I only have one more week in Rome, now, and that's rather sad. I'm ready to come home, but partially that's because I'm tired of working on schoolwork, and partially because I miss people from Ames (and I miss being around people that aren't all designers...). Even though I'm ready to go home, I'm really going to miss Rome. It's been an interesting semester, for sure, and I'm sad to leave it behind. It'll be really strange to go back to Ames now, for sure. It'll be weird that it's pretty quiet and that there isn't really all that much there. It'll be freezing, too, brr!
I've mostly been stuck in the computer lab trying to finish up my projects before our exhibition on Wednesday, and for the most part they're coming okay. Even though I've been working hard, I've still been trying to go do things as well. This morning was the last time going to the Sunday market.. sad because it almost became a Sunday ritual (usually then followed by grocery shopping.. made me feel like your Sunday grocery rituals, mom, haha!). I think I went to the market every Sunday I was in Rome except maybe the first one?
I've still got a list of things I haven't done yet, but definitely need to before I go home. Luckily, I should have all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to see things a last time, see things I haven't yet (shame!) and wrap up all loose ends....The goal is to finish all my work on Tues. night so we can go to the zoo during the day on Wednesday. Other than that, with my last few days, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do. There are a couple museums I haven't been to yet, that I'll definitely have to visit!
I've been managing fine without my computer, but I'm stuck in the computer lab for a long time. I don't usually like to work in the same place all day, so it's frustrating to be stuck here. I'd also much rather be in the studio room with everyone else. It's a little bit hard when I go home and everyone else is still on their computer and I don't have much to do. Since everyone is trying to finish their projects too, they don't really want to take many breaks. At least I should only have to use the computer for a couple more days, then I won't have to worry about it any more.
Dec 13, 2009
Dec 9, 2009
updates
I ended up going to the second part of the contemporary art gallery, MACRO FUTURE, one evening last week with Colleen and Meghann. It's hours are from 4pm to midnight, which I thought was a little bit odd, but oh well. Turns out, it was pretty much right across the river, so it was actually something that was close to our apartment! That was super nice.
The gallery was really interesting because it was located in the old slaughterhouse, so they basically had two buildings, each with a different exhibit, and both buildings had the large tracks and hooks still there... they were interesting but creepy at the same time. The first exhibit was defined as "surrealist pop," and was full of so many bright colors. There were a lot of American artists on display, which I wasn't expecting. This included Shepherd Fairey, the designer of the Obama "hope" posters. The other exhibit was about the Berlin wall.. it was really neat exhibition (or at least it looked neat), but I would have understood a lot of the stuff there if I could read more Italian, so that was kind of a bummer. There was another installation outside, which was really creepy, actually. There was a couple chairs set up between a couple buildings of the slaughterhouse, with a really bright light shining directly on a hanging cube-like object and into one of the buildings. There were a lot of variations of the cube set up in a very organized way on the floor, but the light cast really dark, long shadows, and the light emphasized the crazy hooks.. Overall, I liked the gallery. It was way different than a lot of things I've seen lately, and it was nice that it was so close to our place. I decided it's a shame that I haven't really gone for walks much in that neighborhood because it seems like there's a bunch of interesting stuff over there, but it also feels really sketchy sometimes, so it's not really a place I would choose to go by myself often. There is a fair trade market over there that I do need to go to before I leave.
Last Friday, I went with some girls up to the 'Bone Church,' or the Capuchin Crypt. It's a little crypt off the side of this church that's decorated entirely with the bones of these monks. It's really crazy how they took different bones to imitate different patterns usually found in churches, and even made bone lamps, a bone clock, and a bone vatican crest. Some of the whole skeletons still had a lot of skin stretched over them... eek. It was so creepy, yet so fascinating at the same time. We ended up stopping at Santa Maria sopra Minerva by the Pantheon on the way back to see their relics.. I was way more creeped out by this open door that had really dark long shadows than all the bones, though. We had also stopped at the Fabriano store and looked at beautiful stationery and to Muji (which I've been to way too many times in the last couple weeks...), which both have plenty of things I wish I could have. So simple and organized. mm.
Saturday, Erin and I continued the dead people theme and headed south outside of the city walls to the catacombs. Although there weren't actually bodies here, there was hallway after hallway underground where all the graves and tombs would have been, as well as many old frescoes.
It was pretty much homework city for the rest of the weekend, as our art history final was a take-home test and was due Monday. It was super frustrating, though, because our new art history teacher had given us the take-home test as a way to take it easier on our class a little bit in light of the events and because she couldn't really give us a regular test on only three class periods. This, however, turned out to be so much more trouble. The questions were good questions, but the word count was ridiculous. There was two 1500 word questions and two 2000 word questions.. That was four times the amount of writing that the other classes had to do for their ONE essay that they had the WHOLE semester to write, and we were expected to do that in a week (well, a weekend, since we all had other deadlines and had to push it back). There wasn't really enough information to write for each essay, either, without doing crazy intensive research. I was already using way too many fancy descriptors and repeating myself. In total, my paper ended up being 15 pages, and it was still somewhere between 2- and 3000 words short as a whole. Nobody in our class was happy about it, since we all had so much else that we had to be doing to meet our deadlines/final critiques this week..
It's crazy that I'm not here for that much longer! Yikes. I'm conflicted about going home. On one hand, I'm ready to be done with school, and I'm missing being around people that aren't in design and my friends from Ames. On the other, there's so much I still want to see and experience here, and there's plenty of things I'll miss.
I think in general, we've been extremely lucky with the weather this semester. It didn't stay unbearably hot for too long, only a couple weeks.. and it's been hardly rainy at all. I remember hearing from the students last year that I would be miserable without rain boots and Troy said most of November last year there were puddles everywhere, but it's really only rained a few times. Half the times, too, were at night so it really wasn't a big deal. I hope it stays like that for the rest of the time!
The gallery was really interesting because it was located in the old slaughterhouse, so they basically had two buildings, each with a different exhibit, and both buildings had the large tracks and hooks still there... they were interesting but creepy at the same time. The first exhibit was defined as "surrealist pop," and was full of so many bright colors. There were a lot of American artists on display, which I wasn't expecting. This included Shepherd Fairey, the designer of the Obama "hope" posters. The other exhibit was about the Berlin wall.. it was really neat exhibition (or at least it looked neat), but I would have understood a lot of the stuff there if I could read more Italian, so that was kind of a bummer. There was another installation outside, which was really creepy, actually. There was a couple chairs set up between a couple buildings of the slaughterhouse, with a really bright light shining directly on a hanging cube-like object and into one of the buildings. There were a lot of variations of the cube set up in a very organized way on the floor, but the light cast really dark, long shadows, and the light emphasized the crazy hooks.. Overall, I liked the gallery. It was way different than a lot of things I've seen lately, and it was nice that it was so close to our place. I decided it's a shame that I haven't really gone for walks much in that neighborhood because it seems like there's a bunch of interesting stuff over there, but it also feels really sketchy sometimes, so it's not really a place I would choose to go by myself often. There is a fair trade market over there that I do need to go to before I leave.
Last Friday, I went with some girls up to the 'Bone Church,' or the Capuchin Crypt. It's a little crypt off the side of this church that's decorated entirely with the bones of these monks. It's really crazy how they took different bones to imitate different patterns usually found in churches, and even made bone lamps, a bone clock, and a bone vatican crest. Some of the whole skeletons still had a lot of skin stretched over them... eek. It was so creepy, yet so fascinating at the same time. We ended up stopping at Santa Maria sopra Minerva by the Pantheon on the way back to see their relics.. I was way more creeped out by this open door that had really dark long shadows than all the bones, though. We had also stopped at the Fabriano store and looked at beautiful stationery and to Muji (which I've been to way too many times in the last couple weeks...), which both have plenty of things I wish I could have. So simple and organized. mm.
Saturday, Erin and I continued the dead people theme and headed south outside of the city walls to the catacombs. Although there weren't actually bodies here, there was hallway after hallway underground where all the graves and tombs would have been, as well as many old frescoes.
It was pretty much homework city for the rest of the weekend, as our art history final was a take-home test and was due Monday. It was super frustrating, though, because our new art history teacher had given us the take-home test as a way to take it easier on our class a little bit in light of the events and because she couldn't really give us a regular test on only three class periods. This, however, turned out to be so much more trouble. The questions were good questions, but the word count was ridiculous. There was two 1500 word questions and two 2000 word questions.. That was four times the amount of writing that the other classes had to do for their ONE essay that they had the WHOLE semester to write, and we were expected to do that in a week (well, a weekend, since we all had other deadlines and had to push it back). There wasn't really enough information to write for each essay, either, without doing crazy intensive research. I was already using way too many fancy descriptors and repeating myself. In total, my paper ended up being 15 pages, and it was still somewhere between 2- and 3000 words short as a whole. Nobody in our class was happy about it, since we all had so much else that we had to be doing to meet our deadlines/final critiques this week..
It's crazy that I'm not here for that much longer! Yikes. I'm conflicted about going home. On one hand, I'm ready to be done with school, and I'm missing being around people that aren't in design and my friends from Ames. On the other, there's so much I still want to see and experience here, and there's plenty of things I'll miss.
I think in general, we've been extremely lucky with the weather this semester. It didn't stay unbearably hot for too long, only a couple weeks.. and it's been hardly rainy at all. I remember hearing from the students last year that I would be miserable without rain boots and Troy said most of November last year there were puddles everywhere, but it's really only rained a few times. Half the times, too, were at night so it really wasn't a big deal. I hope it stays like that for the rest of the time!
Dec 8, 2009
bye bye computer
Things will get a little bit interesting, now. My computer screen is shot now, apparently. I'm not really sure how/why it happened, but it did. Luckily, I had noticed some weird coloring/flickering and backed up my computer. The next morning, it officially freaked out and now won't completely boot up. I talked to Troy, and he told me that my screen is probably going to have to be replaced... which is probably going to have to wait until I get home. I could take it to the apple store here, but getting to the mall is a nightmare. I'm sure I'd have to wait a week or so for it to be fixed, so would have to go a second time.. those two trips would take probably about 10 hours total time, for me not to get my computer back until I pretty much won't need it anymore. I'm so glad I backed up my computer the night before, so I have the most recent versions of all of my projects.. I would have lost that entire 15-page art history paper the day it was due, too. ugh. Now, it'll just be a lot of living at studio and working in the computer lab here. It'll be rather annoying, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it right now...
I guess on the positive, life will be a little bit better on my back since I won't have to carry it around, and my packaging project is turning out way better/way more interesting than it would have otherwise...
I guess on the positive, life will be a little bit better on my back since I won't have to carry it around, and my packaging project is turning out way better/way more interesting than it would have otherwise...
Dec 7, 2009
Thanksgiving
Leading up to Thanksgiving week, there was a lot of anticipation boiling in the apartment, both for a couple peoples' boyfriends to come, as well as for our big Thanksgiving dinner, mm!
In the beginning of the week, I did a bunch of exploring on my own, going for long walks around. We pretty much only had class on Wednesday this week, too, since Thursday was the art history final, but our class went on a final walking tour of St. Peter's Basilica since we were to be given a take-home test.
That Thanksgiving was the most ridiculous Thanksgiving I've ever had.. so much happened, and it was all pretty crazy. We all came home and finished up preparations for the big feast.. setting the table, picking up last minute things at the grocery store, etc..
As things were finishing in the oven, we made some nice hand turkeys to keep ourselves from hovering in the kitchen too much.. we ended up with great turkeys, like a pelican turkey, harry potter turkey, pope turkey, football turkey, italian turkey, vespa turkey.
Finally, then, dinner was ready.. we had to extend the table with the desk in our apartment, since we had ten people instead of the usual seven, but it worked out alright. For dinner, we had: box stuffing (thanks to Meghann's sister and boyfriend), pasta salad, mashed potatoes, quiche, rotisserie chicken (just from the pizza place down the street, this was one thing we didn't want to attempt in that oven...), brown sugar carrots, biscuits, and bread. To accompany this, Meghann's boyfriend had picked up a huge jug of really fresh wine from one of the markets a little bit south of our apartment. It was a lot of wine, even if we did have 10 people working on it... Jamie was showing us her fantastic chugging skills, but her glass was too full when she decided to do this, which resulted in streams of wine coming out her nose. The chair that belongs to the desk also became trouble, since it pulls apart a little bit to fold up for storage, but if you bump the side of it wrong, it falls apart a little bit... so at some point, Erin's boyfriend fell through the chair, providing us with much more entertainment at dinner. For dessert, we had both apple pie and sweet potato pie, along with some mulled wine.. the sweet potato pie was REALLY good.
After dinner, we took some "family portraits," that got progressively more and more outlandish. We also did a white elephant gift exchange, with everyone giving something they had, could make, or could get for a euro or less. There were some pretty interesting gifts given, like cobblestones, paper cranes, cards, birds made out of a carrot, popsicle sticks, etc.
Then came the first of the really ridiculous part: drama. Erin and her boyfriend were fighting, and it got really weird.. there was some yelling and door slamming and involving everyone else. Then, Erin stormed out of the apartment. I ended up following her and going for a long walk with her since we figured she probably shouldn't have been alone and out at night.. hoping it would calm her down and things would be better upon our return. And, it was.. for about two minutes, then there was more yelling and door slamming.
That's when we decided it would be a great time for us to go out.. so we headed up to Trastevere, to a little bar/coffeeshop-type place where they have little chocolatey liquor shots in little glasses made out of chocolate and whipped cream. They were quite the adventure, and I'm pretty sure I got whipped cream everywhere. We then headed down to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and were hanging out there for a while, when we spotted our friend JJ and his dad, so were talking to them for a while.
Then, there was this rowdy group of Italian women, three of them roughly 30 or 35 or so, and one much older, like 50 or 60, maybe. All the younger ones were incredibly trashed.. one of them ran up to the fountain and started theatrically yelling.. we gathered that she was maybe cursing death upon us or something similar.. There was a lot of crazy yelling and gesturing, and it was for the most part pretty amusing. JJ's dad decided this would be an excellent thing to videotape. The older lady came up behind him and was telling him to put it on youtube and that this crazy lady was some famous Italian author or something like that. Then, one of the other ladies came up to JJ and was telling him that she would sue him if he posted the video, and kept following them around, harassing him. We decided it was time to leave when we felt a big splash on our backs, to look up and realize one of the other women at the top of the fountain had decided it would be fun to take a huge gulp of wine, then spew it all over us.
By this time, of course, it was late, so the trams had stopped running and we had a long walk home...
Definitely quite the interesting evening.
Thanksgiving weekend, most of my roommates went to Greece. I had thought about going with them, but I had ended up deciding against it since I had to decide when we got back from the north field trip, so I was kind of sick of traveling at that point. I had mixed feelings about it, I kind of wish I would have gone, but I did have a relaxing weekend and I think I would have been really stressed out when I got back since we had a project due the day after they got back (which I hadn't started until the beginning of that weekend... ).
In the beginning of the week, I did a bunch of exploring on my own, going for long walks around. We pretty much only had class on Wednesday this week, too, since Thursday was the art history final, but our class went on a final walking tour of St. Peter's Basilica since we were to be given a take-home test.
That Thanksgiving was the most ridiculous Thanksgiving I've ever had.. so much happened, and it was all pretty crazy. We all came home and finished up preparations for the big feast.. setting the table, picking up last minute things at the grocery store, etc..
As things were finishing in the oven, we made some nice hand turkeys to keep ourselves from hovering in the kitchen too much.. we ended up with great turkeys, like a pelican turkey, harry potter turkey, pope turkey, football turkey, italian turkey, vespa turkey.
Finally, then, dinner was ready.. we had to extend the table with the desk in our apartment, since we had ten people instead of the usual seven, but it worked out alright. For dinner, we had: box stuffing (thanks to Meghann's sister and boyfriend), pasta salad, mashed potatoes, quiche, rotisserie chicken (just from the pizza place down the street, this was one thing we didn't want to attempt in that oven...), brown sugar carrots, biscuits, and bread. To accompany this, Meghann's boyfriend had picked up a huge jug of really fresh wine from one of the markets a little bit south of our apartment. It was a lot of wine, even if we did have 10 people working on it... Jamie was showing us her fantastic chugging skills, but her glass was too full when she decided to do this, which resulted in streams of wine coming out her nose. The chair that belongs to the desk also became trouble, since it pulls apart a little bit to fold up for storage, but if you bump the side of it wrong, it falls apart a little bit... so at some point, Erin's boyfriend fell through the chair, providing us with much more entertainment at dinner. For dessert, we had both apple pie and sweet potato pie, along with some mulled wine.. the sweet potato pie was REALLY good.
After dinner, we took some "family portraits," that got progressively more and more outlandish. We also did a white elephant gift exchange, with everyone giving something they had, could make, or could get for a euro or less. There were some pretty interesting gifts given, like cobblestones, paper cranes, cards, birds made out of a carrot, popsicle sticks, etc.
Then came the first of the really ridiculous part: drama. Erin and her boyfriend were fighting, and it got really weird.. there was some yelling and door slamming and involving everyone else. Then, Erin stormed out of the apartment. I ended up following her and going for a long walk with her since we figured she probably shouldn't have been alone and out at night.. hoping it would calm her down and things would be better upon our return. And, it was.. for about two minutes, then there was more yelling and door slamming.
That's when we decided it would be a great time for us to go out.. so we headed up to Trastevere, to a little bar/coffeeshop-type place where they have little chocolatey liquor shots in little glasses made out of chocolate and whipped cream. They were quite the adventure, and I'm pretty sure I got whipped cream everywhere. We then headed down to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and were hanging out there for a while, when we spotted our friend JJ and his dad, so were talking to them for a while.
Then, there was this rowdy group of Italian women, three of them roughly 30 or 35 or so, and one much older, like 50 or 60, maybe. All the younger ones were incredibly trashed.. one of them ran up to the fountain and started theatrically yelling.. we gathered that she was maybe cursing death upon us or something similar.. There was a lot of crazy yelling and gesturing, and it was for the most part pretty amusing. JJ's dad decided this would be an excellent thing to videotape. The older lady came up behind him and was telling him to put it on youtube and that this crazy lady was some famous Italian author or something like that. Then, one of the other ladies came up to JJ and was telling him that she would sue him if he posted the video, and kept following them around, harassing him. We decided it was time to leave when we felt a big splash on our backs, to look up and realize one of the other women at the top of the fountain had decided it would be fun to take a huge gulp of wine, then spew it all over us.
By this time, of course, it was late, so the trams had stopped running and we had a long walk home...
Definitely quite the interesting evening.
Thanksgiving weekend, most of my roommates went to Greece. I had thought about going with them, but I had ended up deciding against it since I had to decide when we got back from the north field trip, so I was kind of sick of traveling at that point. I had mixed feelings about it, I kind of wish I would have gone, but I did have a relaxing weekend and I think I would have been really stressed out when I got back since we had a project due the day after they got back (which I hadn't started until the beginning of that weekend... ).
Nov 28, 2009
Procrastination
I'm sure inventing all kinds of procrastination methods to avoid doing my work (including writing blog posts).. it's actually kind of ridiculous. But, I'm much more interested in going out to see things in Rome than I am in being stuck on my computer all the time.
I've made a list of a bunch of things I want to make sure I do before I leave Rome (less than a month? Really? How?). I've then been at least trying to get one thing checked off each day.
Sunday, I wandered around the Janiculum Hill area, and went on a big walk through some of the parks and trails up there. I meant to go to the Tempietto for St. Peter, but I forgot to look up exactly where it is before I left and I didn't see it (apparently, it's pretty much where I entered the area, I just didn't see it. I'll just have to go back).
Monday, I went out to the EUR neighborhood of Rome with Colleen, where there is a lot of fascist architecture and monuments. I don't really know a lot about them, and I should have done the research before I went, but I guess better late than never.
Tuesday, I went somewhere there was supposedly an antique books/prints market, but turns out I'd already been over there and it was really lame. I also tried to go to the Church Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, but I was there during the time when they are closed in the afternoon, so I have to go back. I did find a discoteque called Xanadu, though, which really amused me.
Friday, I headed up to Northern Rome with Collen, and we went up to Quartiere Coppede, which was a funky little neighborhood with a frog fountain and cool buildings. The architecture had all kinds of cool patterns and decorations, and there were also some neat frescoes. It felt a little bit like one of those creepy gated communities, though, since there were all these people that were staring at us, and a couple guys laughing at us for taking some pictures.. it was weird. Then we headed over to MACRO, a contemporary art museum. It was super confusing, we had no clue where to go, really, since there was absolutely no signage. It was set up in a weird way, where you had to go up a flight of stairs, look at small galleries on either side of the stairs, then cross a little skywalk to the other side of the building, for those galleries, then up again, in a back and forth motion. There was a cool interactive piece that was all puzzles that had pictures of atomic bomb explosions, where the number of pieces was directly related to how powerful the explosion was...
Not sure what's on for the rest of the time, but I have plenty of things on my list to choose from..
I've made a list of a bunch of things I want to make sure I do before I leave Rome (less than a month? Really? How?). I've then been at least trying to get one thing checked off each day.
Sunday, I wandered around the Janiculum Hill area, and went on a big walk through some of the parks and trails up there. I meant to go to the Tempietto for St. Peter, but I forgot to look up exactly where it is before I left and I didn't see it (apparently, it's pretty much where I entered the area, I just didn't see it. I'll just have to go back).
Monday, I went out to the EUR neighborhood of Rome with Colleen, where there is a lot of fascist architecture and monuments. I don't really know a lot about them, and I should have done the research before I went, but I guess better late than never.
Tuesday, I went somewhere there was supposedly an antique books/prints market, but turns out I'd already been over there and it was really lame. I also tried to go to the Church Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, but I was there during the time when they are closed in the afternoon, so I have to go back. I did find a discoteque called Xanadu, though, which really amused me.
Friday, I headed up to Northern Rome with Collen, and we went up to Quartiere Coppede, which was a funky little neighborhood with a frog fountain and cool buildings. The architecture had all kinds of cool patterns and decorations, and there were also some neat frescoes. It felt a little bit like one of those creepy gated communities, though, since there were all these people that were staring at us, and a couple guys laughing at us for taking some pictures.. it was weird. Then we headed over to MACRO, a contemporary art museum. It was super confusing, we had no clue where to go, really, since there was absolutely no signage. It was set up in a weird way, where you had to go up a flight of stairs, look at small galleries on either side of the stairs, then cross a little skywalk to the other side of the building, for those galleries, then up again, in a back and forth motion. There was a cool interactive piece that was all puzzles that had pictures of atomic bomb explosions, where the number of pieces was directly related to how powerful the explosion was...
Not sure what's on for the rest of the time, but I have plenty of things on my list to choose from..
purple
I just realized how crazy it is that I chose purple for this blog before I even left.. it's only so fitting with all the purple EVERYWHERE.
NFT: III
NFT, Sunday (Stockholm):
-struggled to get up from our comfy comfy beds
-ate a good breakfast at the hostel
-so much walking all day! We dropped our stuff off at the train station, and it felt oddly pretty warm outside at this point.
-The city felt actually pretty dead, even still at 11am. It was weird, it felt like we were walking around way before everyone was awake or something...
-We finally found a bunch of people in the courtyard of City Hall, which was a pretty interesting building
-walked to Gamla Stan, the old part of the town.
-there was a guy working in some chocolate shop there that was the most swedish-looking guy I've ever seen. He was awesome.
-walked over to the National Museum, but just saw a little free exhibit
-Went to a Dance museum, there were costumes and paintings and drawings and music videos (ballet to MJ)
-Then, it felt super chilly, so we went back to where we were storing our stuff to get more layers
-grabbed food at some Tex Mex place for lunch. There were cucumbers in everything, which was really weird. Also, I've been craving tortilla chips, but the tortilla chips we got had some nasty flavoring on them (mine were cheese, and they tasted like mac 'n' cheese powder), and they were not satisfying. But still, the Tex Mex was kind of exciting... don't have that in Rome!
-Headed over to the cultural center, saw a big model of the city of Stockholm and all its islands
-started heading towards an area with a few more museums and parks
-found a monster truck and an ice skating rink! Meghann was so excited...
-We wandered around for a while, then came back to the rink as it was getting dark (since it started to get dark around 3:30...)
-it was so weird to not be in total control of myself ice skating, the rental skates were so horrible (not unexpected, though). Dull blades and no support!
-Some guy was hockey break dance skating??? It was weird. It was a lot of figure skating turns.. on hockey skates, with hip hop attitude?
-went back to Gamla Stan, stopped at a cafe for some Glogg, the swedish spiced wine. yum.
-after more wandering, got some thai food for dinner
-then waited at the train station for our overnight bus
Monday (Oslo):
-the bus wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I did actually get some rest (or I must have, even if I didn't feel like it, because the bus ride felt way shorter than 6 hours)
-the bus arrived in Oslo at 5:30am, which was a half hour EARLY. We were not happy (Meghann was REALLY not happy)
-since it was still dark outside and we were sleepy, we just sat in the train station for a while, until things opened up and it started to get lighter outside. Then we got coffee and thought about starting our day. We stored our bags, then off we went!
-We walked down the empty main shopping drag, then out more in the town.
-FALL! It was fall here, crunchy leaves everywhere!
-Headed down to the water, there were starfish. It was exciting!
-after more walking around that part of town, we headed to Vigelandsparken, a park just outside of the center of town. There were lots of small children playing on the playground, and we went to look at all the sculptures and up the hill to overlook the park
-it was really beautiful, even though a lot of the foliage was dead and orange
-went back to the main part of town, ate lunch at a bakery. We got sandwiches and two goodies, and shared them. The fruit and nut scone we got was really great!
-headed out to the Viking Ship Museum. It was impressive how low the boats must have sat in the water and how well preserved they were. Definitely interesting
-there were skeletons there, too, of the bodies they found buried in the ships. They had all kinds of write-ups on all these crazy details they speculate about the lives of the people. Crazy how they can tell that from such a small amount of in-tact bones.
-for some reason, it was really hard for Meghann and I to play our cheesy postcard game.. they were just kind of boring, not any really bad ones. It's funny how much we both perked up when we actually found some bad ones, haha
-as it was starting to get a little dark and we were getting tired, we headed to our hostel and took showers
-We went back out to explore again. We were going to go to the National museum, but it was closed since it was Monday, so we just wandered around by the University. Then we found a really awesome coffee shop that looked like some mod 60s basement and got some hot chocolate. very cozy.
-then we picked up some dinner, and headed back to the hostel to relax and sleep before getting up early for our flight the next morning.
-we saw in a convenience store some cans that looked like cat or dog food, but had pictures of children on them... kid food?
Tuesday:
-We got up super early to catch a bus to the airport, except when we got to the bus terminal, there was not a bus to the airport we needed until 10:30, but our flight left at 10:20, so that was a huge problem
-luckily, people speak English pretty well, so we asked at the info desk (and ended up picking up some Italian guy who was also on our flight in the same predicament)
-Luckily, there was a train going, but the timing was going to be tight
-the flight got delayed, so we had extra time
-flight home
-there was a really pushy annoying guy for one of the bus companies at the airport back in Rome, making fun of us for buying tickets for a different company since HIS bus company had a bus there while ours did not. The last thing I wanted while coming home from a super long tiring trip was to deal with pushy Italians, but I guess we didn't manage to avoid that one..
-but, finally, it was great to be back at our apartment for a while.
Overall, I really liked everywhere we went. I thought Basel was really cute, and had a nice comfortable, old kind of feeling. Zurich was a little cold and uninteresting until we found the lake and the old part of town, then it definitely felt like it had a lot more personality. Stockholm was way bigger than I expected it to be, but it was really cool. Everyone there seemed so put together. Oslo was great, maybe my favorite of this trip. It was very friendly and cozy, and the people seemed pretty happy and genuine.
-struggled to get up from our comfy comfy beds
-ate a good breakfast at the hostel
-so much walking all day! We dropped our stuff off at the train station, and it felt oddly pretty warm outside at this point.
-The city felt actually pretty dead, even still at 11am. It was weird, it felt like we were walking around way before everyone was awake or something...
-We finally found a bunch of people in the courtyard of City Hall, which was a pretty interesting building
-walked to Gamla Stan, the old part of the town.
-there was a guy working in some chocolate shop there that was the most swedish-looking guy I've ever seen. He was awesome.
-walked over to the National Museum, but just saw a little free exhibit
-Went to a Dance museum, there were costumes and paintings and drawings and music videos (ballet to MJ)
-Then, it felt super chilly, so we went back to where we were storing our stuff to get more layers
-grabbed food at some Tex Mex place for lunch. There were cucumbers in everything, which was really weird. Also, I've been craving tortilla chips, but the tortilla chips we got had some nasty flavoring on them (mine were cheese, and they tasted like mac 'n' cheese powder), and they were not satisfying. But still, the Tex Mex was kind of exciting... don't have that in Rome!
-Headed over to the cultural center, saw a big model of the city of Stockholm and all its islands
-started heading towards an area with a few more museums and parks
-found a monster truck and an ice skating rink! Meghann was so excited...
-We wandered around for a while, then came back to the rink as it was getting dark (since it started to get dark around 3:30...)
-it was so weird to not be in total control of myself ice skating, the rental skates were so horrible (not unexpected, though). Dull blades and no support!
-Some guy was hockey break dance skating??? It was weird. It was a lot of figure skating turns.. on hockey skates, with hip hop attitude?
-went back to Gamla Stan, stopped at a cafe for some Glogg, the swedish spiced wine. yum.
-after more wandering, got some thai food for dinner
-then waited at the train station for our overnight bus
Monday (Oslo):
-the bus wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I did actually get some rest (or I must have, even if I didn't feel like it, because the bus ride felt way shorter than 6 hours)
-the bus arrived in Oslo at 5:30am, which was a half hour EARLY. We were not happy (Meghann was REALLY not happy)
-since it was still dark outside and we were sleepy, we just sat in the train station for a while, until things opened up and it started to get lighter outside. Then we got coffee and thought about starting our day. We stored our bags, then off we went!
-We walked down the empty main shopping drag, then out more in the town.
-FALL! It was fall here, crunchy leaves everywhere!
-Headed down to the water, there were starfish. It was exciting!
-after more walking around that part of town, we headed to Vigelandsparken, a park just outside of the center of town. There were lots of small children playing on the playground, and we went to look at all the sculptures and up the hill to overlook the park
-it was really beautiful, even though a lot of the foliage was dead and orange
-went back to the main part of town, ate lunch at a bakery. We got sandwiches and two goodies, and shared them. The fruit and nut scone we got was really great!
-headed out to the Viking Ship Museum. It was impressive how low the boats must have sat in the water and how well preserved they were. Definitely interesting
-there were skeletons there, too, of the bodies they found buried in the ships. They had all kinds of write-ups on all these crazy details they speculate about the lives of the people. Crazy how they can tell that from such a small amount of in-tact bones.
-for some reason, it was really hard for Meghann and I to play our cheesy postcard game.. they were just kind of boring, not any really bad ones. It's funny how much we both perked up when we actually found some bad ones, haha
-as it was starting to get a little dark and we were getting tired, we headed to our hostel and took showers
-We went back out to explore again. We were going to go to the National museum, but it was closed since it was Monday, so we just wandered around by the University. Then we found a really awesome coffee shop that looked like some mod 60s basement and got some hot chocolate. very cozy.
-then we picked up some dinner, and headed back to the hostel to relax and sleep before getting up early for our flight the next morning.
-we saw in a convenience store some cans that looked like cat or dog food, but had pictures of children on them... kid food?
Tuesday:
-We got up super early to catch a bus to the airport, except when we got to the bus terminal, there was not a bus to the airport we needed until 10:30, but our flight left at 10:20, so that was a huge problem
-luckily, people speak English pretty well, so we asked at the info desk (and ended up picking up some Italian guy who was also on our flight in the same predicament)
-Luckily, there was a train going, but the timing was going to be tight
-the flight got delayed, so we had extra time
-flight home
-there was a really pushy annoying guy for one of the bus companies at the airport back in Rome, making fun of us for buying tickets for a different company since HIS bus company had a bus there while ours did not. The last thing I wanted while coming home from a super long tiring trip was to deal with pushy Italians, but I guess we didn't manage to avoid that one..
-but, finally, it was great to be back at our apartment for a while.
Overall, I really liked everywhere we went. I thought Basel was really cute, and had a nice comfortable, old kind of feeling. Zurich was a little cold and uninteresting until we found the lake and the old part of town, then it definitely felt like it had a lot more personality. Stockholm was way bigger than I expected it to be, but it was really cool. Everyone there seemed so put together. Oslo was great, maybe my favorite of this trip. It was very friendly and cozy, and the people seemed pretty happy and genuine.
Nov 23, 2009
maybe the best 50 cents I've spent?
Ah, a little tiny happy green in my life. Should've done this earlier.
Nov 22, 2009
NFT: II
PAST:
Friday:
-got up and went to the archives of the Design Museum of Zurich, listened to a great talk about some of the Swiss pieces she pulled out for us
-mechanical of Herbert Matter's, works by Jan Tschicold and many others, Sagmeister's biz card in person, Univers sample book, BEAUTIFUL book designed by Irma Boom, looked like a big black cube.. mm.
-had to by myself a copy of that book from the Design Museum shop... it was too nice to pass up, even though it made my backpack so much heavier.
-tasty soup for lunch
-then.. ROSEMARIE TISSI, of Odermatt and Tissi.
-She was so cute! used a slide projector with real slides, talked a lot about her currency project
-"I don't know, don't ask me that," I'm totally using that in reference to my design decisions sometime. If she can, I can, right?
-then, explored Zurich a little bit
-found a super cute park with swings, and old men playing giant chess games
-found the lake, definitely made me feel better about Zurich, as we'd only really seen industrial areas.
-wandered around the older part of Zurich, found where Rosemarie's Studio was
Saturday:
-train ride back to Milan: through the Alps, it was absolutely gorgeous! Mountains, lakes, trees, countryside!
-about an hour in the train station, then bus to the airport
-long wait at the airport, but we ate bagel sandwiches (first time I've seen a bagel around)
-flight to Stockholm, getting a bus to town was ridiculously easy and cheap
-when to our hostel, which was a funny building on the top of a hill just outside of the main part of town. Meghann said it reminded her of some Jet Li movie. It was the skinniest room ever, only wide enough for two twin beds, with no room between them, or them and the walls. There were no windows, either. BUT, the beds were SO COMFORTABLE Meghann and I had lots of trouble getting up in the morning (not that this is really a new thing, but it was way worse than normal.. so comfy...
PRESENT:
I love Rome.
Friday:
-got up and went to the archives of the Design Museum of Zurich, listened to a great talk about some of the Swiss pieces she pulled out for us
-mechanical of Herbert Matter's, works by Jan Tschicold and many others, Sagmeister's biz card in person, Univers sample book, BEAUTIFUL book designed by Irma Boom, looked like a big black cube.. mm.
-had to by myself a copy of that book from the Design Museum shop... it was too nice to pass up, even though it made my backpack so much heavier.
-tasty soup for lunch
-then.. ROSEMARIE TISSI, of Odermatt and Tissi.
-She was so cute! used a slide projector with real slides, talked a lot about her currency project
-"I don't know, don't ask me that," I'm totally using that in reference to my design decisions sometime. If she can, I can, right?
-then, explored Zurich a little bit
-found a super cute park with swings, and old men playing giant chess games
-found the lake, definitely made me feel better about Zurich, as we'd only really seen industrial areas.
-wandered around the older part of Zurich, found where Rosemarie's Studio was
Saturday:
-train ride back to Milan: through the Alps, it was absolutely gorgeous! Mountains, lakes, trees, countryside!
-about an hour in the train station, then bus to the airport
-long wait at the airport, but we ate bagel sandwiches (first time I've seen a bagel around)
-flight to Stockholm, getting a bus to town was ridiculously easy and cheap
-when to our hostel, which was a funny building on the top of a hill just outside of the main part of town. Meghann said it reminded her of some Jet Li movie. It was the skinniest room ever, only wide enough for two twin beds, with no room between them, or them and the walls. There were no windows, either. BUT, the beds were SO COMFORTABLE Meghann and I had lots of trouble getting up in the morning (not that this is really a new thing, but it was way worse than normal.. so comfy...
PRESENT:
I love Rome.
Nov 21, 2009
NFT: I
PAST:
North Field Trip:
Tues. Night
-starting same day as returning from Berlin... stressful, no time to do much but pack! Had to do emergency hat/mittens shopping to prepare
-my back hurt and I had a little cough this day, but it didn't seem to be a big deal
-overnight train. apparently these are ending after December, last chance for these!
-the cabin was SO TINY, and there were six beds crammed in there.. we actually ended up going to bed pretty much right away, even though it was only 9. A couple people in our cabin weren't feeling so well, and there wasn't enough room to sit up a little and read, so sleep it was.
-the train felt so slow. I slept great... until about 1:30 am
-they gave us a nasty packaged muffin thing for breakfast.. it was not really edible.
Wednesday
1 hour in Bern, waiting at train station, Meghann got bowled over by some Swiss dude, then train to Basel
-had about 45 minutes to wander around. Found a store that had beautiful scarves on sale, but it wasn't open. Got cappuccinos, my back started to hurt really bad
-Poster presentation by Dr. Rolf Thalman at the Basel Poster Museum. Beautiful Swiss Posters, it was really great to see them full size and in person, especially some of the Herbert Matter ones. There were posters and ID cards stuffed all over the little room. It was really interesting, but I was starting to feel a little feverish and my back was hurting, so it was getting really difficult for me to stand and listen....
-free time for a couple hours, ate and drank a lot of orange juice, wandered around some shops
-napped on the bus ride out to Vitra, in Germany just across the border
-Vitra: long tour, mostly of the architure. Big names: Gehry, Bucky Fuller, Zaha Hadid (who did the crazy disorienting fire house)
-the showrooms were the best part: fun, beautiful furniture and objects!
-napped back to Basel, then off to the hostel
-went out for Chinese, it was actually pretty decent Chinese, and a great change from Italian food.
-since I wasn't feeling well, it was straight to bed for me then...
Thursday
-free morning, wandered around.. I felt better, still super stuffy, but at least I could handle standing up for long chunks of time.
-found a couple cool churches, more gothic style, it was a nice change
-one church had an exhibition of some interesting woven rugs, I'm not sure where they were from, but they were totally different than things we see in Italy.
-found a great view
-WHY was there a table full of metal vegetables at one of the churches??? I'll never know.
-met back up with class and headed over to the Paper Mill Museum.
-wrote with real feather quills, hand-made paper, marbled paper, set type and letterpressed
-train to Zurich, then long trek out to Hostel
-ate at some pizza place, had a crazy veggie pizza (green beans, eggplant, strange!), major language barrier here.. none of us have any inkling of German...
-really bad cough this day, so straight to bed again.
PRESENT:
Today, I did the cooking class with Robert Huber (aka Johnny Depp according to some people..haha), one of the art history professors. It wasn't so much cooking class as eating marathon. We basically spent about five and a half hours eating and drinking wine.. not so much time actually cooking. A little time was spent watching in the kitchen and listening and not a ton.
Antipasti: Some sort of thingly sliced potatoes with goat cheese on a bed of lettuce, with balsamic vinaigrette, frittate (like an onion omelette), boar sausage, bread
Primi Piatti: Handmade mushroom and ricotta ravioli with cream sauce and porcini mushrooms
Secondi Piatti: Guinea foul, wrapped in prosciutto, with green beans, potatoes, and pear sauce
Dessert: White chocolate mousse with chocolate shavings, rum, raspberries and a mint leaf.
It was extremely tasty, and fun because we were with mostly interior students, too, so there wasn't really any talk of projects going on.
I was looking forward all week to this dance night some of the interior girls were talking about, with Boyz Noize DJing. ALL WEEK, I was super excited about it. Then we found out that it was way farther away than they thought it was... so disappointing!
North Field Trip:
Tues. Night
-starting same day as returning from Berlin... stressful, no time to do much but pack! Had to do emergency hat/mittens shopping to prepare
-my back hurt and I had a little cough this day, but it didn't seem to be a big deal
-overnight train. apparently these are ending after December, last chance for these!
-the cabin was SO TINY, and there were six beds crammed in there.. we actually ended up going to bed pretty much right away, even though it was only 9. A couple people in our cabin weren't feeling so well, and there wasn't enough room to sit up a little and read, so sleep it was.
-the train felt so slow. I slept great... until about 1:30 am
-they gave us a nasty packaged muffin thing for breakfast.. it was not really edible.
Wednesday
1 hour in Bern, waiting at train station, Meghann got bowled over by some Swiss dude, then train to Basel
-had about 45 minutes to wander around. Found a store that had beautiful scarves on sale, but it wasn't open. Got cappuccinos, my back started to hurt really bad
-Poster presentation by Dr. Rolf Thalman at the Basel Poster Museum. Beautiful Swiss Posters, it was really great to see them full size and in person, especially some of the Herbert Matter ones. There were posters and ID cards stuffed all over the little room. It was really interesting, but I was starting to feel a little feverish and my back was hurting, so it was getting really difficult for me to stand and listen....
-free time for a couple hours, ate and drank a lot of orange juice, wandered around some shops
-napped on the bus ride out to Vitra, in Germany just across the border
-Vitra: long tour, mostly of the architure. Big names: Gehry, Bucky Fuller, Zaha Hadid (who did the crazy disorienting fire house)
-the showrooms were the best part: fun, beautiful furniture and objects!
-napped back to Basel, then off to the hostel
-went out for Chinese, it was actually pretty decent Chinese, and a great change from Italian food.
-since I wasn't feeling well, it was straight to bed for me then...
Thursday
-free morning, wandered around.. I felt better, still super stuffy, but at least I could handle standing up for long chunks of time.
-found a couple cool churches, more gothic style, it was a nice change
-one church had an exhibition of some interesting woven rugs, I'm not sure where they were from, but they were totally different than things we see in Italy.
-found a great view
-WHY was there a table full of metal vegetables at one of the churches??? I'll never know.
-met back up with class and headed over to the Paper Mill Museum.
-wrote with real feather quills, hand-made paper, marbled paper, set type and letterpressed
-train to Zurich, then long trek out to Hostel
-ate at some pizza place, had a crazy veggie pizza (green beans, eggplant, strange!), major language barrier here.. none of us have any inkling of German...
-really bad cough this day, so straight to bed again.
PRESENT:
Today, I did the cooking class with Robert Huber (aka Johnny Depp according to some people..haha), one of the art history professors. It wasn't so much cooking class as eating marathon. We basically spent about five and a half hours eating and drinking wine.. not so much time actually cooking. A little time was spent watching in the kitchen and listening and not a ton.
Antipasti: Some sort of thingly sliced potatoes with goat cheese on a bed of lettuce, with balsamic vinaigrette, frittate (like an onion omelette), boar sausage, bread
Primi Piatti: Handmade mushroom and ricotta ravioli with cream sauce and porcini mushrooms
Secondi Piatti: Guinea foul, wrapped in prosciutto, with green beans, potatoes, and pear sauce
Dessert: White chocolate mousse with chocolate shavings, rum, raspberries and a mint leaf.
It was extremely tasty, and fun because we were with mostly interior students, too, so there wasn't really any talk of projects going on.
I was looking forward all week to this dance night some of the interior girls were talking about, with Boyz Noize DJing. ALL WEEK, I was super excited about it. Then we found out that it was way farther away than they thought it was... so disappointing!
Nov 18, 2009
Berlin
This is going to get really fragmentary and list-like.. sorry...
-with Karen, Leah, Laura and Becky
SATURDAY
-Met them at 5 a.m., headed out to Termini station, took a bus to Ciampino airport. There was a cat wandering around in the airport. He hid underneath the seats.
-arrived in Frankfurt, had 7-8ish hour layover. did NOT know that... that's what I get for not helping plan, I guess. Luckily I had plenty of sketching to do. We hung out at the cafe, went for a walk outside (it was actually fall here! colors and trees, crisp air!)
-German words are really long...
-Arrived in Berlin around 9pm, got picked up from the airport by Becky's friend Henning and his friend Noah. On the way back to Noah's place, we stopped to pick up some Doner Kebaps (these were super delicious, and really cheap) and beer (oh, they have beer that is actually decent in Germany, hooray!)
-Sat around at Noah's apartment for a bit, with some of his and Henning's friends.. there were three languages being spoken, it was kinda crazy.
-I was super tired, but they all wanted to go out, Henning wanted to take us dancing. We didn't even GO out until after 2am. It was a long journey to get there, and the place had a few different dance floors. None of them had really great music, though. Was not so much a fan of the hip hop one where everyone spent all their time. We didn't get back to Noah's apt until about 6am.
SUNDAY
-Noah was a great host: got us breakfast.. fresh bread (whole grain kind, yum!), and tomatoes and many homemade jellies and jams and honey and nutella, yum yum. It was delicious.
-long journey north of Berlin to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
-although this really goes without saying, the camp was sad.. depressing to think that TONS of ashes of human remains were found.
-there was great signage there, though, and the design nerd in me was happy.
-it got really cold and windy, especially as the afternoon was getting later
-on the way back to the train, we picked up some hot mulled wine. yum.
-went downtown (finally). When we finally emerged from train/metro stations, we were in the middle of some magical Christmas market. It was super exciting! Lights and people in costume and candy and everything. There was a big built hill with fake snow you could sled down...
-saw Sony Center, very cool, futuristic looking.
-went to a mexican restaurant for dinner.. even though it wasn't great mexican food, it was still great to have that. It's certainly one thing you can't really find in Rome.
MONDAY
-explored Berlin all day by ourselves. Noah had class. He was worried about us getting lost, it was cute. We were totally fine, though.
-cold and rainy rainy rainy this day.
-walked along the edge of the Tiergarten to get to the Bauhaus museum. The museum did not have too much to display, as the building is under construction and so much stuff is at MoMA in NYC right now (man, I go to Europe, to Berlin, and go see this stuff, and it's actually in the States right now? Really?). We did see some nice teapots, a bunch of chairs and architectural models, and a really great photography exhibit, though.
-long walk through the Tiergarten back up (fall colors and puddles and singing in the rain, oh boy!)
-Brandenburg Gate-- there were some tugboats being held upside down in a little structure behind it.. not quite so sure why.
-Currywurst for lunch. Pretty good. Also, it came with french fries, which I haven't had the whole time I've been here. Weird.
-Holocaust Memorial, very powerful.
-cafe for a cappuccino. It's nice that they have coffee shops you can actually hang out in there. I miss that.
-Berlin Wall. we missed the 20th anniversary by a weekend, bummer.
-back to the Christmas market, we went SLEDDING. it was awesome, then got some treats.
-flew back to Frankfurt this evening
TUESDAY
-woke up bright and early from our tiny room at the B&B, flew back to Rome.
-arrived back at the apartment around 11:30.. mere hours before leaving for the North Field Trip. Crazy.
-with Karen, Leah, Laura and Becky
SATURDAY
-Met them at 5 a.m., headed out to Termini station, took a bus to Ciampino airport. There was a cat wandering around in the airport. He hid underneath the seats.
-arrived in Frankfurt, had 7-8ish hour layover. did NOT know that... that's what I get for not helping plan, I guess. Luckily I had plenty of sketching to do. We hung out at the cafe, went for a walk outside (it was actually fall here! colors and trees, crisp air!)
-German words are really long...
-Arrived in Berlin around 9pm, got picked up from the airport by Becky's friend Henning and his friend Noah. On the way back to Noah's place, we stopped to pick up some Doner Kebaps (these were super delicious, and really cheap) and beer (oh, they have beer that is actually decent in Germany, hooray!)
-Sat around at Noah's apartment for a bit, with some of his and Henning's friends.. there were three languages being spoken, it was kinda crazy.
-I was super tired, but they all wanted to go out, Henning wanted to take us dancing. We didn't even GO out until after 2am. It was a long journey to get there, and the place had a few different dance floors. None of them had really great music, though. Was not so much a fan of the hip hop one where everyone spent all their time. We didn't get back to Noah's apt until about 6am.
SUNDAY
-Noah was a great host: got us breakfast.. fresh bread (whole grain kind, yum!), and tomatoes and many homemade jellies and jams and honey and nutella, yum yum. It was delicious.
-long journey north of Berlin to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
-although this really goes without saying, the camp was sad.. depressing to think that TONS of ashes of human remains were found.
-there was great signage there, though, and the design nerd in me was happy.
-it got really cold and windy, especially as the afternoon was getting later
-on the way back to the train, we picked up some hot mulled wine. yum.
-went downtown (finally). When we finally emerged from train/metro stations, we were in the middle of some magical Christmas market. It was super exciting! Lights and people in costume and candy and everything. There was a big built hill with fake snow you could sled down...
-saw Sony Center, very cool, futuristic looking.
-went to a mexican restaurant for dinner.. even though it wasn't great mexican food, it was still great to have that. It's certainly one thing you can't really find in Rome.
MONDAY
-explored Berlin all day by ourselves. Noah had class. He was worried about us getting lost, it was cute. We were totally fine, though.
-cold and rainy rainy rainy this day.
-walked along the edge of the Tiergarten to get to the Bauhaus museum. The museum did not have too much to display, as the building is under construction and so much stuff is at MoMA in NYC right now (man, I go to Europe, to Berlin, and go see this stuff, and it's actually in the States right now? Really?). We did see some nice teapots, a bunch of chairs and architectural models, and a really great photography exhibit, though.
-long walk through the Tiergarten back up (fall colors and puddles and singing in the rain, oh boy!)
-Brandenburg Gate-- there were some tugboats being held upside down in a little structure behind it.. not quite so sure why.
-Currywurst for lunch. Pretty good. Also, it came with french fries, which I haven't had the whole time I've been here. Weird.
-Holocaust Memorial, very powerful.
-cafe for a cappuccino. It's nice that they have coffee shops you can actually hang out in there. I miss that.
-Berlin Wall. we missed the 20th anniversary by a weekend, bummer.
-back to the Christmas market, we went SLEDDING. it was awesome, then got some treats.
-flew back to Frankfurt this evening
TUESDAY
-woke up bright and early from our tiny room at the B&B, flew back to Rome.
-arrived back at the apartment around 11:30.. mere hours before leaving for the North Field Trip. Crazy.
Nov 12, 2009
unpacking
so, sorry, still not going to write about my trip... but I just wanted to share just how much stuff got shoved into one backback for the trip...
Nov 10, 2009
how you say?
Saturday, October 31:
Rome > Frankfurt > Berlin
Sunday, November 1:
Berlin
Monday, November 2:
Berlin > Frankfurt
Tuesday, November 3:
Frankfurt > Rome > Overnight Train
Wednesday, November 4:
Bern > Basel > Vitra > Basel
Thursday, November 5:
Basel > Zurich
Friday, November 6:
Zurich
Saturday, November 7:
Zurich > Milan > Stockholm
Sunday, November 8:
Stockholm > Overnight Bus
Monday, November 9:
Oslo
Tuesday, November 10:
Oslo > Rome
--
yikes.
new pictures up here.
writing to come later.
Rome > Frankfurt > Berlin
Sunday, November 1:
Berlin
Monday, November 2:
Berlin > Frankfurt
Tuesday, November 3:
Frankfurt > Rome > Overnight Train
Wednesday, November 4:
Bern > Basel > Vitra > Basel
Thursday, November 5:
Basel > Zurich
Friday, November 6:
Zurich
Saturday, November 7:
Zurich > Milan > Stockholm
Sunday, November 8:
Stockholm > Overnight Bus
Monday, November 9:
Oslo
Tuesday, November 10:
Oslo > Rome
--
yikes.
new pictures up here.
writing to come later.
Oct 30, 2009
oh crap
I'm getting excited about both my Berlin trip (for which I leave early early EARLY tomorrow morning) and for the North field trip, but I'm also starting to get nervous about the amount of work that has been accumulating/I've been putting off...
Although I am essentially going to be gone for the next eleven days (really with only an afternoon back in Rome before leaving again), there is still plenty due right when we get back, with almost no time to do it. I have to completely start over with my packaging project, since I was working hard on trying to find a good solution, but it just stopped making sense... Although I'll have fun traveling, and can work on some sketching and thinking while away, a good chunk of my work will need to be done on my computer, so I can't do it until I get back.
On the other hand, I'm really excited for Berlin, although I've been really hands off in the planning for this one and am not too sure what's going on. After Berlin starts the North field trip, up to Basel and Zurich in Switzerland and Vitra, Germany! We get to do all kinds of nerdy design things like see private poster collections and modern furniture design and go to a paper mill and meet awesome designers. After this trip, Meghann and I have our Stockholm and Oslo trip, which I am excited/stressed about... I'll have plenty of preparing to do in my short time back in Rome...
Off on more adventures!
Although I am essentially going to be gone for the next eleven days (really with only an afternoon back in Rome before leaving again), there is still plenty due right when we get back, with almost no time to do it. I have to completely start over with my packaging project, since I was working hard on trying to find a good solution, but it just stopped making sense... Although I'll have fun traveling, and can work on some sketching and thinking while away, a good chunk of my work will need to be done on my computer, so I can't do it until I get back.
On the other hand, I'm really excited for Berlin, although I've been really hands off in the planning for this one and am not too sure what's going on. After Berlin starts the North field trip, up to Basel and Zurich in Switzerland and Vitra, Germany! We get to do all kinds of nerdy design things like see private poster collections and modern furniture design and go to a paper mill and meet awesome designers. After this trip, Meghann and I have our Stockholm and Oslo trip, which I am excited/stressed about... I'll have plenty of preparing to do in my short time back in Rome...
Off on more adventures!
Oct 27, 2009
roma, roma, roma
I think I've been getting much more accustomed to how busy Rome can be... It doesn't seem to bother me nearly as much any more. I've been noticing sirens a lot less than I used to.. the incessant honking when ambulances are trying to get through and when people are parked in still drive me up a wall sometimes, but in general I've been noticing it a lot less. Coming back to Rome after a weekend away isn't quite as much of a shock. Maybe I brace myself for it more, or maybe there are fewer tourists around clogging things up, I don't know. I've also found a couple ways to get up Via del Corso with minimal time actually on Corso... so, I think I've managed to find a way to avoid some of it more as well....
Now, if only there were some places close to my apartment that were really quiet... I really need to try the park closest to my apartment and see what I can find before the weather gets too rainy.
Now, if only there were some places close to my apartment that were really quiet... I really need to try the park closest to my apartment and see what I can find before the weather gets too rainy.
Oct 26, 2009
Parents in Rome and some Sad News
This week back in Rome (I wrote Ames at first, definitely not the same thing) was mostly just spent trying to meet some deadlines, as I've been putting off a lot of my work lately...
Friday night, Meghann and I went to Maharajah for some Indian food.. it was so delicious and definitely cheaper than we thought it was going to be! A definite plus, and it was so fantastic to have food that wasn't Italian...
When we got back from dinner, we met up with some of the other girls and went over to the boys' place. From there, we all headed out. We started in Piazza Navona and some bar/club place over there. It was crowded, loud, and mostly pretty boring, though, so Ryan, Colleen, Meghann and I headed out to explore Rome at night. We found Ryan's favorite fountain, as well as tried to go to Aventine Hill. Although it was closed since it was dark, there was still a great view of St. Peters. We took a long route home, walking through Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, as well as the triangular-shaped one just south of that (San Cosimato, I think?). I've decided I like that piazza, and it's about halfway to studio, so actually wouldn't be that bad to try to hang out at. We had fun playing around on the urban kids' playground for a while before heading the rest of the way home.
The next day, I got up to meet my parents at Galleria Borghese... the museum was really cool, they had a lot of beautiful paintings and sculptures, as well as their special exhibit on Caravaggio and Francis Bacon. They basically said they weren't necessarily trying to draw a parallel between the two artists. It was really neat to see Caravaggio's Self Portrait as Baccus in person. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne was an incredibly impressive sculpture, and I cannot imagine the amount of planning and delicacy.
After the museum and a picnic lunch in Villa Borghese, I took my parents on a kind of super tour, on a really roundabout path from there to my apartment. It was a ton of walking, but still good. We walked around Villa Borghese a little bit, then down to Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Vittor Emmanuel monument for a great view of the city, took a break getting gelato at San Crispino (so good! I got pear, and loved having bits of the skin in there, so tasty). Then we walked through the Pantheon, then off to Piazza Navona, down to Campo dei' Fiori, with a rest/tour of studio. After that, we walked a bit through Trastevere, then hopped on the tram the rest of the way to my apartment.
We tried to go out to Renato e Luisa for dinner this night, but they woudn't let us since we didn't have a reservation.
Sunday, we did Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum, with a little help from good ol' Rick Steves. We then took a little rest at my parents' hotel and made a reservation for Renato e Luisa before heading out to the Capitoline museums to see the bits of the colossal statue of Constantine... it was definitely quite large, with the head being taller than I am.
Dinner was really tasty, and the place was cute, I was definitely glad we made it in that night, somewhere I should consider going back to.
Monday was spent almost entirely at the Vatican. I got to sleep in a little, which was really nice, but then we went into St. Peter's Basilica (HUGE.), then the Vatican Museums. I was impressed with the size of both, and liked to see the Egyptian stuff at the museums... I also recognized so many statues of Hercules. I was pretty disappointed that my dad pretty much shooed us through the room with Raphael's The School of Athens.. I barely got to see much of it. Apparently there were too many people in that room for him. Then, again, when we walked into the Sistine Chapel, the first thing out of his mouth was "What is going on in here?" Apparently, he can only really concentrate on how many people are in a room.. oh my.
That night for dinner we ate Indian food.. about as good as Meghann and I ate on Friday night, but the atmosphere of the first place was much better...
Then, I said goodbye to my parents and headed home, quite exhausted from the weekend.
This weekend, we also received some incredibly sad news. My art history professor has passed. I am incredibly sorry that he is now gone. I thoroughly enjoyed class with him; he was so enthusiastic and passionate about everything he talked about, I loved it. I can't say I've ever known anybody else who had made poured concrete sound so interesting. Needless to say, he will be missed. I am not sure what will happen for art history now, but I guess we will find out...
Friday night, Meghann and I went to Maharajah for some Indian food.. it was so delicious and definitely cheaper than we thought it was going to be! A definite plus, and it was so fantastic to have food that wasn't Italian...
When we got back from dinner, we met up with some of the other girls and went over to the boys' place. From there, we all headed out. We started in Piazza Navona and some bar/club place over there. It was crowded, loud, and mostly pretty boring, though, so Ryan, Colleen, Meghann and I headed out to explore Rome at night. We found Ryan's favorite fountain, as well as tried to go to Aventine Hill. Although it was closed since it was dark, there was still a great view of St. Peters. We took a long route home, walking through Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, as well as the triangular-shaped one just south of that (San Cosimato, I think?). I've decided I like that piazza, and it's about halfway to studio, so actually wouldn't be that bad to try to hang out at. We had fun playing around on the urban kids' playground for a while before heading the rest of the way home.
The next day, I got up to meet my parents at Galleria Borghese... the museum was really cool, they had a lot of beautiful paintings and sculptures, as well as their special exhibit on Caravaggio and Francis Bacon. They basically said they weren't necessarily trying to draw a parallel between the two artists. It was really neat to see Caravaggio's Self Portrait as Baccus in person. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne was an incredibly impressive sculpture, and I cannot imagine the amount of planning and delicacy.
After the museum and a picnic lunch in Villa Borghese, I took my parents on a kind of super tour, on a really roundabout path from there to my apartment. It was a ton of walking, but still good. We walked around Villa Borghese a little bit, then down to Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Vittor Emmanuel monument for a great view of the city, took a break getting gelato at San Crispino (so good! I got pear, and loved having bits of the skin in there, so tasty). Then we walked through the Pantheon, then off to Piazza Navona, down to Campo dei' Fiori, with a rest/tour of studio. After that, we walked a bit through Trastevere, then hopped on the tram the rest of the way to my apartment.
We tried to go out to Renato e Luisa for dinner this night, but they woudn't let us since we didn't have a reservation.
Sunday, we did Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum, with a little help from good ol' Rick Steves. We then took a little rest at my parents' hotel and made a reservation for Renato e Luisa before heading out to the Capitoline museums to see the bits of the colossal statue of Constantine... it was definitely quite large, with the head being taller than I am.
Dinner was really tasty, and the place was cute, I was definitely glad we made it in that night, somewhere I should consider going back to.
Monday was spent almost entirely at the Vatican. I got to sleep in a little, which was really nice, but then we went into St. Peter's Basilica (HUGE.), then the Vatican Museums. I was impressed with the size of both, and liked to see the Egyptian stuff at the museums... I also recognized so many statues of Hercules. I was pretty disappointed that my dad pretty much shooed us through the room with Raphael's The School of Athens.. I barely got to see much of it. Apparently there were too many people in that room for him. Then, again, when we walked into the Sistine Chapel, the first thing out of his mouth was "What is going on in here?" Apparently, he can only really concentrate on how many people are in a room.. oh my.
That night for dinner we ate Indian food.. about as good as Meghann and I ate on Friday night, but the atmosphere of the first place was much better...
Then, I said goodbye to my parents and headed home, quite exhausted from the weekend.
This weekend, we also received some incredibly sad news. My art history professor has passed. I am incredibly sorry that he is now gone. I thoroughly enjoyed class with him; he was so enthusiastic and passionate about everything he talked about, I loved it. I can't say I've ever known anybody else who had made poured concrete sound so interesting. Needless to say, he will be missed. I am not sure what will happen for art history now, but I guess we will find out...
Oct 24, 2009
Venice/Florence
After the Oded Workshop, I rushed off to catch my plane to meet my parents in Venice.
It was a little bit intimidating but exciting at the same time to be traveling by myself. Catching the train to the airport was super easy, and getting into the airport wasn't too much trouble. I had to go through the metal detector three times, though, which was very annoying. Then the guy looking through bags was asking about what crops and animals went with each state.. he thought that a big thing in Iowa was chickens.. I made sure to add corn to his list.
The flight was super short, it felt like we barely had any time in the air before we were preparing to land again. Once I got off the plane, the automatic machines to buy tickets for the Alilinguna, the boat bus, were not working, so I had to talk to somebody to get a ticket...
The boat bus was kind of cool, it was definitely an interesting way to get into the main part of town, seeing everything from the water and the outside first. When I got off the boat, however, I was supposed to meet my parents at the Campanile in St Marks' Square. I figured, though, that there would be signs all over the place. This was not the case. I had directions to my parents' hotel (but not the name of it), so I headed off in that direction, since I could see a few towers and I wasn't sure which one I was looking for. Like all great Italian directions, however, they were a little bit off. After wandering around for about a half hour as it was getting dark, though, I ran into my dad returning to the hotel to grab a sweater for my mom. So, in the end it worked out.
We then went to dinner and ended up getting a fixed menu dinner, of some traditional venetian dishes. As we were looking at the menu, though, they brought us some sparkling wine. I'm not sure if they thought I was younger than I actually was, though, because initially they had given me some sort of extra sweet strawberry drink. (I traded with Dad, though, I'd rather have the wine and he'd rather have the sugary drink). The meal was... interesting. Plenty of things like anchovies, octopus, unidentifiable fish, squid ink sauce on pasta that turned all of our mouths black, and liver. Needless to say, although it wasn't a delicious dinner, it was quite the adventure.
The next day, it rained most of the day, but we spent most of it in museums, so it was okay. We went to the Museo Correr, where we saw a lot of 18th century.. things (I loved the library), and the Modern Art Museum (disappointingly small, but we saw some Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Joan Miro, and a couple others...), the Doge's Palace, where we went in the Bridge of Sighs (completely surrounded by giant ads on the outside, ugh). We also went into the cathedral there that day. After dinner that evening, we got some gelato and spent time floating between the dueling orchestras in San Marco Square.
The next day was actually quite sunny and warm, and we explored a few more parts of Venice we hadn't wandered to yet before catching the train to Florence. Before we left, we found some good gelato, and I was excited about my chili pepper chocolate flavor, yum!
I met up with Andrew when we got into Florence, and he took me on a mini art history/walking tour, looking at plenty of fabulous sculptures and such on the way to his apartment. His apartment has an AWESOME rooftop with a beautiful view, I'm so jealous! It was very nice. We tried to go to one of Andrew's favorite places, the Art Bar, for awesomly fruity drinks, but it was apparently closed on Sundays. So, instead he took me to the Mexican restaurant and we got some Dos Equis with lime instead (!!!!! finally satisfied that craving...). After that, we headed off to his class mates' apartment for a dinner party, it was quite tasty.
The next day, Andrew took me to the Spanish Chapel off to the side of Santa Maria Novella and explained all the frescoes to me. I then met up with my parents. Again, it rained a bunch this day. This was unfortunate, because I was not dressed for cold or rainy weather, but I did not have access to my clothing, since it was all at Andrew's apartment and he was in class for the day. I borrowed some from my mom, but I was still cold and had wet feet all day, which did NOT help the fact that I was a little bit sick.. definitely got a little worse after that day. We saw a couple nice churches, and a museum where we saw Michelangelo's Pieta he had started for his own tomb, and a nice view of the city at the top of the hill. I got the wonderful opportunity to stand off to the side and listen to the Italians make fun of my parents for posing for pictures with the silly three-wheeled work trucks... oh my.
In the evening, I met up with Andrew again for the night. We had grand plans: go to the Art Bar for fruity drinks (maybe make it to the free harpsichord concert at his school?), dinner for one of his classmates, then the Jazz club. We did make it to the Art Bar... I got a strawberry daquiri (which I would usually never order), which was really just a ton of delicious fresh fruit piled on top of some drink.. even passion fruit!
Then we headed off to dinner. Turns out we were going to some super secret restaurant club thing.. it was an unmarked restaurant and we had to pay to join and get a club card before we could go in. I knew dinner was going to be really good, though, when they handed us handwritten menus. They brought us plenty of wine and bruschetta, then apparently what I had ordered for dinner (I didn't really know) was lamb with marsala.. it was really really good. Andrew had ordered something called gnudi, which was large balls of spinach coated in ricotta cheese. These were also so soft and delicious. We also got some tasty desserts, and they brought this giant jug and told us to finish it. We didn't really know what it was at first.. apparently it was grappa, and had a bunch of fruits that had been sitting in it for about a month. There was so much sediment in the liquid, and it had a really nasty taste to it. I was not a fan... but other people got a little rowdy. It was a pretty fun dinner, though, and kind of exciting that it was some sort of secret club.
For spending one full day in Florence, though, I picked absolutely the worst day, as the Uffizi and Accademia are both closed on Mondays... (not to mention that a few days later Patrick Wolf played a free show and Hot Chip did a DJ set the day after that.. hope you had fun, Andrew!). Guess that just means I need to go back sometime.
It was a little bit intimidating but exciting at the same time to be traveling by myself. Catching the train to the airport was super easy, and getting into the airport wasn't too much trouble. I had to go through the metal detector three times, though, which was very annoying. Then the guy looking through bags was asking about what crops and animals went with each state.. he thought that a big thing in Iowa was chickens.. I made sure to add corn to his list.
The flight was super short, it felt like we barely had any time in the air before we were preparing to land again. Once I got off the plane, the automatic machines to buy tickets for the Alilinguna, the boat bus, were not working, so I had to talk to somebody to get a ticket...
The boat bus was kind of cool, it was definitely an interesting way to get into the main part of town, seeing everything from the water and the outside first. When I got off the boat, however, I was supposed to meet my parents at the Campanile in St Marks' Square. I figured, though, that there would be signs all over the place. This was not the case. I had directions to my parents' hotel (but not the name of it), so I headed off in that direction, since I could see a few towers and I wasn't sure which one I was looking for. Like all great Italian directions, however, they were a little bit off. After wandering around for about a half hour as it was getting dark, though, I ran into my dad returning to the hotel to grab a sweater for my mom. So, in the end it worked out.
We then went to dinner and ended up getting a fixed menu dinner, of some traditional venetian dishes. As we were looking at the menu, though, they brought us some sparkling wine. I'm not sure if they thought I was younger than I actually was, though, because initially they had given me some sort of extra sweet strawberry drink. (I traded with Dad, though, I'd rather have the wine and he'd rather have the sugary drink). The meal was... interesting. Plenty of things like anchovies, octopus, unidentifiable fish, squid ink sauce on pasta that turned all of our mouths black, and liver. Needless to say, although it wasn't a delicious dinner, it was quite the adventure.
The next day, it rained most of the day, but we spent most of it in museums, so it was okay. We went to the Museo Correr, where we saw a lot of 18th century.. things (I loved the library), and the Modern Art Museum (disappointingly small, but we saw some Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Joan Miro, and a couple others...), the Doge's Palace, where we went in the Bridge of Sighs (completely surrounded by giant ads on the outside, ugh). We also went into the cathedral there that day. After dinner that evening, we got some gelato and spent time floating between the dueling orchestras in San Marco Square.
The next day was actually quite sunny and warm, and we explored a few more parts of Venice we hadn't wandered to yet before catching the train to Florence. Before we left, we found some good gelato, and I was excited about my chili pepper chocolate flavor, yum!
I met up with Andrew when we got into Florence, and he took me on a mini art history/walking tour, looking at plenty of fabulous sculptures and such on the way to his apartment. His apartment has an AWESOME rooftop with a beautiful view, I'm so jealous! It was very nice. We tried to go to one of Andrew's favorite places, the Art Bar, for awesomly fruity drinks, but it was apparently closed on Sundays. So, instead he took me to the Mexican restaurant and we got some Dos Equis with lime instead (!!!!! finally satisfied that craving...). After that, we headed off to his class mates' apartment for a dinner party, it was quite tasty.
The next day, Andrew took me to the Spanish Chapel off to the side of Santa Maria Novella and explained all the frescoes to me. I then met up with my parents. Again, it rained a bunch this day. This was unfortunate, because I was not dressed for cold or rainy weather, but I did not have access to my clothing, since it was all at Andrew's apartment and he was in class for the day. I borrowed some from my mom, but I was still cold and had wet feet all day, which did NOT help the fact that I was a little bit sick.. definitely got a little worse after that day. We saw a couple nice churches, and a museum where we saw Michelangelo's Pieta he had started for his own tomb, and a nice view of the city at the top of the hill. I got the wonderful opportunity to stand off to the side and listen to the Italians make fun of my parents for posing for pictures with the silly three-wheeled work trucks... oh my.
In the evening, I met up with Andrew again for the night. We had grand plans: go to the Art Bar for fruity drinks (maybe make it to the free harpsichord concert at his school?), dinner for one of his classmates, then the Jazz club. We did make it to the Art Bar... I got a strawberry daquiri (which I would usually never order), which was really just a ton of delicious fresh fruit piled on top of some drink.. even passion fruit!
Then we headed off to dinner. Turns out we were going to some super secret restaurant club thing.. it was an unmarked restaurant and we had to pay to join and get a club card before we could go in. I knew dinner was going to be really good, though, when they handed us handwritten menus. They brought us plenty of wine and bruschetta, then apparently what I had ordered for dinner (I didn't really know) was lamb with marsala.. it was really really good. Andrew had ordered something called gnudi, which was large balls of spinach coated in ricotta cheese. These were also so soft and delicious. We also got some tasty desserts, and they brought this giant jug and told us to finish it. We didn't really know what it was at first.. apparently it was grappa, and had a bunch of fruits that had been sitting in it for about a month. There was so much sediment in the liquid, and it had a really nasty taste to it. I was not a fan... but other people got a little rowdy. It was a pretty fun dinner, though, and kind of exciting that it was some sort of secret club.
For spending one full day in Florence, though, I picked absolutely the worst day, as the Uffizi and Accademia are both closed on Mondays... (not to mention that a few days later Patrick Wolf played a free show and Hot Chip did a DJ set the day after that.. hope you had fun, Andrew!). Guess that just means I need to go back sometime.
Oct 22, 2009
Oded Workshop
I really enjoyed our few days with Oded Ezer, he was an interesting guy and it was a great workshop.
We had to do a project for him before he came-- we were supposed to build a letter or symbol at least two feet tall and photograph it in a banal and an extraordinary place around the city. Becky and I were assigned to work together and we started our project with the stipulation that we didn't want to spend any money on supplies. We decided to be adventurous and attempt the euro symbol... and the available materials we had? Garbage. Hence, we titled our project Eurotrash. We took it up Via del Corso, and we about to walk away and observe after we set it next to some piles of trash, while we had to run and rescue it since the garbage truck just pulled up. We also had some guy try to talk to us about it, and he wanted his picture with it.
When we came to studio for Oded's lecture that Tuesday, I knew it was going to be good since we were only allowed to enter the room from in one way, and because Troy needed to borrow someone's camera. When we walked in, Oded had some giant paper ascender hat on...
He talked to us about how, in our lifes, about half of what we do should be work and half should be play and that the eventual goal is to turn your work into your play. He talked about his work, and how he gets inspiration from science, among other things. Overall, I think we all felt really pumped after his lecture. While the Primo Angeli workshop was all about pleasing the client and getting the most consumer response business and seriousness, Oded was telling us that we needed to do a lot for ourselves, and to get away from the client and the deadlines... it was great to hear that Oded's work eventually became his play, so it can happen!
The next morning, we presented our large letters. At first, we all had a tough time figuring out what Oded was trying to get at when he asked us to talk about each other's pieces, but then we started to figure it out. He wanted to show us how to ask questions from the work we've done, and also not to force materials.
After this, our assignment was to pick a letter of the alphabet (with no two people picking the same letter), then creating a three-dimensional letterform that acted like a famous person whose name started with the letter we chose.
I started with the letter S, and the first thing that came to my mind was Santa. Although a little silly, there's a lot of personality and associations with Santa that could be used. We then went off to work on these. The next day when I talked to Oded about my semi-final form, he had told me that he had kept thinking about one of the things I had been doing the day before and that he thought it was brilliant. (Oded thinks my work is brilliant? Wow.) So, although I had followed the wrong path, there was still time to correct myself.
Here's how my project had turned out by the end of the workshop... it's still something I think I want to keep working on, especially after talking to him at the end of the workshop, so we'll see where this eventually goes...
We had to do a project for him before he came-- we were supposed to build a letter or symbol at least two feet tall and photograph it in a banal and an extraordinary place around the city. Becky and I were assigned to work together and we started our project with the stipulation that we didn't want to spend any money on supplies. We decided to be adventurous and attempt the euro symbol... and the available materials we had? Garbage. Hence, we titled our project Eurotrash. We took it up Via del Corso, and we about to walk away and observe after we set it next to some piles of trash, while we had to run and rescue it since the garbage truck just pulled up. We also had some guy try to talk to us about it, and he wanted his picture with it.
When we came to studio for Oded's lecture that Tuesday, I knew it was going to be good since we were only allowed to enter the room from in one way, and because Troy needed to borrow someone's camera. When we walked in, Oded had some giant paper ascender hat on...
He talked to us about how, in our lifes, about half of what we do should be work and half should be play and that the eventual goal is to turn your work into your play. He talked about his work, and how he gets inspiration from science, among other things. Overall, I think we all felt really pumped after his lecture. While the Primo Angeli workshop was all about pleasing the client and getting the most consumer response business and seriousness, Oded was telling us that we needed to do a lot for ourselves, and to get away from the client and the deadlines... it was great to hear that Oded's work eventually became his play, so it can happen!
The next morning, we presented our large letters. At first, we all had a tough time figuring out what Oded was trying to get at when he asked us to talk about each other's pieces, but then we started to figure it out. He wanted to show us how to ask questions from the work we've done, and also not to force materials.
After this, our assignment was to pick a letter of the alphabet (with no two people picking the same letter), then creating a three-dimensional letterform that acted like a famous person whose name started with the letter we chose.
I started with the letter S, and the first thing that came to my mind was Santa. Although a little silly, there's a lot of personality and associations with Santa that could be used. We then went off to work on these. The next day when I talked to Oded about my semi-final form, he had told me that he had kept thinking about one of the things I had been doing the day before and that he thought it was brilliant. (Oded thinks my work is brilliant? Wow.) So, although I had followed the wrong path, there was still time to correct myself.
Here's how my project had turned out by the end of the workshop... it's still something I think I want to keep working on, especially after talking to him at the end of the workshop, so we'll see where this eventually goes...
Oct 20, 2009
South Field Trip
South Field Trip was off to an early early start, we left the apartment at 6am to catch a bus to the train station... unsurprisingly, almost everyone fell asleep at least for a little while on the train.
A few hours later, we landed in Naples and took a maze-like path out of the metro to find ourselves in front of the Naples National Archaeological museum. We spent a while at this museum (a little bit too long, maybe, we all ran out of things to see before it was time to move on...), but saw some interesting things, including things from Pompeii. There were tiny mosaics, bright frescoes, and marble statues galore. Some of the ancient artifacts were these little metal objects that looked remarkably like saftey pins, but as I could not read the italian name plates, I do not know what they actually were. One part of the museum that stood out was the Secret Cabinet, which was entirely erotic art.. plenty of phallic symbols there.
After the museum, we grabbed a quick lunch before leaving on the train to Sorrento. I was not too sad about not spending a lot of time in Naples, it really didn't seem like that exciting of a place, but that was just my initial impression.
Getting into Sorrento, we had a few hours to explore before meeting up for dinner. I wandered around with Meghann, Ty, Ryan, Aaron, Huy, JJ, Jamie, and Erin. We looked around in some of the touristy shops, found a nice view of the bay, ate a fresh orange off the tree, and climbed up the hill to get a nice view of the town and the bay.
Dinner was at a place everyone referred to as the "Lemon Tree" Restaurant (actually called Restaurant La Favorita O' Parrucchiano. We all filed in (in our group of around 65 or so...), and sat at our tables... we were then brought an amazing dinner, starting with bread and wine. Antipasti included bruschetta, fresh mozzerella, stuffed zucchini flowers, among a couple other delicious bites. Primi was pasta with a red sauce. For Secondi, I got a veal dish, but probably should have gotten the fish, as the fish was so light and tasted delicious with the hint of lemon. Dessert was cakes with a lemon filling that was quite delicious... some of the highlights of dinner included the waiter asking Mike if he wanted "more pasta, baby?" then plopping a single mushroom onto his plate and also feeding various other people their desserts. After dinner, Pia got a discoteque opened up for us. It was kind of fun for a while, but since it was only Iowa State people, it was a little strange to have the whole place for ourselves. The DJ kept trying to make us sing and would not stop talking over the music. Once he played YMCA and Grease, it was DEFINITELY time to leave.
The next day, we were supposed to go to Pompeii as a class, but would be free from there. Since it was rainy, our professors kept pushing back our meeting time. We, unfortunately, still got up too early, but enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our hotel, then sat on our balcony for a bit. We were instead released that day with the promise to be reimbursed if we did decide to go to Pompeii. This turned out to be a great day, though, despite the rain. On the way to leave our stuff at our hostel, Meghann and I found a stand that was giving out huge bunches of grapes and freshly squeezed grape juice. We then spent a good chunk of the day exploring the town and shops with some of the other graphic girls, then went back for some more free grapes (this time cake and wine, too!), and hanging out in the park for a while.
We left the other girls to eat dinner at our hostel. It was the most brilliant thing to stay in a hostel attached to a cooking school. We bought dinner there that night, and ended up finding some of the interior girls there at dinner. Dinner started out with eggplant and mozzerella, then some pasta in a gravy-like sauce with chick peas. Then we had what might have been the most delicious shrimp I've ever had and extremely fresh calamari (yum!). Dessert was a cookie sandwich with fresh cream sauce and chocolate chips, cinnamon, ginger, and spearment inside. So good.
The next day, Meghann and I bought breakfast at the hostel (great idea: filling enough not to really need lunch, leftovers from dinner the night before, super fresh croissants and delicious cappuccinos!). We thought about going to Capri, but decided that the ferry was pretty expensive and we'd have an equally good time going up the coast. So, we loaded up onto the bus.. it was a crazy bus ride, so zig zaggy and way longer than I expected...the whole time hanging on to the edge of cliffs and with the bus driver honking around every corner to make sure cars would stop so he could fit around the hairpin turns.
We rode the bus to the end and got off in Amalfi, where we sat on the rocky beach for about an hour so to relax, then wandered around the town. It was pretty touristy, but we found a cool shop that had some really nice handmade paper. Then we loaded back onto the bus and stopped halfway back in Positano. Here, the bus dropped us off at the top of the cliff, and we had to make it to the bottom to see the town. We stopped for a snack and to enjoy the view at the top before making the trek down so many stairs my legs felt like jelly by the time we got to the bottom. Here, again, we basically just relaxed sitting on the beach. We didn't even bother going into the center of town since we figured it would just be touristy shops again, but just sat and talked and admired the setting sun. The climb back up the cliff, we counted steps.. 640. Yikes.
The bus ride home was quite an adventure, with some drunk rich girl from LA telling some guy she barely knew about how she had racked up a bill of $5000 on daddy's credit card in ONE MONTH. Ugh. That got so annoying so quickly...
That night, we actually talked to the other people staying in our room at the hostel, which made things much less awkward since we kept walking in on people sleeping...
The next morning, we had another delicious breakfast at the hostel, then headed out to Pompeii, where we wandered around for a few hours, looking at ruins, mosaics, and frescoes... as well as a couple casts of bodies. Pompeii was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be, actually, and it was pretty hot that day (plus we were carrying our bags all day), so although we stayed for a while, we did not see everything, we decided to head back to Rome.
All in all, I think the highlight of the south trip was the food in Sorrento, the dinner at our hostel being the best. Staying at a cooking school may possibly be one of the best ideas we've ever had...
A few hours later, we landed in Naples and took a maze-like path out of the metro to find ourselves in front of the Naples National Archaeological museum. We spent a while at this museum (a little bit too long, maybe, we all ran out of things to see before it was time to move on...), but saw some interesting things, including things from Pompeii. There were tiny mosaics, bright frescoes, and marble statues galore. Some of the ancient artifacts were these little metal objects that looked remarkably like saftey pins, but as I could not read the italian name plates, I do not know what they actually were. One part of the museum that stood out was the Secret Cabinet, which was entirely erotic art.. plenty of phallic symbols there.
After the museum, we grabbed a quick lunch before leaving on the train to Sorrento. I was not too sad about not spending a lot of time in Naples, it really didn't seem like that exciting of a place, but that was just my initial impression.
Getting into Sorrento, we had a few hours to explore before meeting up for dinner. I wandered around with Meghann, Ty, Ryan, Aaron, Huy, JJ, Jamie, and Erin. We looked around in some of the touristy shops, found a nice view of the bay, ate a fresh orange off the tree, and climbed up the hill to get a nice view of the town and the bay.
Dinner was at a place everyone referred to as the "Lemon Tree" Restaurant (actually called Restaurant La Favorita O' Parrucchiano. We all filed in (in our group of around 65 or so...), and sat at our tables... we were then brought an amazing dinner, starting with bread and wine. Antipasti included bruschetta, fresh mozzerella, stuffed zucchini flowers, among a couple other delicious bites. Primi was pasta with a red sauce. For Secondi, I got a veal dish, but probably should have gotten the fish, as the fish was so light and tasted delicious with the hint of lemon. Dessert was cakes with a lemon filling that was quite delicious... some of the highlights of dinner included the waiter asking Mike if he wanted "more pasta, baby?" then plopping a single mushroom onto his plate and also feeding various other people their desserts. After dinner, Pia got a discoteque opened up for us. It was kind of fun for a while, but since it was only Iowa State people, it was a little strange to have the whole place for ourselves. The DJ kept trying to make us sing and would not stop talking over the music. Once he played YMCA and Grease, it was DEFINITELY time to leave.
The next day, we were supposed to go to Pompeii as a class, but would be free from there. Since it was rainy, our professors kept pushing back our meeting time. We, unfortunately, still got up too early, but enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our hotel, then sat on our balcony for a bit. We were instead released that day with the promise to be reimbursed if we did decide to go to Pompeii. This turned out to be a great day, though, despite the rain. On the way to leave our stuff at our hostel, Meghann and I found a stand that was giving out huge bunches of grapes and freshly squeezed grape juice. We then spent a good chunk of the day exploring the town and shops with some of the other graphic girls, then went back for some more free grapes (this time cake and wine, too!), and hanging out in the park for a while.
We left the other girls to eat dinner at our hostel. It was the most brilliant thing to stay in a hostel attached to a cooking school. We bought dinner there that night, and ended up finding some of the interior girls there at dinner. Dinner started out with eggplant and mozzerella, then some pasta in a gravy-like sauce with chick peas. Then we had what might have been the most delicious shrimp I've ever had and extremely fresh calamari (yum!). Dessert was a cookie sandwich with fresh cream sauce and chocolate chips, cinnamon, ginger, and spearment inside. So good.
The next day, Meghann and I bought breakfast at the hostel (great idea: filling enough not to really need lunch, leftovers from dinner the night before, super fresh croissants and delicious cappuccinos!). We thought about going to Capri, but decided that the ferry was pretty expensive and we'd have an equally good time going up the coast. So, we loaded up onto the bus.. it was a crazy bus ride, so zig zaggy and way longer than I expected...the whole time hanging on to the edge of cliffs and with the bus driver honking around every corner to make sure cars would stop so he could fit around the hairpin turns.
We rode the bus to the end and got off in Amalfi, where we sat on the rocky beach for about an hour so to relax, then wandered around the town. It was pretty touristy, but we found a cool shop that had some really nice handmade paper. Then we loaded back onto the bus and stopped halfway back in Positano. Here, the bus dropped us off at the top of the cliff, and we had to make it to the bottom to see the town. We stopped for a snack and to enjoy the view at the top before making the trek down so many stairs my legs felt like jelly by the time we got to the bottom. Here, again, we basically just relaxed sitting on the beach. We didn't even bother going into the center of town since we figured it would just be touristy shops again, but just sat and talked and admired the setting sun. The climb back up the cliff, we counted steps.. 640. Yikes.
The bus ride home was quite an adventure, with some drunk rich girl from LA telling some guy she barely knew about how she had racked up a bill of $5000 on daddy's credit card in ONE MONTH. Ugh. That got so annoying so quickly...
That night, we actually talked to the other people staying in our room at the hostel, which made things much less awkward since we kept walking in on people sleeping...
The next morning, we had another delicious breakfast at the hostel, then headed out to Pompeii, where we wandered around for a few hours, looking at ruins, mosaics, and frescoes... as well as a couple casts of bodies. Pompeii was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be, actually, and it was pretty hot that day (plus we were carrying our bags all day), so although we stayed for a while, we did not see everything, we decided to head back to Rome.
All in all, I think the highlight of the south trip was the food in Sorrento, the dinner at our hostel being the best. Staying at a cooking school may possibly be one of the best ideas we've ever had...
Oct 8, 2009
Oded Preview
Although I'd like to write more about the Oded Ezer workshop later, I just wanted to share that he has posted some pictures from his lecture on his flickr account...
Here's a picture of Oded speaking (and the back of my head, oh boy!). There are a few more, too. Check 'em out!
Here's a picture of Oded speaking (and the back of my head, oh boy!). There are a few more, too. Check 'em out!
Oct 4, 2009
I bet you'd like to see some pictures.
You would?
Oh, well then you're in luck, because I FINALLY decided to do something about putting some up.
I'm going to be uploading pictures using picasa, and you can see them here, and this is where I'll be uploading them. I'll also probably add a link on the bar on the right. http://picasaweb.google.com/0.alco.0
Oh, well then you're in luck, because I FINALLY decided to do something about putting some up.
I'm going to be uploading pictures using picasa, and you can see them here, and this is where I'll be uploading them. I'll also probably add a link on the bar on the right. http://picasaweb.google.com/0.alco.0
Sep 30, 2009
it's been a while
Well, it seems like tomorrow may be the start of a busy, busy month. This semester is already going by so quickly, and it seems like it'll be over so soon!
Some updates:
Siena: Siena was really nice, it was a great break from Rome. Meghann and I had a few minor difficulties, like finding where to buy bus tickets, finding the hostel, and finding out that we had to call someone to check into our hostel (which then started a hunt for phone booths...). It seemed cleaner, quieter, and friendlier than Rome, though, and we got to use the little Italian skills that we have when we got asked directions. The Duomo there was an incredibly decorated piece of architecture, the Piazza il Campo a nice resting place, and the Facciatore a great place for a beautiful view. We got some chinese food for lunch on Monday, which tasted really good not because it was great chinese food, but more because it was a different texture than we'd eaten in a while...
Etc: Just finished the Primo Angeli workshop last week.. worked with Meghann, Becky, and Kate to redesign tuna packaging... Primo was funny because he was always muttering and getting off track, and it's a good thing his wife was there to remind him what he was doing all the time...
Oded Ezer is next week, and I'm quite excited!
Meghann and I went to a place near Campo dei Fiori that has falafel, and it was probably the best food (or close to it) that I've had here so far.
Went to dinner with Kate and Meghann, we had a funny waiter, and definitely need to start eating out more.
Erin made meatloaf for apartment dinner this week, quite the adventure with the oven.. most meat I've had in the past month and a half.
Went to Assisi this past weekend, very cute town, great view from the top. Why can't we have mountains and quiet and green in Rome, too?
The future: Meghann and I booked tickets to go to Stockholm and Oslo after the north field trip (Switzerland!).. it was a little bit of an impulsive decision, but we'd talked about going somewhere a little bit more outlandish, and actually, tickets were pretty cheap. It'll be interesting for sure, and we won't get a ton of time in each place, but hopefully it'll be fun. Gotta stock up on some cooler weather clothing, though..
Also, things are starting to get super super busy.. tomorrow morning, we leave for the south field trip to Naples and Pompeii, then staying in Sorrento a couple days (maybe going to Capri or the Amalfi Coast?). When we get back, we have a quick project to do before our typography workshop with Oded Ezer. Then, I fly to Venice to spend the weekend with my parents, then train to Florence, and I'll spend a day or two there with my parents and/or Andrew.
My weekends from now until forever (or so it seems) are pretty booked up, and I also have to make sure I stay on track with class work (even though we don't have class that often). It's crazy that apparently we only actually have five or so weeks in 470 that we actually have class before our project is due, and that does not seem like much time at all. Where did all this time go?
Some updates:
Siena: Siena was really nice, it was a great break from Rome. Meghann and I had a few minor difficulties, like finding where to buy bus tickets, finding the hostel, and finding out that we had to call someone to check into our hostel (which then started a hunt for phone booths...). It seemed cleaner, quieter, and friendlier than Rome, though, and we got to use the little Italian skills that we have when we got asked directions. The Duomo there was an incredibly decorated piece of architecture, the Piazza il Campo a nice resting place, and the Facciatore a great place for a beautiful view. We got some chinese food for lunch on Monday, which tasted really good not because it was great chinese food, but more because it was a different texture than we'd eaten in a while...
Etc: Just finished the Primo Angeli workshop last week.. worked with Meghann, Becky, and Kate to redesign tuna packaging... Primo was funny because he was always muttering and getting off track, and it's a good thing his wife was there to remind him what he was doing all the time...
Oded Ezer is next week, and I'm quite excited!
Meghann and I went to a place near Campo dei Fiori that has falafel, and it was probably the best food (or close to it) that I've had here so far.
Went to dinner with Kate and Meghann, we had a funny waiter, and definitely need to start eating out more.
Erin made meatloaf for apartment dinner this week, quite the adventure with the oven.. most meat I've had in the past month and a half.
Went to Assisi this past weekend, very cute town, great view from the top. Why can't we have mountains and quiet and green in Rome, too?
The future: Meghann and I booked tickets to go to Stockholm and Oslo after the north field trip (Switzerland!).. it was a little bit of an impulsive decision, but we'd talked about going somewhere a little bit more outlandish, and actually, tickets were pretty cheap. It'll be interesting for sure, and we won't get a ton of time in each place, but hopefully it'll be fun. Gotta stock up on some cooler weather clothing, though..
Also, things are starting to get super super busy.. tomorrow morning, we leave for the south field trip to Naples and Pompeii, then staying in Sorrento a couple days (maybe going to Capri or the Amalfi Coast?). When we get back, we have a quick project to do before our typography workshop with Oded Ezer. Then, I fly to Venice to spend the weekend with my parents, then train to Florence, and I'll spend a day or two there with my parents and/or Andrew.
My weekends from now until forever (or so it seems) are pretty booked up, and I also have to make sure I stay on track with class work (even though we don't have class that often). It's crazy that apparently we only actually have five or so weeks in 470 that we actually have class before our project is due, and that does not seem like much time at all. Where did all this time go?
Sep 22, 2009
ughblech.
argh travel planning is stressful and trying to read websites in Italian gives me a headache
maybe someday soon I'll post pictures from Siena.
Primo Angeli packaging workshop this week.
Dirty Projectors tomorrow.
Found popcorn at the grocery store. Exciting!
maybe someday soon I'll post pictures from Siena.
Primo Angeli packaging workshop this week.
Dirty Projectors tomorrow.
Found popcorn at the grocery store. Exciting!
Sep 18, 2009
09 18 09
Last weekend seemed so long and leisurely, but here we go rushing right in to busy busy projects.. I'm sure it'll be super fast-paced from now on, and will go even faster now that trips and such are starting..
Meghann and I are headed up to Siena for Sunday and Monday this weekend, I'm excited to go somewhere outside of Rome! This little and hopefully (not-so-stressful) trip will make planning others easier!
After this weekend, next weekend is the Assisi day trip, then the south field trip, to Sorento, Naples, and Pompei, and I'm thinking about trying to go to the Amalfi Coast and Sicily afterwards.. then a couple weekends with the parents (in Venice, then in Rome), then a weekend around in Rome, then BERLIN!
Going to try for Barcelona in early November (after the north field trip), and still need to figure out when to get to Florence and where to go for Thanksgiving break...
As far as classes go, next week is the Primo Angeli packaging workshop, which should be great... these really long days of class are really difficult to manage, nine hours straight in the same seat is a little rough! Too bad it would be expensive to eat lunch out every day, because that would at least be a break...
Last night was an interesting night. Meghann and I went over to Becky's apartment for a while, and some guy kept knocking on the door for a corkscrew (what Italian doesn't have a corkscrew?). He invited us over, he said it was mostly just a bunch of guys watching futbol, but we didn't think too much of it.
Then, the girls who lived in the apartment across the hall came over and offered us cake, and who would refuse that offer? So we went over and had some wine and the cake (really more of a torte or something, but it was so delicious..), and tried grappa and sorbetto. It was interesting to talk to some people other than Iowa State people (and other than the South African guy from the tram), and they spoke english pretty well. The two girls said they were going to try to have a party this weekend, so the plan is to hopefully stop by. Even though they were older, they were really nice, and I enjoyed talking to them...
Meghann and I are headed up to Siena for Sunday and Monday this weekend, I'm excited to go somewhere outside of Rome! This little and hopefully (not-so-stressful) trip will make planning others easier!
After this weekend, next weekend is the Assisi day trip, then the south field trip, to Sorento, Naples, and Pompei, and I'm thinking about trying to go to the Amalfi Coast and Sicily afterwards.. then a couple weekends with the parents (in Venice, then in Rome), then a weekend around in Rome, then BERLIN!
Going to try for Barcelona in early November (after the north field trip), and still need to figure out when to get to Florence and where to go for Thanksgiving break...
As far as classes go, next week is the Primo Angeli packaging workshop, which should be great... these really long days of class are really difficult to manage, nine hours straight in the same seat is a little rough! Too bad it would be expensive to eat lunch out every day, because that would at least be a break...
Last night was an interesting night. Meghann and I went over to Becky's apartment for a while, and some guy kept knocking on the door for a corkscrew (what Italian doesn't have a corkscrew?). He invited us over, he said it was mostly just a bunch of guys watching futbol, but we didn't think too much of it.
Then, the girls who lived in the apartment across the hall came over and offered us cake, and who would refuse that offer? So we went over and had some wine and the cake (really more of a torte or something, but it was so delicious..), and tried grappa and sorbetto. It was interesting to talk to some people other than Iowa State people (and other than the South African guy from the tram), and they spoke english pretty well. The two girls said they were going to try to have a party this weekend, so the plan is to hopefully stop by. Even though they were older, they were really nice, and I enjoyed talking to them...
Sep 15, 2009
today was a good day.
Despite the fact that I was once again awakened by the sound of sirens and honking, I adventured out to Villa Borghese by myself.. I decided to take a different path there.
Nearly getting lost, going by myself, and seeing new things was just what I needed for a great day and to renew my excitement about being in Rome. I then spent a great day relaxing/sketching in the park, then stopped for really (expensive, but) fancy gelato (plum and cinnamon/ginger flavor... the cinnamon/ginger was REALLY good) before Italian.
Then I cooked for our apartment dinner tonight, I made tortellini with squash and spinach and onions, with a bottle of chianti, it was quite tasty!
Nearly getting lost, going by myself, and seeing new things was just what I needed for a great day and to renew my excitement about being in Rome. I then spent a great day relaxing/sketching in the park, then stopped for really (expensive, but) fancy gelato (plum and cinnamon/ginger flavor... the cinnamon/ginger was REALLY good) before Italian.
Then I cooked for our apartment dinner tonight, I made tortellini with squash and spinach and onions, with a bottle of chianti, it was quite tasty!
Sep 14, 2009
ah, class.
I guess it's been about a week now since I've last written, but I'm definitely starting to get in the swing of things here, with class and finding my way around and such.
Within the last week:
-Went to the market at Campo de' Fiori
-Have now been to all my classes...
-starting to work on my italian basics
-for general studio, started visiting/sketching at Villa Borghese for my identity project (I think I've now spent about two days there, that's the plan for tomorrow, too. I really enjoy spending time there, but I sometimes wish I had picked somewhere that would be a lot easier to just pop by for an hour or so once in a while. At the same time, though, it's good to get away from traffic and people rushing around.
-for packaging, worked on building prototypes. nice to do something somewhat mindless...
-my art history class is probably going to be the most interesting one I have ever taken, since walking tours make everything better, and besides that, Terry Kirk is very enthusiastic, graceful, energetic, passionate.. plus he has a funny mustache. If he can make poured concrete interesting (which he can), I'm totally loving it.
-for type class, starting class with a 1,000 paced walk from the Pantheon is always a good start. hopefully the project will be fun too
-had an interesting attempt at going out in Rome, involving strange bars and lots of walking, but so glad the tram was still running when we were coming back...
-went to the Porta Portese market again on Sunday, got 3 scarves for 1,50! Super excited about that.. and some books to use for altered books of a sort. It's probably good that I don't have all the supplies I need yet, otherwise that's all I would do...
For the future:
-have now had two failed attempts at planning trips, but hopefully will go on at least one day trip out of town this weekend to make up for it.. it's a completely free weekend and I need to do something with it!
-spend more time at Villa Borghese, hopefully some relaxing while I'm there, too.
-gelato. I don't think I've had it for at least an entire week... (so long, I know, but I feel like I should take advantage of it while I'm here.)
-do something with the books I bought at the market.
-cookin' dinner for the whole apartment tomorrow.. tortellini, mmmm.
-MORE EXPLORIN.
Within the last week:
-Went to the market at Campo de' Fiori
-Have now been to all my classes...
-starting to work on my italian basics
-for general studio, started visiting/sketching at Villa Borghese for my identity project (I think I've now spent about two days there, that's the plan for tomorrow, too. I really enjoy spending time there, but I sometimes wish I had picked somewhere that would be a lot easier to just pop by for an hour or so once in a while. At the same time, though, it's good to get away from traffic and people rushing around.
-for packaging, worked on building prototypes. nice to do something somewhat mindless...
-my art history class is probably going to be the most interesting one I have ever taken, since walking tours make everything better, and besides that, Terry Kirk is very enthusiastic, graceful, energetic, passionate.. plus he has a funny mustache. If he can make poured concrete interesting (which he can), I'm totally loving it.
-for type class, starting class with a 1,000 paced walk from the Pantheon is always a good start. hopefully the project will be fun too
-had an interesting attempt at going out in Rome, involving strange bars and lots of walking, but so glad the tram was still running when we were coming back...
-went to the Porta Portese market again on Sunday, got 3 scarves for 1,50! Super excited about that.. and some books to use for altered books of a sort. It's probably good that I don't have all the supplies I need yet, otherwise that's all I would do...
For the future:
-have now had two failed attempts at planning trips, but hopefully will go on at least one day trip out of town this weekend to make up for it.. it's a completely free weekend and I need to do something with it!
-spend more time at Villa Borghese, hopefully some relaxing while I'm there, too.
-gelato. I don't think I've had it for at least an entire week... (so long, I know, but I feel like I should take advantage of it while I'm here.)
-do something with the books I bought at the market.
-cookin' dinner for the whole apartment tomorrow.. tortellini, mmmm.
-MORE EXPLORIN.
Sep 6, 2009
been doin' plenty more 'splorin'
I've been doing a lot more exploring, finishing up this scavenger hunt of sites to pick a focus for our big corporate identity project..
So, in total, I've now been to Pantheon Square, the Jewish Ghetto, Campo de Fiori (on the ONLY DAY there is not a market...), Tiber Island, Piazza della Bocca della Verita, Capitoline Hill, Piazza del Popolo, and Villa Borghese.
Villa Borghese was the one that totally grabbed me and I absolutely loved it, but I'm a little wary of choosing it since it's so far away.. and that it's so huge. But, I did really like it, and I would love to go back.
We also adventured to the beach... and it WAS quite the adventure. We got so lost and confused trying to find our way there, it took us three hours to get there, which was about twice as long as it should have. But, it was relaxing and therefore worth it, even if we didn't get there until really late.
We might try to head back again, might as well try to do as much relaxing things while we don't have too much to worry about for class yet. It's actually (dare I say it?) a bit cooler today, with the high to be only around 80.
Goal for the near future: to go to the market. I definitely need to get groceries sometime in the next couple of days, and I would love to by some produce at a market. Perhaps tomorrow, since I don't have class until 3:30? I also need to get back into the swing of cooking, and get a little bit more creative. I also need to figure out how the oven works, so I can do some baked dishes too, but I'm a little bit terrified to just start sticking lit matches into random places... it's definitely not something I've done before, to light my stove/oven with matches...
So, in total, I've now been to Pantheon Square, the Jewish Ghetto, Campo de Fiori (on the ONLY DAY there is not a market...), Tiber Island, Piazza della Bocca della Verita, Capitoline Hill, Piazza del Popolo, and Villa Borghese.
Villa Borghese was the one that totally grabbed me and I absolutely loved it, but I'm a little wary of choosing it since it's so far away.. and that it's so huge. But, I did really like it, and I would love to go back.
We also adventured to the beach... and it WAS quite the adventure. We got so lost and confused trying to find our way there, it took us three hours to get there, which was about twice as long as it should have. But, it was relaxing and therefore worth it, even if we didn't get there until really late.
We might try to head back again, might as well try to do as much relaxing things while we don't have too much to worry about for class yet. It's actually (dare I say it?) a bit cooler today, with the high to be only around 80.
Goal for the near future: to go to the market. I definitely need to get groceries sometime in the next couple of days, and I would love to by some produce at a market. Perhaps tomorrow, since I don't have class until 3:30? I also need to get back into the swing of cooking, and get a little bit more creative. I also need to figure out how the oven works, so I can do some baked dishes too, but I'm a little bit terrified to just start sticking lit matches into random places... it's definitely not something I've done before, to light my stove/oven with matches...
Sep 5, 2009
Oded Ezer is coming?!
yes, he is, for our second workshop, which I'm totally thrilled about!
After hearing about our projects and our trips this semester, I'm totally excited! One packaging workshop with Primo Angeli, one typography workshop with Oded Ezer... South field trip to Naples, Sorrento, and Pompeii, North field trip not finalized, but hopefully to Zurich!
The major project for main studio is an identity system for a neighborhood in Rome, so Meghann and I did our fist batch of exploring today.. to the Piazza del Popolo and Villa Borghese, with a pitstop at the Venetian Palace on the way.
Villa Borghese was absolutely gorgeous! It was also really refreshing to see some trees and green grass and things for once, I really enjoyed it up there. It's really too bad it's quite the trek from our apartment, but maybe some day soon, I can figure out the busses too, and get up there more easily. It would be perfect for a picnic or a lazy day of reading or something of the sort..
Italia!
Piazza del Popolo
near an entrance to Villa Borghese
leaves and paper
lake in Villa Borghese
After hearing about our projects and our trips this semester, I'm totally excited! One packaging workshop with Primo Angeli, one typography workshop with Oded Ezer... South field trip to Naples, Sorrento, and Pompeii, North field trip not finalized, but hopefully to Zurich!
The major project for main studio is an identity system for a neighborhood in Rome, so Meghann and I did our fist batch of exploring today.. to the Piazza del Popolo and Villa Borghese, with a pitstop at the Venetian Palace on the way.
Villa Borghese was absolutely gorgeous! It was also really refreshing to see some trees and green grass and things for once, I really enjoyed it up there. It's really too bad it's quite the trek from our apartment, but maybe some day soon, I can figure out the busses too, and get up there more easily. It would be perfect for a picnic or a lazy day of reading or something of the sort..
Italia!
View of the Colusseum from the Venetian Palace
Piazza del Popolo
near an entrance to Villa Borghese
leaves and paper
lake in Villa BorgheseA couple other thoughts: a lot of older Italian men look alike, gelato is very very good, maybe one day I will get used to all the sirens, I kind of wish we were a bit closer to Rome Center but I am glad for the tram stop right here, first rainy day today: can't decide if rain or extreme heat was more annoying, got Terry Kirk for Art History!
Sep 4, 2009
a couple days
Now I'm starting to settle into the apartment more.. again, it's nice to be able to unpack and spread out a little.
Wednesday, we had a meeting on some housing information, then we went to the grocery store. It wasn't really that much different, but it still took us forever to shop and figure out what and where things were. I didn't get too much yet, and am trying to be creative to have different things besides just spaghetti on the small amount of stuff I got at the grocery store. Plan for next time: buy fresh fruits and veggies from the fruit/veggie store a block farther down, the rest from the grocery store.
After the grocery store, we got some key things figured out.. turns out we're just going to have to learn the trick to getting into the building, but now I have a key that will actually let us into the apartment, so that's good.
Went for a walk with Meghann and Erin, we found: a park, better graffiti, the end of the tram line, a crazy cat lady, an art supply store (but who knows where it was...), a really sketchy road/field thing, poo, a poo-covered postcard, and a little shop that made sorbet popsicles.
In the evening, went out with the guys and some of the other graphic girls, missed the stop on the tram on the way there, got lost a little trying to find the place, spent too much on a pint, had a long long walk home since the tram stopped running, but also really enjoyed seeing some of the people I hadn't seen yet, and getting farther away from our apartment.
Thursday, we had a really long meeting about safety/keys, but at least they fed us. Afterwards, headed through town in the direction of H&M, trying to find some more clothes we could wear in the heat. It's crazy how you can just be walkin' along, and then BAM there's Trajan's Column or some awesome building around the corner. It's so hard for me to fathom how old most of these buildings are.
The only thing I've been slightly disappointed about is how far our apartment is from central areas in Rome. A 45 min walk or 30 min tram venture is not really that big of a deal, but it would be nice to be closer to some other stuff, and it seems a little cleaner (at least there isn't as much graffiti everywhere, and less trash)...
TOMORROW: overview of class, explore studio area(?), maybe PEACHES(?)
General future: Plan trips! Where to go, where to go?
Wednesday, we had a meeting on some housing information, then we went to the grocery store. It wasn't really that much different, but it still took us forever to shop and figure out what and where things were. I didn't get too much yet, and am trying to be creative to have different things besides just spaghetti on the small amount of stuff I got at the grocery store. Plan for next time: buy fresh fruits and veggies from the fruit/veggie store a block farther down, the rest from the grocery store.
After the grocery store, we got some key things figured out.. turns out we're just going to have to learn the trick to getting into the building, but now I have a key that will actually let us into the apartment, so that's good.
Went for a walk with Meghann and Erin, we found: a park, better graffiti, the end of the tram line, a crazy cat lady, an art supply store (but who knows where it was...), a really sketchy road/field thing, poo, a poo-covered postcard, and a little shop that made sorbet popsicles.
In the evening, went out with the guys and some of the other graphic girls, missed the stop on the tram on the way there, got lost a little trying to find the place, spent too much on a pint, had a long long walk home since the tram stopped running, but also really enjoyed seeing some of the people I hadn't seen yet, and getting farther away from our apartment.
Thursday, we had a really long meeting about safety/keys, but at least they fed us. Afterwards, headed through town in the direction of H&M, trying to find some more clothes we could wear in the heat. It's crazy how you can just be walkin' along, and then BAM there's Trajan's Column or some awesome building around the corner. It's so hard for me to fathom how old most of these buildings are.
The only thing I've been slightly disappointed about is how far our apartment is from central areas in Rome. A 45 min walk or 30 min tram venture is not really that big of a deal, but it would be nice to be closer to some other stuff, and it seems a little cleaner (at least there isn't as much graffiti everywhere, and less trash)...
TOMORROW: overview of class, explore studio area(?), maybe PEACHES(?)
General future: Plan trips! Where to go, where to go?
Sep 3, 2009
Rome: First Impressions
The start to the first day in Rome was way too early. Again, none of us really slept through the night, as we had taxis pick us up from the hostel at 4am, and headed to the airport. Luckily, this time I was able to fall asleep for at least a while on the flight (and for most of the bus ride to Termini Station).
It's definitely much hotter here in Rome than I am used to, and I kind of wish I had more loose clothing that would be appropriate for weather like this. Oh well, guess that would be an excuse to get some new stuff? (Although that doesn't really sound too appealing based on how much I had to spend to day checking into housing and for taxis.. ugh.)
The apartment is really nice.. A lot bigger than I was expecting it to be! So many large windows, balconies, too, if we can figure out how to unlock the gates.. plenty of IKEA furniture, and way more closet space than I could possibly fill up on only 42 pounds of luggage.
Definitely had a good couple hour nap after we got here, too, definitely needed it.
The biggest disappointment so far is KEY FAIL. Not a single one out of seven of our building keys work, so we are having to go get dinner/food in shifts, which is super disappointing. My key also doesn't work to get into the apartment, so I can't go out alone, or at least not with my keys. Hopefully that'll get fixed at housing orientation tomorrow...?
I'm excited to go out and see others' apartments.. Huy seems to really enjoy his, and there are a couple more that are supposed to be really close to ours.
There's graffiti EVERYWHERE.
Tomorrow morning, adventure to try to find Studio, hopefully we leave early enough and don't get lost!
Also, Andrew was supposed to meet us over here at 6 this evening, but a couple hours later, still hasn't showed. I'm hoping it just means he had trouble finding us, but went to Huy instead, or fell asleep at his hostel and stayed there, or something of the sort. I'm a little worried since the only way I really have to contact him is the internet, but I'm banking on the fact that he is a big boy and can hopefully take care of himself, at least enough to find his way back to his hostel... hopefully news from him soon?
One of the first orders of business was GELATO. Pistaccio e Stracciatella. Yum.
Dinner was mystery pizza. Still don't know what it was. Very garlicky, maybe had some pesto on it... also... something else green?
More pics and everything else to come?
It's definitely much hotter here in Rome than I am used to, and I kind of wish I had more loose clothing that would be appropriate for weather like this. Oh well, guess that would be an excuse to get some new stuff? (Although that doesn't really sound too appealing based on how much I had to spend to day checking into housing and for taxis.. ugh.)
The apartment is really nice.. A lot bigger than I was expecting it to be! So many large windows, balconies, too, if we can figure out how to unlock the gates.. plenty of IKEA furniture, and way more closet space than I could possibly fill up on only 42 pounds of luggage.
Definitely had a good couple hour nap after we got here, too, definitely needed it.
The biggest disappointment so far is KEY FAIL. Not a single one out of seven of our building keys work, so we are having to go get dinner/food in shifts, which is super disappointing. My key also doesn't work to get into the apartment, so I can't go out alone, or at least not with my keys. Hopefully that'll get fixed at housing orientation tomorrow...?
I'm excited to go out and see others' apartments.. Huy seems to really enjoy his, and there are a couple more that are supposed to be really close to ours.
There's graffiti EVERYWHERE.
Tomorrow morning, adventure to try to find Studio, hopefully we leave early enough and don't get lost!
Also, Andrew was supposed to meet us over here at 6 this evening, but a couple hours later, still hasn't showed. I'm hoping it just means he had trouble finding us, but went to Huy instead, or fell asleep at his hostel and stayed there, or something of the sort. I'm a little worried since the only way I really have to contact him is the internet, but I'm banking on the fact that he is a big boy and can hopefully take care of himself, at least enough to find his way back to his hostel... hopefully news from him soon?
One of the first orders of business was GELATO. Pistaccio e Stracciatella. Yum.
Dinner was mystery pizza. Still don't know what it was. Very garlicky, maybe had some pesto on it... also... something else green?
More pics and everything else to come?
Sep 2, 2009
Oh, Paris!
I really wish we had more time to stay in Paris. First day, we took a train in, and got into town early afternoon and checked into the hostel. We started with a walk to the nearby Sacre Couer, a nice church on top of the hill, it had a great view of the whole city. Then we took the metro to L'Arch de Triomphe, and walked down the busy Champs-Elysees, stopping in a couple shops. At the end of this path was the Obelisque, which was really not that exciting, but the fountains were nice. On the way, we also stopped and looked at some bridges and buildings.
On our walk, we also passed by some other gardens or a palace (it's hard to keep all these things straight, and we really only just passed by some of it...), then headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. We stopped at a little sidewalk cafe and had some tasty dinner, then finished the trek to the tower. When we got there, Paula got a bloody nose, and as a result, we didn't come out of the bathroom until it was almost dark, but seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up was wonderful. We took the trek all the way to the top and spent a good chunk of time hanging out, looking at all the lights. I'm definitely glad we went at night, I think the view was very pretty then.
The second day of Paris, we got going a little later, since we were all low on sleep, but then we headed to the Louvre, and waited in line for a surprisingly short period of time, for both entrance and the Mona Lisa (which you cannot get nearly close enough to for it to be that impressive.. I would love to be able to see brushstrokes or something, but oh well.) I did like seeing the Venus de Milo and the Venus of Samothrace, though. After the Louvre, plenty more walking, through some gardens, then out to Notre Dame. The ceilings were impressively high, and the stained glass beautiful. Then off to Jardin de Luxembourg, which were some really gorgeous gardens. We spent a good chunk of time just resting and hanging out by the large central fountain.
A snacky dinner was pretty much the end to this night, as we had to pack and get ready for a super early morning flight...
graffiti on the train tracks
view of Paris from Sacre Couer
L'Arc de Triomphe
Grand Palais
On our walk, we also passed by some other gardens or a palace (it's hard to keep all these things straight, and we really only just passed by some of it...), then headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. We stopped at a little sidewalk cafe and had some tasty dinner, then finished the trek to the tower. When we got there, Paula got a bloody nose, and as a result, we didn't come out of the bathroom until it was almost dark, but seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up was wonderful. We took the trek all the way to the top and spent a good chunk of time hanging out, looking at all the lights. I'm definitely glad we went at night, I think the view was very pretty then.
Eiffel Tower at Night
Seine at Night, as seen from the Eiffel Tower
The second day of Paris, we got going a little later, since we were all low on sleep, but then we headed to the Louvre, and waited in line for a surprisingly short period of time, for both entrance and the Mona Lisa (which you cannot get nearly close enough to for it to be that impressive.. I would love to be able to see brushstrokes or something, but oh well.) I did like seeing the Venus de Milo and the Venus of Samothrace, though. After the Louvre, plenty more walking, through some gardens, then out to Notre Dame. The ceilings were impressively high, and the stained glass beautiful. Then off to Jardin de Luxembourg, which were some really gorgeous gardens. We spent a good chunk of time just resting and hanging out by the large central fountain.
Venus of Samothrace
little dude by Notre Dame
Hangin' out in le Jardin de Luxembourg
A snacky dinner was pretty much the end to this night, as we had to pack and get ready for a super early morning flight...
Sep 1, 2009
LONDON: Day four
For our last day in London, we YET AGAIN tried to catch the changing of the guards. Luckily, this time we made it on time. Unfortunately, it didn't really make much of a difference anyway since I'm so short, I could only hear the band and see all the other tourists and their cameras. So, really, I still don't know much about what happens with the changing of the guards. Oh well.
The evening of this day was probably my favorite evening in London.. we had a little picnic by the river, then saw an outdoor theatre performance of Madea, which was actually quite good.. and views of the Tower Bridge at night on the way back. Paula made yet another "friend" on the way back...haha.
Then we spent some time at the National Gallery, saw lots of paintings.. then off for some sandwiches in front of the British Museum. After that, Andrew and I checked out the National Portrait Gallery, which was somewhat interesting. Some of the older portraits look the same after a while, but some of the newer ones were neat. The definitely seem to favor the photorealistic portrait, at least in their Best Portrait of 2009 Exhibit, which is not necessarily my favorite thing, but oh well.
The evening of this day was probably my favorite evening in London.. we had a little picnic by the river, then saw an outdoor theatre performance of Madea, which was actually quite good.. and views of the Tower Bridge at night on the way back. Paula made yet another "friend" on the way back...haha.
Aug 29, 2009
LONDON: Day three
There is a mouse in our hostel room. But, oh well, I guess you have to sacrifice a little for really cheap room & board.
The third day, we attempted, again, to see the Changing of the Guards, but when we got there, we learned that it was cancelled for the day... oops. Failed twice at that so far.
We made our way over to the Tate Museum of modern art after that, and I really enjoyed that. I was surprised by how much information I retained from Mickelson and Cunnally's classes, but that was good because I had a much better idea of what I was looking at. I wish I could have seen the Futurism exhibit as well, but we didn't really have too much time for that, and it was a little expensive. I did like seeing the Warhols, and I was excited that they had a Joseph Cornell box.
After the Tate, we walked across the Millennium Bridge. I felt a little bit like an idiot that at first, I couldn't remember the name of the bridge, but more that I recognized it from the Harry Potter movie.... oops. At least now I remember the name? Anyway, I read that it was the first new bridge in London in over a hundred years.. and shortly after they opened it, they had to close it and stabilize it since it swayed when people walked on it.
We took a look at St. Paul's Cathedral, then found some sandwiches. It seems like there are a lot of places around that have pre-made sandwiches for take-away, and they all look fresh and delicious... wish there was more of that around back home.
After the Cathedral, we headed back over to the British Museum. It seemed like everyone but Andrew and I was tired and not too interested, but Andrew and I squeezed in as much more important things as we could.. the Rosetta Stone, Easter Island Statue, Sculpture of Ramses (II?), the oldest object in the museum, the biggest chunk of things from the Parthenon we could see without actually being there, and a few more things. I think I could spend a really long time in that museum.. there's so much to see.
For the evening, we went out to a bar, checked out Chinatown, then went to a really old British Pub.
The third day, we attempted, again, to see the Changing of the Guards, but when we got there, we learned that it was cancelled for the day... oops. Failed twice at that so far.
We made our way over to the Tate Museum of modern art after that, and I really enjoyed that. I was surprised by how much information I retained from Mickelson and Cunnally's classes, but that was good because I had a much better idea of what I was looking at. I wish I could have seen the Futurism exhibit as well, but we didn't really have too much time for that, and it was a little expensive. I did like seeing the Warhols, and I was excited that they had a Joseph Cornell box.
After the Tate, we walked across the Millennium Bridge. I felt a little bit like an idiot that at first, I couldn't remember the name of the bridge, but more that I recognized it from the Harry Potter movie.... oops. At least now I remember the name? Anyway, I read that it was the first new bridge in London in over a hundred years.. and shortly after they opened it, they had to close it and stabilize it since it swayed when people walked on it.
We took a look at St. Paul's Cathedral, then found some sandwiches. It seems like there are a lot of places around that have pre-made sandwiches for take-away, and they all look fresh and delicious... wish there was more of that around back home.
After the Cathedral, we headed back over to the British Museum. It seemed like everyone but Andrew and I was tired and not too interested, but Andrew and I squeezed in as much more important things as we could.. the Rosetta Stone, Easter Island Statue, Sculpture of Ramses (II?), the oldest object in the museum, the biggest chunk of things from the Parthenon we could see without actually being there, and a few more things. I think I could spend a really long time in that museum.. there's so much to see.
For the evening, we went out to a bar, checked out Chinatown, then went to a really old British Pub.
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