Field trip- again!

Heading off again- this time for like a week, beginning way too early tomorrow (6:30). I'll give you all the schedule so you can check my progress...
Friday: Orvieto, Todi, Citta di Castello.
Saturday: Gubbio and Perugio
Sunday: Montepulciano and Pienza.
Monday: Arezzo and Siena.
Tuesday: Siena
Wednesday: Siena and Firenze (that's Florence)
Thursday: Firenze and then back to Rome

Hope you all enjoy the links; hopefully I can soon get some pictures up on here so you can get a better idea of what it's like. Currently I am coming to terms with the weather being liable to just downpour for all it's worth at random. That happened today while we were out sketching for our new studio project, and it was pretty bad. Our studio professor (Marie-Andree, my TA last year) bummed some money off of us to buy coffee, but she said she'd take us out some other time to pay us back. Woot! OK well I have to go pack in oh say an hour for this trip, so wish me luck. Here it goes!

It's been a while

I was being so good about updating! We finally finished our project, presented it, and never have to look at it again. It wasn't bad, actually; I really liked doing it as a group except that I felt like I didn't do as much as some other people- although I didn't feel like I was slacking either.
Last night I went and watched Fight Club with a bunch of other people in Tom's room. I thought it was going to be an action movie, and it was, but the end just totally twisted the movie around. I had to work hard to wrap my head around that. Before that I went hiking around Rome and saw the Tempietto by Bramante, which was really cool. It's inside the Spanish school in Rome or the Spanish embassy or something like that, just chilling in the courtyard, and I didn't know that you could go inside it and that it has a lover level. So it was pretty cool to find all of that out, and it's on a pretty big hill so we had a great view out over all of Rome. I like seeing the mountains in the distance, but my roommates liked seeing the domes on the skyline, although there was a big crane in the way, which just kinda ruined the atmosphere a bit!
We also visited the Capitoline museum (I think it was that one) and saw an exhibit on Alberti. At least I thought it was going to be on hom, but really it was like his life and times, so they had a bunch of drawings by like anonymoust 14th century people which were good, but kinda disappointing because I thought I would get to see sketches by Alberti. All they had from him was a book where he measured the distances to different monuments in Rome and recorded them. The coolest part of the whole thing was actually some illuminated manuscripts that came from the Escorial in Spain.
Today I didn't have class, so I went with some other people to the local police station to get a stay permit. We had to wait a long time, and they gave us the wrong tickets at the beginning, which meant we were bumped to the end of the line we wanted. Arrgh. We made a lot of comments about how the DMV was better, but I think even with all the confusion this might have been faster. So anyway, I got described as having "celestere" eyes (light blue, I'm going to think of celestial here and go with having divine eyes) and I had to get fingerprinted. I felt like a criminal, but it was kinda neat having them taken.
I think that's a fair summary of what I've done, so till next time...

Tonight, tonight....

Currently, I'm listening to the game online. It lacks a little bit when all you see are lines going across the screen, but it's always more fun to root the team on with a group of people. Earlier (this is going to sound so incredibly cultured of me) Yacintha and I stopped in a church on the way back form dinner and saw that they were having an organ concert, so we stopped in for like 40 minutes and listened to Bach. The guy was really good, and one of the songs was from Fantasia (that ought to dispense with the notion of me being cultured!)

Field Trip!!!

Well as I said, there was a field trip today, and I managed to haul myself out of bed and get to the bus on time and with breakfast. Then we were on the bus for about 2 hours, going to Bagnoreggio, which took my breath away. It's this gorgeous, quaint little città (city) with small stone houses and buildings, a lot of which date from the Etruscans (roughly, from 8 BC to 30 BC, if I understood everything right). Everywhere had flower-boxes and flowering vines, and the bluest sky you could possibly imagine. The city is basically on a plateau of rock (which they used to build everything), and there are incredibly sheer cliffs all around. The only way into the city is by walking on a ridiculously steep bridge. My description isn't doing much justice, I know, so check out:

http://www.stthom.edu/csp/images/Bagnoregio.jpg

Cut and paste, I can't figure out how to link on this Mac, and it's worth seeing. The picture is taken before the start of the bridge, so you don't see that it rises again pretty sharply closer to the viewer either. We had to do some sketches and study how spaces were made and the way the people used vernacular architecture (translation- they built with natural materials).
We subsequently went to Viterbo, which was not nearly as naturally dramatic, and the professors basically wanted us o see how it was like Bagnoregio on a larger scale. But it wasn't nearly as cool. So you can google it if you want to, but you have to check out that previous link.
Ahh. If I didn't have to walk that hill every day, I'd consider living there.

Whirlwind

Well, after like 4 days of finding our way around, classes certainly hit this week. I have like 100 pages of reading for Urbanism, sketches to do, and a studio project due Sunday night. The studio project is a group one, and I'm working with Nina, Colleen, and Yacintha. Yacintha is way overachieving- her sketches are incredible and she's making everything she does just right. Colleen and I are on our heels a bit! Our first field trip is tomorrow, so I have to wake up early, but I bought Specal K bars for breakfast, which was exciting. Then, in like another week, we have a week long field trip to a whle bunch of places- Florence, Siena, and I don't even remember what all. So, expect to hear out of me for another week or so before I am in all probability banished to the internetless regions. Meanwhile I have to go voluntarily take myself off the internet and go read fascinating things about columns or something. Must...go..read.....

Classes

Well the semester has started and now that I've had most of my classes I think I should update and let you all know what they are all about.
Studio:
This class is about designing. And learning how to stay up late. My TA from last semester, Marie-Andree, is the professor for my section, and she's really good, so I should learn a lot. She's kinda hard though- we are the only section that has mandatory readings from this architecture urbanist-theorist guy already. On the first day. We also have a studio assignment, where we have to analyze a piazza and basically figure out what makes a successful public space, which I think we will extrapolate into our projects later.
Graphics:
This class seems prettty cool. The Professor started at the beginning and expects work, but no great things immediately, which is nice. And he's good at explaining the basics and trying to get us to show the feeling of the space. I have to do a sketch of a piazza for that by next class.
Urbanism:
Haven't had it yet, that's tomorrow. But I've heard it's a heckuva lot of walking and reading.
History:
This class is pretty cool, since it's divided between lectures and then going out and walking to sites. The professor is a little weird and laughs at everything, but she really knows her stuff, especially the arcane bits and pieces. The other day we went through Rome and looked at bits and pieces of Egyptian stuff in Rome, like a cat on the prime minister's house and a foot from a big statue that used to be standing in the Temple of Isis before it was destroyed umpteen years ago.

So, so far I've had lots of reading and sketching, and less free time than I thought. But it's been great so far, and aside from the crazy cars, I love Roma.

Proud to own a Puki

I know you are all dying to know what this title means, because I didn't until last night either. We decided to go to this chinese place for dinner because you can get a lot of food for not a lot of money, so we go in an sit down and manage to place our order in italian, which was good because they definitely didn't know english. So we were trying to have a speak in italian night, and it wasn't working that well at all because we didn't know wnough words and totally forgot how to speak in any tense other than the present. Anyway, we were laughing a lot at how little we knew and then we noticed these guys right behind us staring at us. So after like 30 minutes of staring, the one turns around and starts talking to us. He's Jose, from San Paolo, Brazil, and he's there with Georgio and Roberto. So they ask if we know italian, because they've been listening very obviously, and we are like, no, (haven't you heard us butcher it for the past half hour?) Then they ask the dreaded question: How old are you? So we told them, and then I figured we should definitely know how old they were. They wouldn't tell us exactly, but as soon as I asked the question, Jose was like "too old!" So after dinner they went up to pay their bill and came back with 3 little puki, which are like cartoon characters, and these are on a string with a light. You are supposed to attach it to your cellphone and it lights up when you get a call. It works too! We had a lot of fun with those.
Today wasn't nearly as exciting; we finally started classes, so no more wandering around the city for the whole day. I was in class from 9-12 and then from 1-6. We were pretty hungry when we got out, snd if I do say so myself I made an excellent dinner. I had marinated some steaks in oregano, basil, rosemary, garlic, and olive oil earlier, so I cooked that up with a salad and some mashed potatoes and bread and olive oil dip. It was molto deliciosio. And that's about the story of my day, although I would like to add that I got a shirt and a skirt for 3 euro apiece yesterday. Amazing.

A post!

I can update! And, continuing the good news, studio here might soon get wireless, which would be AMAZING. Anyway, you all probably don't want to hear about my internet situation, so I guess I should tell you all what I've been doing. Which is walking. Yesterday I went with Eric and some of my studio group from last year to try and find the fields to play ultimate frisbee on. We started walking and we went over a bridge to this island in the middle of the Tiber (where we saw a bride coming out of a church, which was cute) and then continued over to the other side. At that point we had been walking for a while, so we decided to ask an information booth how far away from the fields we were. They were basically like "why are you even trying to walk, it's ridiculously far" but we decided to keep walking anyway, but they were right so we eventually headed back. Then we siestaed and then I went and bummed food off of Angelo, who had cooked a genuine italian dinner with fresh ingredients, although ever since Miss Sarah's I've been a little leery of genuine sausage (Colleen, I know you know what I mean). After the dinner we headed off to an irish pub that was showing the game. There were like three Michigan fans in there with us, which made the whole game so much fun. We periodially sang the fight song and had people do push-ups, and at the end we sang the alma mater. It was great, even if we did get a lot of looks for this from the people outside. Then we got gelato and sat on the steps of the Pantheon to eat it, which was pretty darn cool. Then I went back to my room and had a very long discussion on religion, politics, and other deep subjects. And yes, I have been sober the whole trip, if a little high off of life. Time for more exploring now- I'll update more later.

In Rome

Well, I am one very jet lagged, tired, and finally not hungry girl. I have to make this really brief because there is a line for the computers in studio, but we landed, got to the hotel, got some time to unpack and walk around (Yacintha and I wandered into St. Peter's!) and ate gelato, which is glorified sherbert. Tonight I'm going on a walking tour and then probably crashing for the night. Good luck to everyone back home! Hopefully I'll get more of a chance to tell you about Rome later.

Wait

I forgot. I will not die in a horrible natural disaster/ terrorist attack because I'm going to miss the plane.

Leaving...tomorrow?!

Oh my gosh I am leaving tomorrow. I swear to whoever is reading this, I am going to go and be broke, crushed by suitcases, somehow have forgotten underwear, and will fall victim to a huge terrorist attack or natural disaster right after disembarking from the plane. Ahhhh!

Comments

I turned on word verification so you guys have to type something in before you comment- that just helps me prevent comment spam which is apparently the cause of the wacky comments I keep getting. Thanks!

Celebration... (back to the joys of the material world)

I found a pair of pants! And not only did these pants fit- they were on sale in the discount rack! Apparently the rest of America has a lower body so different from mine that I fit into the rejects. I'm not going to complain about that though. Yay!

The Bigger Picture Post

One of the best things about going to a school like Notre Dame is you meet so many people that you would not otherwise meet, kids from all over the country and the world. This year I'm rooming with a girl from Indonesia, and I never even thought about something like that happening when I applied to college. It makes it annoying in the summer because you can't see nearly as many of your friends as you would like, since they live anywhere from florida to arizona to seattle, but it also makes me go crazy whenever I hear about a disaster. Last year it was the tsunami where my roommate lives, and the hurricanes in florida where I know more people. Now it's Katrina, and I do have friends from New Orleans, who haven't heard out of their family. After seeing the news, I even parted with some money (and you all know I am a cheapskate), because that is just beyond description down there. I hope my money does something. A little part of me would love to go down there and hand out water or something, but the rational side of me says I would never be able to deal with that, so donating online is my compromise. I used Catholic Charities USA, which is at this link, http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/news/katrina.cfm
It's the US branch of Catholic Relief Services. I actually tried to donate through the Red Cross, but that site got too confusing for me, LOL, I guess only smart people can save the world with the Red Cross.
God Bless everyone.