Nice Friday

Hello everybody!  Today is a very nice Friday.  It is about two in the afternoon and I am done with class for the day.  We took our last walking history tour class this morning, which was kind of sad because I like that class.  Today we visited all the big piazzas that we hadn't talked about yet,  Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  I also wrote a paper about the Spanish Steps this week, so I feel like a real expert there.  It helps that there's not a whole lot of history to learn about the Spanish Steps, they've just kind of always been a cool place to hang out and people-watch.
Not much else is new, we're starting our final project for the semester, a music school in an old industrial neighborhood.  No big plans for tonight or this weekend.  This afternoon classmate John and I plam to work on a movie about a neighborhood that we researched at the beginning of the semester, the Jewish Ghetto.  Our teacher advised us to go there at five o'clock on Friday afternoons to interview old women who sit on the street. So that should be interesting.  Until then, I guess I'll just relax and enjoy the nice day.  Hope everyone back home gets a chance to do the same.  Arrivederci!

More Trip Stories

So I've been back in Rome for two days now.  Thursday was a very rainy day where I did not do much, but Friday was bright and sunny so I went to the Spanish Steps to start taking notes for a paper I need to write about them.  I found Villa Borghese for the first time, Rome's largest public park.  Then I was looking through my pictures from the trip and realized there were some other things I wanted to write about.  We'll start back in Verona.  First is a picture of me and Adam next to a couple helping Verona earn the name "City of Love."  After that is me with the Juliet statue.  I know I'm not exactly being a gentleman in this shot, but supposedly it's good luck to rub Juliet's, uh, bosom.  There was no Romeo statue, which, now that I think about it, seems a little bit odd.  Probably he didn't want to hang around to see armies of tourists feeling up his girlfriend.  I think we can all benefit from the wisdom of  Pat Benetar when she said, "love is a battlefield."

Next is a picture of Castelvecchio, just because I didn't put up a picture of it last time.  The next picture, in between the scaffolding covers, is the Bridge of Sighs.  Underneath the scaffolding on the left is Doge's Palace, and underneath the scaffolding on the right is Venice's prison.  Doge's Palace was the home of the Duke as well as the courthouse.  The Bridge of Sighs gets its name because for any prisoner sentenced to life in prison in Doge's Palace, the Bridge of Sighs was the last place where they would be able to see the sun.  That'll make you think twice about taking one of those gondolas for a joy-ride.  The last pictures are from an art show that opened up our last day in Venice.  It was an exhibit of the best entries in an art contest.  The piece shown is an array of tiny paper boats (or maybe hats).  Visitors were encouraged to take one for themselves, so I did.  I'm not sure what the idea behind it was, but I thought it was a cool piece of art.  There as also a toilet filled with empty eggshells, and a tree made out of wires.  Make of it what you will.

Also, if any of you were wondering how I managed to get these pictures when my camera was falling apart, I realized I could fix it quickly with some masking tape.  So my camera now works though it slightly resembles an arts 'n crafts project.  Hopefully when I get home I can get a more permanent fix.

While I was Gone

So, this post is a bit overdue, thanks to my being busy finishing our second project for the semester and then the immediate departure for our second field trip and then a few days of extra travel after that. The last time I wrote I was just about to leave for Florence, which was a fun trip.  As I predicted, we saw the Duomo, which was an amazing climb, and the David, which is much bigger in person than expected.  After that I had a busy week with my group for project two finishing up that project.  It was a lot of work to do in one week but we were all pretty happy with how it turned out.  That was last Monday, after that we had to get ready to leave for our second field trip which took us to North Italy to see some old buildings designed by famous people, famous cities and a few things designed by a relatively new guy, Carlos Scarpa.  A few previous studio instructors had mentioned Scarpa's work as being very well-done, so I was mostly excited to see his work, though the old stuff was impressive in its own way.
On the first day we visited mostly buildings by Palladio, an old mansion called Villa Barbaro in a small town I don't recall the name of, as well as a theater and a basilica in Vicenza.  The best thing we saw that day, though, was a cemetery in Brion designed by Scarpa.  It's without a doubt the nicest cemetery I've ever been in, and much nicer than many places that are meant for living people.  We spent that night in  Verona, hands-down the cleanest Italian city we've seen so far.  The next day in Verona we visited Castelvecchio, (old castle), an old medieval castle that has been renovated into a medieval art museum by Scarpa.  It's a really amazing place, both for the art and the building.  After that we saw other sites around Verona, such as Juliet's alleged balcony and a Colosseum-like building known as Arena.  All in all, Verona is a very nice city.  Much cleaner and quieter than Rome, if not as exciting.
After that we went to Venice, hands-down the most confusing Italian city we've been in, and the worst to try to lead a tour through.  When we first arrived the schedule called for a class tour involving the major landmarks and another museum by Scarpa.  After pausing several times for the teachers to check their maps and wait for half of the group to catch up, everyone pretty much decided that we could see the major sites on our own, but that we would stick with the group long enough to see the museum.  When we got there, it turned out to be less of a Scarpa-designed museum and more of a boring Venetian museum where Scarpa had designed a garden and entrance staircase.  So that was a little disappointing, although the staircase and garden were beautiful.  After that everyone went to explore the city on their own.  From the people I talked to, it sounds like everyone independently got lost, but everyone also agreed that it was a very beautiful city.

 The cemetery at Brion.  My photography skills and equipment can't really show how cool this place is, but I'm giving it my best shot.

 A bridge in Verona, with a hill in background.

Canals in Venice.

 St. Mark's square at night.

When the scheduled part of the trip was over, I took a small side trip to Levanto, a town in the Cinque Terre area of Italy.  Cinque Terre is a string of five coastal towns on the Northwestern Mediterranean coast of Italy connected by a scenic network of trails.  The picture shows me with Cristin's horse poster and the town of Manarola in the background.  It was a  fun trip.  I stayed at a hostel and made friends with some guys who were on vacation from California.  We hiked two of the more difficult trails in the rain, which made for an exhausting and fun day.  Then we made friends with a Kiwi (New Zealander) and the four of us found the only two bars that were open on a rainy night in the off-season.  Cinque Terre is a really beautiful place, and I imagine very exciting in the summer when more people are there.  It seemed, however, that most of the trails would've been impossible to navigate with the kinds of crowds that would be there in the summer.  So if you go for the trails, go in the off-season, but if you're just looking for beautiful beaches to spend the day on, then this would be a great place to go in the summer.  That's all for tonight.  I still have a few empty days in Rome before class starts back up again, so maybe I'll go to some sights I haven't made it to yet.  To everyone back home, I miss you and look forward to being back in land of 20 oz Hazelnut roasts in a few months.