There's a reason why, though today has been a packed and eventful day. We found out that Mister Rogers died yesterday. I feel like it's the death of the eighties children. I really miss Mister Rogers, especially after he made a cameo on the Arthur the aardvark cartoon. But shall I describe the day?
We left Assisi this morning at 9:30, for Perugia, the only large city in Umbria (the region east of Tuscany) and none of us liked it very much. We just went to an art museum (religious art) that would have been neat had I not been so tired. I ate lunch with Morgan at a pizza place. We bought chocolate because the best chocolate in the world is supposed to be from Perugia. The thing is, though it was made in Perugia, most of that chocolate you can buy elsewhere anyway. I accidentally got cooking chocolate and it was really hard. Morgan said I should melt it and cover strawberries, but I don't know a safe way to melt the chocolate.
We met up with the architecture group and went down to a very ghetto square that was deserted. Peter up and decided that we should redesign the square to liven it up in the 45 minutes we had. I didn't have my sketchbook, so I went down the steps into the square and found a giant Co-op directly under it. So Kate and I went grocery shopping. I got bananas and strawberries (for the chocolate). Finally, we rode back to Castiglion and went to the bus station, not far from Santa Chiara. No more walking up the hill (except for trains or groceries)!
Saturday, 3/1/03
It's March! And it's noon! I love the church bells. They remind me of The Sound of Music. I can't believe I slept so late, until 11:15. The reason was because with our window shutters closed it's impossible to tell what time it is. I had another flying dream last night. I could float but I was too scared to fly really high. Then I fell in love with a boy who could fly to the top of a mountain. He helped me fly up too, and I flew through a cloud.
Back to yesterday. I didn't finish writing last night not because I was too tired, but because in order to write an entertaining entry my mind has to be alert and I didn't want to waste good memories with boring narration. Not that my narration is by any means that great.
So we moved back to Santa Chiara. All of us were so excited we couldn't handle it, to borrow Karin's phrase. She must have said "I can't handle it" at least 6 or 7 times in the hour and a half we were unpacking before dinner. We were able to unpack! We have drawer space, wardrobe space, shelf space! We have a real, though small, shower! There is a little dust, but no smoke! We all went down to dinner wanting to hug and cheer. The dining hall is wonderful. It has brick arches and lantern lights on the walls.We were served home style (instead of waiters) with a dish to pass all around our table. We had an official welcome, we clapped and cheered.
The pasta was wonderful, with more kick than at Hotel Park. When we were eating our second course (turkey and salad) Britt came by and told us about Mister Rogers very seriously. We were all downcast. Then Edit said that she knew Mister Rogers, that he used to take her to Luby's when she was little and couldn't speak English (she's Hungarian). We were all really feeling for her. She said she didn't know him that well, but was getting tears in her eyes anyway. We sat like that, sad for a few minutes, and even sang the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood theme song. Then Edit burst out, "Wait! I didn't know Mister Rogers--it was Mister Peppermint!"
We laughed our lungs out for fully five minutes and more. Britt nearly fell on the floor. None of us have laughed like that in years, and some of us (including me) laughed so hard we cried for the first time in our lives. Everyone else stare at our table like we were nuts. Edit's mascara was so smeared it was hopeless. She said that Mister Peppermint sometimes used to tell dirty jokes on his show that none of the kids got, but that their parents were horrified. He apparently sometimes got into a little trouble. I was still sad about Mister Rogers, though. "Won't you be mine, won't you be mine." How he always used to change his shoes and sweater to go outside.
So after dinner I found Valerie and Carmen upset because a few students had their rooms in a building across the street because there just barely wasn't enough room in Santa Chiara (the south wing is still not open). They feel excluded, and I completely understand. We wandered into the TV room because we heard Life is Beautiful was going to be watched at 9:30. Valerie and I poured over the fiction-filled bookshelves. There was some good stuff. A lot of John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, and the like. A few classics, more random stuff.
The movie was as good as ever. All the girls (including me) were wiping our eyes at the end. Has there ever been a movie with such drastic change in tone that still seemed so artistically even and unified? That's what put me in the mellow mood last night. I can't watch it, at least the second half, so often. I love how it plays off what you already know about the holocaust. They mention the gas showers and you believe it because you've already seen it in movies like Schindler's List, but they don't have to show it in La Vita E Bella.
After the movie at bed time, we began to see the downsides of Santa Chiara. Our room is cold. We have no bath mat. There is no phone in the center except one for emergencies. And I discovered that I don't have a pillowcase. But that should be remedied today. This morning the shower was only lukewarm until the very end, and the pressure isn't so good. But the shower doors are translucent, so someone else can use the restroom while I am in the shower if needs be. That's a plus.
We leave Assisi in about thirty minutes. It's been a good trip and I would love this city without restraint if it weren't for the Basilica charging to talk, and having to search the town for hours to find an internet place. We're going to Perugia today, then back to Castiglion to move into SANTA CHIARA!
Reflections on the Hotel Park
Cons: small rooms, too much smoke, flooded shower drain, running out of toilet paper
Pros: warm showers, real towels, warm blankets, secret passageway to the roof, warm room, comfy bed
More Cons: not so tasty food, more smoke, Gianni's makeup, rotten fruit, repetitive food, manager
More Pros: cats riding the elevators, awesome roommates, Gianni's theme song, catwalk between balconies, refrigerator window, telephone and television
More Cons: locking ourselves out of the room, light going out, walking up the hill to class.
Exactly Midnight---
I'm in a rather mellow mood tonight. There's a reason why, though today has been a packed and eventful day. We found out that Mister Rogers died yesterday. I feel like it's the death of the eighties children. I really miss Mister Rogers, especially after he made a cameo on the Arthur the aardvark cartoon. But shall I describe the day?
We left Assisi this morning at 9:30, for Perugia, the only large city in Umbria (the region east of Tuscany) and none of us liked it very much. We just went to an art museum (religious art) that would have been neat had I not been so tired. I ate lunch with Morgan at a pizza place. We bought chocolate because the best chocolate in the world is supposed to be from Perugia. The thing is, though it was made in Perugia, most of that chocolate you can buy elsewhere anyway. I accidentally got cooking chocolate and it was really hard. Morgan said I should melt it and cover strawberries, but I don't know a safe way to melt the chocolate.
We met up with the architecture group and went down to a very ghetto square that was deserted. Peter up and decided that we should redesign the square to liven it up in the 45 minutes we had. I didn't have my sketchbook, so I went down the steps into the square and found a giant Co-op directly under it. So Kate and I went grocery shopping. I got bananas and strawberries (for the chocolate). Finally, we rode back to Castiglion and went to the bus station, not far from Santa Chiara. No more walking up the hill (except for trains or groceries)!
Saturday, 3/1/03
It's March! And it's noon! I love the church bells. They remind me of The Sound of Music. I can't believe I slept so late, until 11:15. The reason was because with our window shutters closed it's impossible to tell what time it is. I had another flying dream last night. I could float but I was too scared to fly really high. Then I fell in love with a boy who could fly to the top of a mountain. He helped me fly up too, and I flew through a cloud.
Back to yesterday. I didn't finish writing last night not because I was too tired, but because in order to write an entertaining entry my mind has to be alert and I didn't want to waste good memories with boring narration. Not that my narration is by any means that great.
So we moved back to Santa Chiara. All of us were so excited we couldn't handle it, to borrow Karin's phrase. She must have said "I can't handle it" at least 6 or 7 times in the hour and a half we were unpacking before dinner. We were able to unpack! We have drawer space, wardrobe space, shelf space! We have a real, though small, shower! There is a little dust, but no smoke! We all went down to dinner wanting to hug and cheer. The dining hall is wonderful. It has brick arches and lantern lights on the walls.We were served home style (instead of waiters) with a dish to pass all around our table. We had an official welcome, we clapped and cheered.
The pasta was wonderful, with more kick than at Hotel Park. When we were eating our second course (turkey and salad) Britt came by and told us about Mister Rogers very seriously. We were all downcast. Then Edit said that she knew Mister Rogers, that he used to take her to Luby's when she was little and couldn't speak English (she's Hungarian). We were all really feeling for her. She said she didn't know him that well, but was getting tears in her eyes anyway. We sat like that, sad for a few minutes, and even sang the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood theme song. Then Edit burst out, "Wait! I didn't know Mister Rogers--it was Mister Peppermint!"
We laughed our lungs out for fully five minutes and more. Britt nearly fell on the floor. None of us have laughed like that in years, and some of us (including me) laughed so hard we cried for the first time in our lives. Everyone else stare at our table like we were nuts. Edit's mascara was so smeared it was hopeless. She said that Mister Peppermint sometimes used to tell dirty jokes on his show that none of the kids got, but that their parents were horrified. He apparently sometimes got into a little trouble. I was still sad about Mister Rogers, though. "Won't you be mine, won't you be mine." How he always used to change his shoes and sweater to go outside.
So after dinner I found Valerie and Carmen upset because a few students had their rooms in a building across the street because there just barely wasn't enough room in Santa Chiara (the south wing is still not open). They feel excluded, and I completely understand. We wandered into the TV room because we heard Life is Beautiful was going to be watched at 9:30. Valerie and I poured over the fiction-filled bookshelves. There was some good stuff. A lot of John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, and the like. A few classics, more random stuff.
The movie was as good as ever. All the girls (including me) were wiping our eyes at the end. Has there ever been a movie with such drastic change in tone that still seemed so artistically even and unified? That's what put me in the mellow mood last night. I can't watch it, at least the second half, so often. I love how it plays off what you already know about the holocaust. They mention the gas showers and you believe it because you've already seen it in movies like Schindler's List, but they don't have to show it in La Vita E Bella.
After the movie at bed time, we began to see the downsides of Santa Chiara. Our room is cold. We have no bath mat. There is no phone in the center except one for emergencies. And I discovered that I don't have a pillowcase. But that should be remedied today. This morning the shower was only lukewarm until the very end, and the pressure isn't so good. But the shower doors are translucent, so someone else can use the restroom while I am in the shower if needs be. That's a plus.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A field trip to Orvieto and Assisi
Wednesday, 2/26/03
Wow, what a night and what a day! This morning I woke up and felt like I was going to fall over. I was very dizzy and nauseous. ---- said I must have taken some of her hangover onto myself. When I was getting into the shower I prayed that it would be a passing thing and that I wouldn't be sick all day. In the middle of my shower I threw up. For the first time in 7 years! I felt better immediately.
A lot of people were sick. ----was puking the entire bus trip, but that's probably because she was the most drunk last night. Why did I get sick the last day at the hotel? You would think I would have gotten it when everyone else did the first week.
Today was a good day after the first 10 minutes. We checked out of the Hotel Park for good, and then took a long bus trip to Orvieto. From there we took a funicolare (a car that drives up the hill on a track) up the steep hill to the town. We saw the Duomo was nice, but the most remarkable things were Luca Signorelli frescoes, which depicted the last days, the end of the earth, heaven, and hell.
After that we were pretty much free. Valerie, Carmen and I got a cheap lunch and ate it in a little courtyard in the back side of town that overlooked the entire valley. It was sunny and gorgeous. On our way back we went into some underground caves with lots of pots in them. They weren't nearly as extensive as we expected, but it was fun. There was a nice deep well. Last we visited a bar to see the deep, dark wine cellar. It was amazing. The barrels of wine were covered with white mold.
At four we got back on the bus and came to Assisi. I love Assisi. It's only about half the size of Castiglion because there's no new part of town. In the time we had between arrival and dinner Karin, Valerie, Carmen and I went exploring. We found a forbidden path down private property, but went down to see the view. I'm not sure if the private property sign was referring to the path.
We went up the road to a castle at the top of the hill, and played around for a while outside because we couldn't get in the courtyard. But then we found a hoe in the wall, about 2 ft wide! At first we thought there was no way, but I told Valerie that if she went through, I would (I'd gone halfway through and knew it was possible, but didn't know how to pull myself out on the other side). So Valerie went first, brave soul! She had to go in on her stomach, twist once, grab onto the stones above her, and pull her legs out one by one. I went next and she was able to help me out. Then came Karin. Carmen handed our coats in then came through herself.
We played some more, tried to figure out a way to get inside the castle without success, then climbed up on the wall (the ground inside the courtyard came up almost level with the top of the wall in one place, but there was a long drop on the outside so we couldn't get out that way). We had to climb back through the hole, which was harder now because the hole was actually wider on the inside, so there was more room to move around in when coming in. Valerie used a big trash dumpster (luckily it was there) to hold herself up to get out. After she helped Carmen, they had to grab Karin and me around the waists to pull us out. When we were all out we hugged like it was the end of a beauty pageant.
Thursday, 2/27/03
I'm sitting in the window sill of our hotel room in Assisi. The sun is shining on me and it's very warm. I feel like Snow White or Cinderella. Any minute now, a bird is going to land on my hand and sing me a song. It's thirty minutes until lunch.
This morning we went to the Church of St. Francis (San Francesco). It was very colorful. There was the lower level which was the main chapel, then the upper with Giotto's frescoes, then there was a basement level with the tomb of St. Francis. When we walked in there was a group of priests [friars?] singing Gregorian chants. At first I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was down the stairs where the tomb was. There's a beautiful inner courtyard. The entire complex (the monastery) is gorgeous. But when I was inside Valerie told me that because Paolo was talking a monk got really mad and started yelling at him. Paolo yelled back that the monk was not a man of peace, and ended up getting escorted out of the church. Paolo shouldn't have been talking since there were Silencio signs everywhere, but we found out from him later that if you want to talk in the church, you actually have to pay. We were all pretty disappointed.
After that we went to the underground ruins under the square and temple of Minerva. The temple, of course, has been re-dedicated as a Christian church. Then I went off with Carmen and Valerie to visit Santa Chiara (St. Claire), the sister church to San Francesco, and the Duomo, San Rufino. There was a weird little man who tried to shoo us out of the prayer chapel. I guess he's the self-appointed guardian of the church.
Whew! After lunch Valerie, Carmen and I set out to find an internet point to get our Ryan Air tickets, but the only one we could actually find was closed until March. So we asked many many shopkeepers where to find an internet place and finally after two solid hours of looking, we found one. Breath. It took a long time (because the computer was so slow) and we had to cut out a lot of places we wanted to go. It would've been too confining to book up a lot of flights to different cities when we're not sure what all we want to see, not to mention expensive. So we cut out Ireland, Barcelona, and Southern France. Now we are going to travel England and Scotland, then go to Paris. From there we'll come back to Milan.
We were exhausted, but we hiked back up to the fortress to get the pictures we didn't last night. We ended up having to climb through the hole again because it was locked again by the time we got there. So we kind of reenacted our climb scene (though Karin wasn't there) and poised inside the courtyard for pictures.
Wow, what a night and what a day! This morning I woke up and felt like I was going to fall over. I was very dizzy and nauseous. ---- said I must have taken some of her hangover onto myself. When I was getting into the shower I prayed that it would be a passing thing and that I wouldn't be sick all day. In the middle of my shower I threw up. For the first time in 7 years! I felt better immediately.
A lot of people were sick. ----was puking the entire bus trip, but that's probably because she was the most drunk last night. Why did I get sick the last day at the hotel? You would think I would have gotten it when everyone else did the first week.
Today was a good day after the first 10 minutes. We checked out of the Hotel Park for good, and then took a long bus trip to Orvieto. From there we took a funicolare (a car that drives up the hill on a track) up the steep hill to the town. We saw the Duomo was nice, but the most remarkable things were Luca Signorelli frescoes, which depicted the last days, the end of the earth, heaven, and hell.
After that we were pretty much free. Valerie, Carmen and I got a cheap lunch and ate it in a little courtyard in the back side of town that overlooked the entire valley. It was sunny and gorgeous. On our way back we went into some underground caves with lots of pots in them. They weren't nearly as extensive as we expected, but it was fun. There was a nice deep well. Last we visited a bar to see the deep, dark wine cellar. It was amazing. The barrels of wine were covered with white mold.
At four we got back on the bus and came to Assisi. I love Assisi. It's only about half the size of Castiglion because there's no new part of town. In the time we had between arrival and dinner Karin, Valerie, Carmen and I went exploring. We found a forbidden path down private property, but went down to see the view. I'm not sure if the private property sign was referring to the path.
We went up the road to a castle at the top of the hill, and played around for a while outside because we couldn't get in the courtyard. But then we found a hoe in the wall, about 2 ft wide! At first we thought there was no way, but I told Valerie that if she went through, I would (I'd gone halfway through and knew it was possible, but didn't know how to pull myself out on the other side). So Valerie went first, brave soul! She had to go in on her stomach, twist once, grab onto the stones above her, and pull her legs out one by one. I went next and she was able to help me out. Then came Karin. Carmen handed our coats in then came through herself.
We played some more, tried to figure out a way to get inside the castle without success, then climbed up on the wall (the ground inside the courtyard came up almost level with the top of the wall in one place, but there was a long drop on the outside so we couldn't get out that way). We had to climb back through the hole, which was harder now because the hole was actually wider on the inside, so there was more room to move around in when coming in. Valerie used a big trash dumpster (luckily it was there) to hold herself up to get out. After she helped Carmen, they had to grab Karin and me around the waists to pull us out. When we were all out we hugged like it was the end of a beauty pageant.
Thursday, 2/27/03
I'm sitting in the window sill of our hotel room in Assisi. The sun is shining on me and it's very warm. I feel like Snow White or Cinderella. Any minute now, a bird is going to land on my hand and sing me a song. It's thirty minutes until lunch.
This morning we went to the Church of St. Francis (San Francesco). It was very colorful. There was the lower level which was the main chapel, then the upper with Giotto's frescoes, then there was a basement level with the tomb of St. Francis. When we walked in there was a group of priests [friars?] singing Gregorian chants. At first I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was down the stairs where the tomb was. There's a beautiful inner courtyard. The entire complex (the monastery) is gorgeous. But when I was inside Valerie told me that because Paolo was talking a monk got really mad and started yelling at him. Paolo yelled back that the monk was not a man of peace, and ended up getting escorted out of the church. Paolo shouldn't have been talking since there were Silencio signs everywhere, but we found out from him later that if you want to talk in the church, you actually have to pay. We were all pretty disappointed.
After that we went to the underground ruins under the square and temple of Minerva. The temple, of course, has been re-dedicated as a Christian church. Then I went off with Carmen and Valerie to visit Santa Chiara (St. Claire), the sister church to San Francesco, and the Duomo, San Rufino. There was a weird little man who tried to shoo us out of the prayer chapel. I guess he's the self-appointed guardian of the church.
Whew! After lunch Valerie, Carmen and I set out to find an internet point to get our Ryan Air tickets, but the only one we could actually find was closed until March. So we asked many many shopkeepers where to find an internet place and finally after two solid hours of looking, we found one. Breath. It took a long time (because the computer was so slow) and we had to cut out a lot of places we wanted to go. It would've been too confining to book up a lot of flights to different cities when we're not sure what all we want to see, not to mention expensive. So we cut out Ireland, Barcelona, and Southern France. Now we are going to travel England and Scotland, then go to Paris. From there we'll come back to Milan.
We were exhausted, but we hiked back up to the fortress to get the pictures we didn't last night. We ended up having to climb through the hole again because it was locked again by the time we got there. So we kind of reenacted our climb scene (though Karin wasn't there) and poised inside the courtyard for pictures.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Life in Castiglion Fio, a trip to Pisa, and a Pride & Prejudice Party
Thursday 2/6/03
I got almost 8 hours of sleep last night but nevertheless, I still went back to bed after breakfast. Then we met Paolo at the town hall at 11 and toured the local art gallery. I sketched, but didn't take pictures. We came back for lunch which, for a change, was tuna salad instead of meat and potatoes. After a course of pasta, of course.
We had a meeting after lunch to discuss the Santa Chiara situation and we are now scheduled to move in the last day of February. We took a tour of it today, and it is gorgeous. The courtyard has a breathtaking view. Then we had studio and Peter demonstrated to us how to watercolor. I am going to try tomorrow. We then met officially with the Mayor of Castiglion Fiorentino in the town hall. I ate all my junk food while reading Persuasion in the 30 minutes we had between that and dinner. Tomorrow I am going to the Co-op to get some major grape juice because seeing wine makes me crave it. We had good chicken for dinner. I have also become very grateful for the fruit afterward.
A lot of people went out tonight, and several played a crazy card game and got drunk downstairs in the bar.
Sunday, 2/9/03
I am in a very somber mood at the moment. I just went up to the roof to get away and it was very nice but a breeze was blowing just too cool for comfort, and there was no where to sit outside the path of the wind. I don't mind being here, but I don't want my roommates to think I just sit in bed all day when I don't have anything else to do. I still haven't found out where church is, so I just have to make the most of the Sabbath on my own.
Now, to catch up on the rest of the weekend. What did I do on Friday? I slept in, for one. After lunch Karin and I attempted to get our train tickets to Pisa from the ticket machine, but it didn't work. Then we wen to the Co-op and I got apple juice, because I guess Italians use all their grapes for wine. I also got a cake thing for breakfast on Saturday, and some chocolate. They are both gone now.
Friday afternoon I couldn't find anything as a watercolor subject in my room and I didn't want to go outside so I was going to do a storyboard type thing for a scene in my story. I couldn't draw anything remotely to be identified with fire in pencil though, so Karin and I went to the Tobacci and I got some cheap colored pencils. She got markers. My storyboard didn't turn out too well because I just can't draw things worth anything that I'm not looking at. It's a beginning, though. I even wrote a little bit. It's terrible, but at least I got my ideas on paper in two mediums. Visualizing my stories helps me to think more creatively about them and will, I think, improve my writing.
The next morning Karin and I got up for the 6:54 train to Pisa. We ran to the station worrying that we wouldn't be able to get our tickets (we had talked to someone and straightened out the problem with the machine) but it worked fine and we had five minutes to spare. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get there, with changing trains in Florence. We took the early train because we thought there would be more to do in Pisa than there really was. We planned on meeting someone in front of the tower at noon and so we just wasted the morning in the drab, uninteresting town. But she didn't show up. So, using Karin's "Let's Go" book we hunted for a little sandwich place to eat. It wasn't there. There was only a broken down plant shop. So much for travel guides.
We crossed the Arno again (which, being near the mouth, was very dirty and un-beautiful) for the third time to make our way back to the restaurants that we knew were near the chapel/tower/baptistery complex. After grabbing a sandwich we got our tickets to the Piazza del Duomo. It was €8,50 for everything but the tower. We went to a museum first where we saw models of the buildings, statues from them, and all kinds of other artifacts. Then we went to the Baptistery because the Duomo was closed for lunch. The Battistero was absolutely beautiful, round with two stacks of arches around the inside, but I won't attempt to describe it further. We climbed to the third level inside the roof, which I didn't know you could do, and realized that we were as high as the leaning tower. My legs were shaking with fatigue by the time we got down, so we decided not to pay the extra €15 for the tower. It sure is amazing from the outside, though. It looks so much more unsettling in real life than in pictures. No matter how long I stared at it, every time I came out of another building, it struck me again. It just looks so wrong. It really looks like it's going to fall over.
After the baptistery we went into the Camposanto (cemetery), a beautiful rectangular building with a courtyard in the center. The frescoes on the walls were burned in WWII so the walls were just blank, but the statues and marble grave tiles were gorgeous, as well as the marble walls that divided the hall from the courtyard. The walls were intricate, looked like they should have stained glass windows in them, but they didn't. The interior, if you could call it interior, was very much linked with the inner courtyard.
The Duomo itself was more beautiful than either the Duomo at Florence, or Santa Croce. The walls were all painted, there was a double row of arches in the side isles with vaults, and the ceiling, though flat, had a gold square pattern on it. We went to one more museum after that but all it was was an attempt to reconstruct the ruined frescoes. It would have been interesting if there was enough left of them to able to tell what they were depicting. After that museum we were out of Pisa. So, let it be known that there is only one site worth visiting in Pisa and it only takes half a day.
So the question after Pisa was, "Where to now?" We didn't want to go back to Castiglion early so we could either hang out in Firenze or stop in a town called Lucca. Lucca won because we won't have another chance to go there, even though the way the trains worked out, we could only spend an hour there.
The cool thing about Lucca was that, unlike many Tuscan towns, it isn't on a hill, but has a thick wall and a moat around it. The wall is 4km in perimeter and is wide enough for a small road and jogging paths on either side of it. The inner side just has a steep slope of grass going down where the wall itself is visible from the outer rim. Karin and I walked up the wall, down on the inside, and went into the town. We saw hardly anyone until, suddenly, the streets were packed with people shopping. What the heck was going on? We had no idea the town even had that many people, and why were they all shopping at once? So we made our way to the center of town, the Piazza Amfiteatro, which really was dead. It was a square that really wasn't square, but oval, with all the surrounding buildings touching, except for the four arches which accessed the piazza.
So Lucca has an oval center, with a ring of buildings surrounding it, then circular streets and plan, a moat around that, with a wall around that, then the newer part of the city surrounding, and on top of that, the beautiful night silhouette of mountains all the way around. We walked to the opposite side of town and then circled back on top of the wall We went by the garden district which was very pretty, though we could hardly see because it was dark. All this in one hour!
I forgot to mention that in Pisa we saw a nun riding a bicycle! I wanted to take a picture but I thought it would be rude.
Monday, 2/10/03
To finish up yesterday, I sketched a key for my studio project then attempted to watercolor it. Ate dinner and was going to finish my painting, but I found out that Kate was having a Pride & Prejudice party. So we pulled all three of their beds together and me, Kate, Morgan, Dixie, and Cady started watching P&P on Morgan's laptop. We only meant to watch the first half but part 4 was on the first DVD and I thought that would be a better stopping place than right after she rejects him. But the ending of part 4 is so wonderful that Morgan insisted on watching the rest. Kate and I practically have the movie memorized but the others hadn't seen it. So I didn't get to bed until after 3. I slept in, went to lunch, and went to studio to build a model of my key. After dinner I was going to improve my project but Morgan wanted to watch P&P again so much that we did, this time with Marie. We were sensible though, and only watched parts 1 and 2. Morgan is in love with Colin Firth now. It is quite hilarious. Buona notte.
I got almost 8 hours of sleep last night but nevertheless, I still went back to bed after breakfast. Then we met Paolo at the town hall at 11 and toured the local art gallery. I sketched, but didn't take pictures. We came back for lunch which, for a change, was tuna salad instead of meat and potatoes. After a course of pasta, of course.
We had a meeting after lunch to discuss the Santa Chiara situation and we are now scheduled to move in the last day of February. We took a tour of it today, and it is gorgeous. The courtyard has a breathtaking view. Then we had studio and Peter demonstrated to us how to watercolor. I am going to try tomorrow. We then met officially with the Mayor of Castiglion Fiorentino in the town hall. I ate all my junk food while reading Persuasion in the 30 minutes we had between that and dinner. Tomorrow I am going to the Co-op to get some major grape juice because seeing wine makes me crave it. We had good chicken for dinner. I have also become very grateful for the fruit afterward.
A lot of people went out tonight, and several played a crazy card game and got drunk downstairs in the bar.
Sunday, 2/9/03
I am in a very somber mood at the moment. I just went up to the roof to get away and it was very nice but a breeze was blowing just too cool for comfort, and there was no where to sit outside the path of the wind. I don't mind being here, but I don't want my roommates to think I just sit in bed all day when I don't have anything else to do. I still haven't found out where church is, so I just have to make the most of the Sabbath on my own.
Now, to catch up on the rest of the weekend. What did I do on Friday? I slept in, for one. After lunch Karin and I attempted to get our train tickets to Pisa from the ticket machine, but it didn't work. Then we wen to the Co-op and I got apple juice, because I guess Italians use all their grapes for wine. I also got a cake thing for breakfast on Saturday, and some chocolate. They are both gone now.
Friday afternoon I couldn't find anything as a watercolor subject in my room and I didn't want to go outside so I was going to do a storyboard type thing for a scene in my story. I couldn't draw anything remotely to be identified with fire in pencil though, so Karin and I went to the Tobacci and I got some cheap colored pencils. She got markers. My storyboard didn't turn out too well because I just can't draw things worth anything that I'm not looking at. It's a beginning, though. I even wrote a little bit. It's terrible, but at least I got my ideas on paper in two mediums. Visualizing my stories helps me to think more creatively about them and will, I think, improve my writing.
The next morning Karin and I got up for the 6:54 train to Pisa. We ran to the station worrying that we wouldn't be able to get our tickets (we had talked to someone and straightened out the problem with the machine) but it worked fine and we had five minutes to spare. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get there, with changing trains in Florence. We took the early train because we thought there would be more to do in Pisa than there really was. We planned on meeting someone in front of the tower at noon and so we just wasted the morning in the drab, uninteresting town. But she didn't show up. So, using Karin's "Let's Go" book we hunted for a little sandwich place to eat. It wasn't there. There was only a broken down plant shop. So much for travel guides.
We crossed the Arno again (which, being near the mouth, was very dirty and un-beautiful) for the third time to make our way back to the restaurants that we knew were near the chapel/tower/baptistery complex. After grabbing a sandwich we got our tickets to the Piazza del Duomo. It was €8,50 for everything but the tower. We went to a museum first where we saw models of the buildings, statues from them, and all kinds of other artifacts. Then we went to the Baptistery because the Duomo was closed for lunch. The Battistero was absolutely beautiful, round with two stacks of arches around the inside, but I won't attempt to describe it further. We climbed to the third level inside the roof, which I didn't know you could do, and realized that we were as high as the leaning tower. My legs were shaking with fatigue by the time we got down, so we decided not to pay the extra €15 for the tower. It sure is amazing from the outside, though. It looks so much more unsettling in real life than in pictures. No matter how long I stared at it, every time I came out of another building, it struck me again. It just looks so wrong. It really looks like it's going to fall over.
After the baptistery we went into the Camposanto (cemetery), a beautiful rectangular building with a courtyard in the center. The frescoes on the walls were burned in WWII so the walls were just blank, but the statues and marble grave tiles were gorgeous, as well as the marble walls that divided the hall from the courtyard. The walls were intricate, looked like they should have stained glass windows in them, but they didn't. The interior, if you could call it interior, was very much linked with the inner courtyard.
The Duomo itself was more beautiful than either the Duomo at Florence, or Santa Croce. The walls were all painted, there was a double row of arches in the side isles with vaults, and the ceiling, though flat, had a gold square pattern on it. We went to one more museum after that but all it was was an attempt to reconstruct the ruined frescoes. It would have been interesting if there was enough left of them to able to tell what they were depicting. After that museum we were out of Pisa. So, let it be known that there is only one site worth visiting in Pisa and it only takes half a day.
So the question after Pisa was, "Where to now?" We didn't want to go back to Castiglion early so we could either hang out in Firenze or stop in a town called Lucca. Lucca won because we won't have another chance to go there, even though the way the trains worked out, we could only spend an hour there.
The cool thing about Lucca was that, unlike many Tuscan towns, it isn't on a hill, but has a thick wall and a moat around it. The wall is 4km in perimeter and is wide enough for a small road and jogging paths on either side of it. The inner side just has a steep slope of grass going down where the wall itself is visible from the outer rim. Karin and I walked up the wall, down on the inside, and went into the town. We saw hardly anyone until, suddenly, the streets were packed with people shopping. What the heck was going on? We had no idea the town even had that many people, and why were they all shopping at once? So we made our way to the center of town, the Piazza Amfiteatro, which really was dead. It was a square that really wasn't square, but oval, with all the surrounding buildings touching, except for the four arches which accessed the piazza.
So Lucca has an oval center, with a ring of buildings surrounding it, then circular streets and plan, a moat around that, with a wall around that, then the newer part of the city surrounding, and on top of that, the beautiful night silhouette of mountains all the way around. We walked to the opposite side of town and then circled back on top of the wall We went by the garden district which was very pretty, though we could hardly see because it was dark. All this in one hour!
I forgot to mention that in Pisa we saw a nun riding a bicycle! I wanted to take a picture but I thought it would be rude.
Monday, 2/10/03
To finish up yesterday, I sketched a key for my studio project then attempted to watercolor it. Ate dinner and was going to finish my painting, but I found out that Kate was having a Pride & Prejudice party. So we pulled all three of their beds together and me, Kate, Morgan, Dixie, and Cady started watching P&P on Morgan's laptop. We only meant to watch the first half but part 4 was on the first DVD and I thought that would be a better stopping place than right after she rejects him. But the ending of part 4 is so wonderful that Morgan insisted on watching the rest. Kate and I practically have the movie memorized but the others hadn't seen it. So I didn't get to bed until after 3. I slept in, went to lunch, and went to studio to build a model of my key. After dinner I was going to improve my project but Morgan wanted to watch P&P again so much that we did, this time with Marie. We were sensible though, and only watched parts 1 and 2. Morgan is in love with Colin Firth now. It is quite hilarious. Buona notte.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Intro to Castiglion Fiorentino
Wednesday, 1/29/03
It is 9pm and I am so ready to go to sleep. This morning we had a nice big roll for breakfast. Yay! I didn't think it would fill me up but it stuck for a surprisingly long time. After breakfast we went on a nice long tour of the town. This town is awe-inspiring. It didn't seem very remarkable at first because we were on the main roads at the bottom of the hill. But once we got up into the old part of town, every cobblestone wanted to claim my fascination. The streets are very narrow, yet cars drive through just like they have all the room in the world. We had to stand flat against the walls several times to avoid being run over. The walls are high, the tiny gardens beautiful. And the streets are the steepest I have ever seen. The ones that had steps in addition to being very steep were the scariest and most beautiful. There are arches everywhere, each door is a work of art, and the scenery of the hillside is gorgeous.
We got back in time for lunch, which was (as well as dinner yesterday and today) pasta with Parmesan, then sliced meat and potatoes of varying forms (mashed or roasted). After lunch we had orientation info on trains, then studio, etc., then the history and culture of Italy.
Karin and I went back into town after that to retrace our steps and take pictures. We went into the city library and city hall, then went up to the top of the hill to the castle ruin. The castle was great, full with those narrow arrow holes in the walls. The only problem was that we couldn't get inside anything other than a courtyard. Then, on the way back down we couldn't find Santa Chiara, which we had passed this morning, and we got a little lost. But you really can't get lost in Castiglion Fiorentino, so we made our way back to the main road pretty quickly. We never found Santa Chiara. I'm going to bed. Jet lag is extreme.
Thursday, 1/30/03
A lot has happened today. First of all, I woke up at 3:45 in the morning. For the life of me, I coudn't go back to sleep. I'm sure my biological clock is completely jacked up. I set my alarm for 7, but didn't get up until 8:15. Cady had even more trouble than I did, and finally, we made it known to each other that we were both awake. She said she needed medicine (a lot of the other students' digestive systems, we found out later, were going beserk) and suddenly a voice piped up, "I have some!" It was Karin, who we had accidentally woken up. When she said that so unexpectedly I just couldn't stop snickering. The entire time while I was awake I just wanted to burst out in guffaws to release some repressed energy, even though I was still dead tired.
We ate our trusty roll for breakfast, and hot chocolate in my case, then we went back up into town for a lecture from Paolo. We went inside a beautiful Catholic church and he talked about the religious symbolism of the architecture. We came back for lunch, which began with the traditional pasta, but lo and behold the second course, instead of sliced meat, was a delicious tuna salad! It had tomatoes and celery in it.
After lunch we again went back up into the town with Peter and went up to the tower at the top of the hill were he pointed out our project site, talked a bit about Etruscan architecture, and what types of buildings would and wouldn't fit in the setting and be allowed by the community. We also toured the Etruscan museum in the community library and Peter talked about how much Americans waste. 4% of world population, 20% consumption of energy and natural gases. He also gave an assignment to sketch the objects there and become obsessed with the shapes.
Directly afterward, us architecture students met with everyone else at a bar where they were welcoming us with hors d'oerves. The bar was neat--its lower portion of three rooms was all underground. Then I went with Dixie to the cell phone shop and we came back for dinner (I haven't had a drumstick in forever! It was great). And that brings me to now, where I am sitting in the lobby with a silly television show and a handful of smoking Italians.
It is 9pm and I am so ready to go to sleep. This morning we had a nice big roll for breakfast. Yay! I didn't think it would fill me up but it stuck for a surprisingly long time. After breakfast we went on a nice long tour of the town. This town is awe-inspiring. It didn't seem very remarkable at first because we were on the main roads at the bottom of the hill. But once we got up into the old part of town, every cobblestone wanted to claim my fascination. The streets are very narrow, yet cars drive through just like they have all the room in the world. We had to stand flat against the walls several times to avoid being run over. The walls are high, the tiny gardens beautiful. And the streets are the steepest I have ever seen. The ones that had steps in addition to being very steep were the scariest and most beautiful. There are arches everywhere, each door is a work of art, and the scenery of the hillside is gorgeous.
We got back in time for lunch, which was (as well as dinner yesterday and today) pasta with Parmesan, then sliced meat and potatoes of varying forms (mashed or roasted). After lunch we had orientation info on trains, then studio, etc., then the history and culture of Italy.
Karin and I went back into town after that to retrace our steps and take pictures. We went into the city library and city hall, then went up to the top of the hill to the castle ruin. The castle was great, full with those narrow arrow holes in the walls. The only problem was that we couldn't get inside anything other than a courtyard. Then, on the way back down we couldn't find Santa Chiara, which we had passed this morning, and we got a little lost. But you really can't get lost in Castiglion Fiorentino, so we made our way back to the main road pretty quickly. We never found Santa Chiara. I'm going to bed. Jet lag is extreme.
Thursday, 1/30/03
A lot has happened today. First of all, I woke up at 3:45 in the morning. For the life of me, I coudn't go back to sleep. I'm sure my biological clock is completely jacked up. I set my alarm for 7, but didn't get up until 8:15. Cady had even more trouble than I did, and finally, we made it known to each other that we were both awake. She said she needed medicine (a lot of the other students' digestive systems, we found out later, were going beserk) and suddenly a voice piped up, "I have some!" It was Karin, who we had accidentally woken up. When she said that so unexpectedly I just couldn't stop snickering. The entire time while I was awake I just wanted to burst out in guffaws to release some repressed energy, even though I was still dead tired.
We ate our trusty roll for breakfast, and hot chocolate in my case, then we went back up into town for a lecture from Paolo. We went inside a beautiful Catholic church and he talked about the religious symbolism of the architecture. We came back for lunch, which began with the traditional pasta, but lo and behold the second course, instead of sliced meat, was a delicious tuna salad! It had tomatoes and celery in it.
After lunch we again went back up into the town with Peter and went up to the tower at the top of the hill were he pointed out our project site, talked a bit about Etruscan architecture, and what types of buildings would and wouldn't fit in the setting and be allowed by the community. We also toured the Etruscan museum in the community library and Peter talked about how much Americans waste. 4% of world population, 20% consumption of energy and natural gases. He also gave an assignment to sketch the objects there and become obsessed with the shapes.
Directly afterward, us architecture students met with everyone else at a bar where they were welcoming us with hors d'oerves. The bar was neat--its lower portion of three rooms was all underground. Then I went with Dixie to the cell phone shop and we came back for dinner (I haven't had a drumstick in forever! It was great). And that brings me to now, where I am sitting in the lobby with a silly television show and a handful of smoking Italians.
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