Meghann's stop motion videos:
Karen's Berlin Video:
Becky's Rome Video:
HAPPY UP HERE // rome 09 from Becky Murphy on Vimeo.
Jan 1, 2010
videos
Here's a bunch of videos other people have done about Rome/our trips:
Meghann's stop motion videos:
Karen's Berlin Video:
Becky's Rome Video:
Meghann's stop motion videos:
Karen's Berlin Video:
Becky's Rome Video:
Dec 13, 2009
one week
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.
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 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.
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