Tuesday, 8/4/03
I slept in this morning and was pretty angry at myself, considering I didn't know when or where to meet for the Super Tuesday event. So I went to Arts & Civilization and Marco talked about Venice. I'm so excited about going next week! After lunch Maari, Morgan and I stuck the logo stickers on our uniforms (the logo is of Peter's head). Then I went to my room intending to do something constructive, but ended up reading The Bourne Identity instead.
I don't know if I mentioned Super Tuesday, but basically, we trudge around in the muddy fields in marshmallow suits looking for random objects and pretending they inspire a work of architecture in us. It didn't turn out too bad. The group designated to design a shelter came up with this neat styrofoam board tent structure, but it was so windy that it started tearing. It partially stood up, but with loose ends blowing it looked like a creative moving sculpture. Or it could've just been a two headed giraffe.
Morgan and I, when we were walking down the muddy path to the site and collecting 2-4 inches of mud on our shoes, took turns carrying one of the big foam board cylinders and tried to romanticize the situation. Morgan said a knight on a white horse would come riding up and save us, but I said that more likely he would be in a space suit, since we looked rather futuristic ourselves, in our white bio-hazard suits. It was annoying when I finally found an object, but accidentally popped my balloon marker with it. Morgan and I also wanted to roll down the haystack next to the scary abandoned storage building, but it was rather smelly and suspicious.
So I was tired by the time we were done and got extremely angry at the dumb cylinder I had to carry back up the hill. It wasn't heavy, but just big enough that it couldn't be carried in a comfortable position. I was ready to kick it into the creek and yell at everyone behind me. But I made it back, and watched a nice sunset while waiting for our ride. Afterward I intended to do something constructive but read The Bourne Identity.
I sat with ---- & ---- at dinner and laughed almost the entire time. ----has such a talent for acting like a two year old but being so cute that it's hilarious. After dinner I intended to get to work, but read The Bourne Identity.
Showing posts with label Morgan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morgan. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A Murder, and an..ahem..Art Exhibit
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!
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!
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.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Roma!
Wednesday, 2/19/03
I am pooped! This is the reason I didn't write last night, and it'll be a struggle now. To finish up pre-Rome: I regret to say that I hardly remember Monday. Oh yes, I had my first mixed media class and it was frustrating. I guess I'm just not very good at abstract design. It went okay, though. After lunch I finally started compiling my magazine cutouts in studio, but still don't have a lot of substantial work done.
I had only about 15 pages of I Capture the Castle left before dinner, and I was in agony. I told Karin that if I hadn't read the book before, I wouldn't have come down for dinner. After dinner Kate came into out room wanting to use the secret door and she grabbed my book and ran off! Before I could put my shoes on and run out after her she was back in, had circled out the secret door to the fourth floor, then back down the regular stairs. I ran out with her and we explored the entirety of secret passageways. Then I walked on the catwalk from Sean & Eric's window to Andrea & Rory's balcony. It was a little scary, but I did it because the boys said that Dixie had stolen all their food from their outside windowsill (we call them refrigerators) via the catwalk as a joke.
I finally finished I Capture the Castle an hour after I was supposed to and the ending still broke my heart, even though it was my third time reading it. I can't express how wonderful that book is.
I actually fit everything I needed for Rome and Pompeii in my normal backpack. Good thing too, for I haven't any other. So when we got to Rome we walked by the Colosseum but didn't go in, then through the Roman Forum which was awesome. Morgan and I stopped for a few seconds to take pictures and when we looked up the group had vanished! We ran up two exits at the other side, up to the Wedding Cake [Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II], and back to the Arch for about 20 minutes. Then Morgan called Omar's cell phone, and the group was still in the same place they'd been before! They had just moved into a corner for a few minutes. We felt pretty stupid, but it was funny.
We walked through the square of the Capitoline Museums [Campidoglio] with the statue of Marcus Aurelius (not destroyed, because the Christians had mistaken him for Constantine) then to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is always our landmark to get back to the hotel.
In our free time in the afternoon a lot of us planned on going out to the catacombs but we were slow in getting our plans together to get a taxi, so by the time we would've gotten there it would be closed (it turned out that it was closed on Tuesdays anyway). So then we were going to see the Colosseum inside (this whole time we were losing people from our group, and gaining some. It was confusing). But apparently we couldn't read maps, because by the time we figured out where we were, we were on the other side of the forum and it was getting dark. We went to the museums instead. They were really neat, with paintings, frescoes, and sculptures. I am desperately in love with sculpture, particularly Bernini and Michelangelo. Cady got a beautiful Bernini book at the museum. I am going to have to search for it on e-bay some time. Bernini: the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, by Rudolf Wittkower.
When we got home in the evening Valerie and I watched Ghost in French. I didn't have the energy for anything else.
I am pooped! This is the reason I didn't write last night, and it'll be a struggle now. To finish up pre-Rome: I regret to say that I hardly remember Monday. Oh yes, I had my first mixed media class and it was frustrating. I guess I'm just not very good at abstract design. It went okay, though. After lunch I finally started compiling my magazine cutouts in studio, but still don't have a lot of substantial work done.
I had only about 15 pages of I Capture the Castle left before dinner, and I was in agony. I told Karin that if I hadn't read the book before, I wouldn't have come down for dinner. After dinner Kate came into out room wanting to use the secret door and she grabbed my book and ran off! Before I could put my shoes on and run out after her she was back in, had circled out the secret door to the fourth floor, then back down the regular stairs. I ran out with her and we explored the entirety of secret passageways. Then I walked on the catwalk from Sean & Eric's window to Andrea & Rory's balcony. It was a little scary, but I did it because the boys said that Dixie had stolen all their food from their outside windowsill (we call them refrigerators) via the catwalk as a joke.
I finally finished I Capture the Castle an hour after I was supposed to and the ending still broke my heart, even though it was my third time reading it. I can't express how wonderful that book is.
I actually fit everything I needed for Rome and Pompeii in my normal backpack. Good thing too, for I haven't any other. So when we got to Rome we walked by the Colosseum but didn't go in, then through the Roman Forum which was awesome. Morgan and I stopped for a few seconds to take pictures and when we looked up the group had vanished! We ran up two exits at the other side, up to the Wedding Cake [Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II], and back to the Arch for about 20 minutes. Then Morgan called Omar's cell phone, and the group was still in the same place they'd been before! They had just moved into a corner for a few minutes. We felt pretty stupid, but it was funny.
We walked through the square of the Capitoline Museums [Campidoglio] with the statue of Marcus Aurelius (not destroyed, because the Christians had mistaken him for Constantine) then to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is always our landmark to get back to the hotel.
In our free time in the afternoon a lot of us planned on going out to the catacombs but we were slow in getting our plans together to get a taxi, so by the time we would've gotten there it would be closed (it turned out that it was closed on Tuesdays anyway). So then we were going to see the Colosseum inside (this whole time we were losing people from our group, and gaining some. It was confusing). But apparently we couldn't read maps, because by the time we figured out where we were, we were on the other side of the forum and it was getting dark. We went to the museums instead. They were really neat, with paintings, frescoes, and sculptures. I am desperately in love with sculpture, particularly Bernini and Michelangelo. Cady got a beautiful Bernini book at the museum. I am going to have to search for it on e-bay some time. Bernini: the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, by Rudolf Wittkower.
When we got home in the evening Valerie and I watched Ghost in French. I didn't have the energy for anything else.
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.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Arezzo and Colle di Val D'Elsa
Monday, 2/3/03
I am on the bus home from today's trip, so now I am virtually 3 days behind. It is just so hard to take my eyes off the Italian landscape. Saturday morning we went to Arezzo. I was with Kate and Morgan and at first we just walked the streets looking at antiques tables. It was market day. There was anything from china to silver, to doors, furniture, chandeliers, keys, paintings, furs, etc. Next we actually went shopping. I wasn't too excited because I didn't want to spend money, but it was actually a lot of fun. Kate, Morgan, and I ended up all getting the same denim skirt [I still wear that skirt, by the way]. Then we ate lunch at a pizza place (very good spinach pizza) and wandered around town, missed the 2 o'clock train, and had the richest, most divine ice cream ever. We went back home at 4, and while I was laying down for my nap Cady found out that the space shuttle Columbia crashed. What a shocker! After watching the news I got my pre-dinner 2 hour nap.
This morning us architecture students knew the bus was leaving at 8, but we had no idea where to. We went to the outskirts of Florence where there actually was a settlement of modern apartments--'60s and '70s. They were concrete, but the craftsmanship was still very detailed. Then we visited a church, a beautiful organic looking church with a curved roof and finger-like pillars inside [San Giovanni Battista church]. Kate, Morgan and I ate McDonald's for lunch at a mall. I think we will not crave American food again for a long time. The mall was neat--all the shops were closed for lunch, but the escalators are long shallow ramps instead of stairs.
Last we went to another medieval town outside Siena called Colle di Val D'Elsa. The interesting thing about it was that, unlike Castiglion Fiorentino, the old town is not sloping up the hill. There are some extremely steep streets up to the top and the old town sits flat on the top. In a way, it had an even more medieval feel than Castiglion because there are no tourists there. There were lots of mysterious streets and dark tunnels--my imagination ran wild. I loved it! We came back, went to the Co-op (grocery), and went to dinner.
I am alone in the hall now and it is 1:13, I only got 5 hours of sleep last night (I woke up so late that I got hyper last night--I ran up our secret staircase but got scared so I ran back down and accidentally banged on someone else's door), and I will only get 6 1/2 tonight. Buono notte.
Tuesday, 2/4/03
Today has been a good day. I woke up at 8, took a shower, ate breakfast, then went to bed again and slept until my 11 o'clock class. I really like Marco's lectures. He is very entertaining and he focuses more on the cultural implications of art than the details of the art itself. Then we had lunch. During studio I sketched an Etruscan carving of a dragon's head several times from different angles. I really like my dragon. I love dragons!
After dinner. I started reading Persuasion, then got so excited about it that I couldn't read it anymore. [what the..?]
I am on the bus home from today's trip, so now I am virtually 3 days behind. It is just so hard to take my eyes off the Italian landscape. Saturday morning we went to Arezzo. I was with Kate and Morgan and at first we just walked the streets looking at antiques tables. It was market day. There was anything from china to silver, to doors, furniture, chandeliers, keys, paintings, furs, etc. Next we actually went shopping. I wasn't too excited because I didn't want to spend money, but it was actually a lot of fun. Kate, Morgan, and I ended up all getting the same denim skirt [I still wear that skirt, by the way]. Then we ate lunch at a pizza place (very good spinach pizza) and wandered around town, missed the 2 o'clock train, and had the richest, most divine ice cream ever. We went back home at 4, and while I was laying down for my nap Cady found out that the space shuttle Columbia crashed. What a shocker! After watching the news I got my pre-dinner 2 hour nap.
This morning us architecture students knew the bus was leaving at 8, but we had no idea where to. We went to the outskirts of Florence where there actually was a settlement of modern apartments--'60s and '70s. They were concrete, but the craftsmanship was still very detailed. Then we visited a church, a beautiful organic looking church with a curved roof and finger-like pillars inside [San Giovanni Battista church]. Kate, Morgan and I ate McDonald's for lunch at a mall. I think we will not crave American food again for a long time. The mall was neat--all the shops were closed for lunch, but the escalators are long shallow ramps instead of stairs.
Last we went to another medieval town outside Siena called Colle di Val D'Elsa. The interesting thing about it was that, unlike Castiglion Fiorentino, the old town is not sloping up the hill. There are some extremely steep streets up to the top and the old town sits flat on the top. In a way, it had an even more medieval feel than Castiglion because there are no tourists there. There were lots of mysterious streets and dark tunnels--my imagination ran wild. I loved it! We came back, went to the Co-op (grocery), and went to dinner.
I am alone in the hall now and it is 1:13, I only got 5 hours of sleep last night (I woke up so late that I got hyper last night--I ran up our secret staircase but got scared so I ran back down and accidentally banged on someone else's door), and I will only get 6 1/2 tonight. Buono notte.
Tuesday, 2/4/03
Today has been a good day. I woke up at 8, took a shower, ate breakfast, then went to bed again and slept until my 11 o'clock class. I really like Marco's lectures. He is very entertaining and he focuses more on the cultural implications of art than the details of the art itself. Then we had lunch. During studio I sketched an Etruscan carving of a dragon's head several times from different angles. I really like my dragon. I love dragons!
After dinner. I started reading Persuasion, then got so excited about it that I couldn't read it anymore. [what the..?]
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